The Fattie of the Firing

It's fun to look through the pots after unloading and try to choose a favorite - what I call the "fattie." If I'm lucky, choosing the fattie will be a difficult task! This as such a firing. While photographing pots yesterday I had a chance to mull it over.

This Jaunty Jar is s strong contender! It almost appears to be inhaling.
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I love the luscious quality of the glaze, edged with the silver/charcoal of trapped carbon.
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This quiet little pot still managed to grab my attention.
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I have a weakness for butterdishes - making them and using them - and this one took the soda glass so perfectly.
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There were tons of great mugs in this load! 

Can a set collectively be The Fattie?
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Blue, and soda, and excessive slip trailing, and roses! This vases combines many of my favorite clay qualities.
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Detail

The Fattie is ultimately a subjective choice, and factors play in that don't come through in photos, like a silky surface or perfect weight: substantial but not clunky. In the end I settled on the butterdish: that is my Fattie of the Firing. All the factors came together, plus one: the lid fits so perfectly: it neither shifts not sticks, and it fits almost the same in either direction! (They almost always fit better one way than the other.)
All of these are currently available in my online store, but I will need inventory for my December shows, so they will probably only there until the beginning of December.

Do you choose a favorite? Do you keep it or sell it? (I always sell my favorites! Sometimes I charge a little more for them, though.)

Finally Finished!

You've probably heard me say that pottery is artwork that is only really finished when it's in use. I love when people send me pictures of the ware, finally finished! My friend Ellen recently sent me this one:

The colors look great together, and I am especially proud that the plate shrunk to exactly the diameter of a standard cake, U.S.

Thanks Ellen!

Everything Happens for a Reason But Sometimes it's a Stupid Reason

In ceramics, everything happens for a reason.

Like, the interior of this otherwise-very-nice sugar bowl is dry and rough, and the reason for this is, some dumbass (ahem) forgot to glaze the inside.

And sometimes, in clay, you never figure out the reason, and that's okay, because you can solve things without knowing it. For example: I have a yellow glaze, Old Yellow, that's always been a little funny about what bisqueware it likes. If the bisque was a little too cool, it wouldn't adhere well, so I would get crawling, and sometimes sheets of glaze falling off. Uncool! But a simple fix: bisque higher. I used to bisque to ^010; I upped it to ^08. Problem solved, for years. Now this firing, I am starting to see evidence of that old crawling problem again.

But why? Same glaze, same clay bodies, a good solid 08 bisque...all the variables the same ones that have been working for years. There has to be a reason; everything happens for a reason. I just don't know the reason.

I see two possible solutions here: water the glaze down a bit, or fire the bisque a little higher. I'll probably try option 1 first, cheapskate that I am.

Lucky for me the crawling was slight, not really enough to create flaws. 

Otherwise a very good firing! These pots are bound for Monkitree, and also for my yard. Maine Pottery Tour is coming up.

PS: Also in the category of "Everything happens for a stupid reason" I submit my latest soap batch!

Goat's Milk, Oatmeal and Honey...looks like a loaf of poo, smells like ammonia. Ugh! It was worse when I first unmolded it, covered in a thick layer of oily brown yuck.Apparently honey is very prone to make soap overheat and separate. It can be rebatched but won't have the nice gold-brown color one hopes for with goat' milk soap (the round cakes are okay, though.). I plan to try again, but sadly the new batch probably will not be ready in time for the Pottery Tour.

New Items in the Pottery Shop!

As long as they are this time of year, the days are not nearly long enough. I've been working pretty much steadily since I got up this morning around five, and it's nearly seven now, and I can see there are things on my list that are. not. going to happen. I did manage to finish some butter dishes, take some photos, and get to the gym - which accomplishment was promptly negated when I ate a hefty slice of my prop! Seemed a shame to waste it. :/

I also got my Kickstarter thank-you cards signed and ready to go out, spent a little time navigating around Glazemaster, and listed a few items on my website. Click the captions to see more photos or to purchase.

Set of Four Dessert Bowls, $120

White and Silver Striped Mug, $36

Blue and Russet Cake Stand, $125

I've still got berry bowls to trim, and promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

The Quarter Trick, Revisited

Thanks to my cyber-buddy and fellow potter, the fabulous Emily Murphy, for passing on the idea of the quarter trick, which came to her via Jordan Taylor of Stony Meadow Pottery. The original purpose of the trick was to divide the mass of clay for a large platter into two pieces instead of trying to power-center the whole lump at once,  to better judge the thickness of the center/bottom of the piece, and to improve compression with the aim of discouraging cracking.

While I have not had a problem with platters cracking (warping, yes) my cake stands are another matter. I found that I could only get a cake stand that wouldn't crack by throwing the plate and the stand in two parts and assembling at leatherhard. Since there aren't infinite, random things that cause center cracks (much as it may sometimes seem so!) the cause sort of has to be insufficient compression, differences in thickness, or water absorption. It seemed like I was compressing enough - I spent what seemed like a silly-long time at it - and I know to never leave standing water in a pot while I am throwing. I did find that it's difficult for me to judge whether the thickness of the plate within the ring is the same as the thickness of the plate without. Enter the Quarter Trick!!

I weigh out 5.5 pounds of clay to make the plate part of the cake plate, which wants to shrink to 9" to fit a standard cake diameter, so needs to start out about 10.5", with my claybody. A cake stand is best thrown upside down. I throw what is basically a pie plate, with tallish sides and without the wide rim.  Compress the living daylights out of the floor of that puppy, then place a quarter into the center.

Next, I plop a 3-lb ball of clay in the center, right on top of the quarter, center that, then open down to the quarter and pull up the ring. I can then remove the quarter and smooth the spot - taking the opportunity to compress a bit more, for luck - the wire it loose.

The piece will ned to dry to quite leatherhard before removal from the bat (tx, Captain Obvious) but will need only minimal trimming at the edge. A rubber rib works well to smooth the top surface.

Topsy Cake Stand, Take 2

Back in the ring to take another swing! Plan B: instead of cutting the pedestal into three diagonal sections and reversing them. I am just going to cut a smile-shaped dart out near the bottom, and the replace it near the top. Like so:



Will post more photos when the stands are assembled.

Now THIS is a Cake Stand!

Not mine, unfortunately. I had cake stands all on my mind, and then this wonderful link arrived in my inbox! You can see more wonderful pieces at Kristen Keiffer's blog. Go, look, now! It's amazing.

Topsy Wishes

When Doug & I got married in 2006, I sort of got my heart set on a topsy cake for our wedding. He didn't care much -- his wish was that our ceremony include a dip in the river, in our wedding finery, which he got. Also, he's not much of a one for sweets, although a bite of the wedding cake was all he did have to eat that day, as I recall. Anyway, the topsy cake turned out to be crazy expensive, considering our shoestring budget, and my practical side won out. Our cake was chocolate, and lovely, and quite delicious -- but I never forgot the wedding cake of my dreams.

Today I am on the studio making, among other things, cake stands. Topsy cake stands to be exact. 

So, let's see how that topsy thing is workin' out...Not that good, tell the truth! My first effort looks more like one of those novelty mugs reading "I got smashed on Bourbon Street!" or where ever. Not what I had in mind.

In my enthusiasm, I started too wet, and lost the freshness: an occupational hazard of altered work. Of all people I ought to know that clay is all about timing! Not that this one is a lost cause, I'll still tinker around with it, add the plate part, see what happens. but it's time to step back, do something else (I'm thinking, get a whoopie pie. I saw some double-chocolate ones at the grocery yesterday, and all this talk of cake...), and come back to the second one once it has firmed up a bit. 

So, this sort of turned into a live-blog. Live-blogging the cake stands! I like it. Back later with some better results.