Slab Work

I did some some throwing today, starting with large serving bowls, then mugs; by the time I got to sugar and creamer sets my left wrist was feeling a little twinge. Luckily there's more than one way to make pots! These wonky little guys are slab built.

I like handbuilding as much as I like throwing, actually. It's slower and more contemplative, and can produce some engaging shapes. "Slower" is not always a plus, of course, but I am looking at the wrist-twinges as a blessing in disguise: they give me a reason to switch to my less-productive mode.

Mother's Day Wrap Up

It rained, pretty hard at times, both days of the sale; which sucked, but whaddaya gonna do? It's weather. Railing against it is the definition of futile. On the bright side, I didn't lose any money, and got to spend a day with my good friend Karen, who is an absolute trooper. We watched a DVD of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while waiting for the rain to quit. On the further bright side, it's my habit not to make any plans for the proceeds of event like this until the money is in my hand, so I'm not in a woeful place. I haven't brought the pots in yet and probably won't until Wednesday morning, so a few more sales may trickle in.

Next up: sending out Kickstarter thank-you cards, taking apart and cleaning my burners (YIKES), another ^6 test firing - this time at home, I think - and a ^10 maybe June 1? Also, a nap, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

I'm store-sitting Thursday & Friday, which should give me some time to post the Thursday Inspiration, which has been AWOL these last couple of weeks; and also to spend some time with Glazemaster, to see if it's maybe a little more user-friendly than Insight. I like it better, at first blush, because it gives you an option of output in percent by weight, as opposed to only RO Unity or Molar Weight. I don't mean to libel Insight - maybe there is an option for percent by weight in there somewhere, but I looked around the program for a good long time and did not find it. I did decide that it's more than worth it to understand both the RO Unity method and molar weight, but I need the program to be a sort of Rosetta Stone to get me there, until I've got my head around it.

And oh hey - if you're visiting coastal Maine this summer, drop in on Rick at On the Main! I just delivered him a boatload of pots. Also check out Ryan's Irish Pub, just up the road in Kennebunkport - my brother & his wife will be playing Irish tunes there on alternate Saturdays all summer.

Big Day!

I kicked my own butt yesterday, weeding, mulching, and mowing to get the garden ready for visitors - and then it was time to start working - setting up the tables and ware for the start of the Maine Pottery Tour today. My good friend Karen Discenso will be joining me today. We'll carry the wheel outside - Karen has a canopy, so, whatever, weather! Do your worst! Wait, no, not your worst.

I still need to price everything, and Doug is putting out some pots, too (so I hope he wakes up soon.)

If you'd like to come visit me or the other studios taking part in the tour, you can download a PDF of the map here. 

The Twelve Days of Crazy

♫ On the Eighth Day of Crazy, my to-do list said to me:
Get cards at the printers
Unload workshop kiln
Pack up all the pots

GO-TO-THE-BANK!
Clean up pots at home, price-and-pack, deliver to their stores,
and don't forget to mow the lawn. ♫

♫On the ninth day of crazy my to-do list said to me
Do the grocery shopping
Change out all the bedding
Run a load of laundry
Vacuum all the rugs
WHAT-IS-THAT-SMELL?
Clean the turtle tank
Photocopy maps
Demos at the school,

And don't forget a Mother's Day card!♫

♫ On the tenth day of crazy my to-do list says to do
Set up all the shelves
Get some bubble wrap
Grind and price the pots
Dig out all the bags
Don't forget the change
THROW SERVING BOWLS!
Carry wheel outside
Put it in the shed
Clean the studio
And don't forget to cover the bowls!♫

♫On the eleventh day of crazy my to do list says to me
Big Sale is today
Blow up the balloons
Carry out the signs
Change my Paypal settings
Spiffy up the yard
Make a bunch of coffee
HERE COME THE FOLKS!
Sell a bunch of pots
I sure hope
Demos on the wheel
Then don't forget to bring the wheel in.♫

♫On the twelfth day of crazy my to-do list said to me
Mom and sibs at noon
Big sale is today
Make up turkey burgers
Rearrange the pots
Make up yogurt parfaits
Put out all the signs
Carry out the wheel
HERE COME THE FOLKS! 
Sell a bunch of pots
I sure hope
Hang out with the fam
And don't forget to bring it all in.♫

If You Build it Will They Come?

If "it" is a website, then the answer is no, not necessarily.

I get a handful of visitors to my website, only around 100 a day. I'd like to sell more stuff online, and that's going to mean getting a bunch more visitors. Which begs the question: what makes people visit a site?

Lots of people visit this blog. I don't know exactly why, but I know why I read pottery blogs: to get ideas, see photos of pots and kilns, and to read about the lives and experiences of people with whom I have something in common.

But I'm not shopping when I do that. I actively dislike shopping, so when I do shop I am looking for a specific thing. Coconut-lime soap, say, or John Sandford's new novel. Is that what other people do? I guess I have the impression that other people just browse around, and when they see something they really really like, they buy it. It makes a difference: if I want to sell more online, do I need to just bring more people to my website, with the expectation that more eyes means more sales, or do I need to find the people who are online specifically looking for salt and pepper shakers or dessert plates or whatever? Google Adwords seems like a way to do the latter, but I haven't had luck with it in the past. It cost me a bunch of money, but didn't result in a single sale, as far as I could tell.

I'm musing about this because I have an opportunity, through the Maine Crafts Association, to purchase an ad in Downeast Magazine at a rate that I could maybe afford. Downeast, if you don't know it, is an upscale lifestyle mag topical to Maine. Lots of folks outside of Maine get it, also, and it tends to be the kinds of folks who like home furnishings and cooking and travel and who have lake homes.  The sort of magazine of which issues live on for years in waiting rooms and lobbies.

I'm still in the midst of my Twelve Days of Crazy, so my serious thinking about this will have to be delayed. But what do you think? Hot? Or not?

Fewer Words, More Photos

After running the first half of the soda fire workshop at Watershed all day today, then coming home to unload my own kiln tonight, it's fair to say my butt is kicked - and I haven't even scooped the litterboxes yet! So I'm not gonna write much, except that I thought the glazing & loading went well, and students were telling me they were learning a lot, so that's all good.

Last night was the opening of Portland Pottery's 16th Annual Teapot Show, and 3 of my student won prizes! So proud. Here are some pics of the prize winners:

From the top: Catherine Rehbein (oops not sure), Christopher Cooper, Maureen Renner, and Rich Green all won prizes, in addition to the People's Choice winner, which I failed to get  photo of! Cooper's not my student, but a friend and a damn fine studio manager.

I unloaded my own kiln tonight, in part because a few of my kiln shelves are Advancers, and they seem to scrape more cleanly and easily the sooner I do them; but also because if I didn't do it tonight, I would have had to wait until Wednesday for a free minute - and who could stand that? I'm delighted with the firing for lots of reasons, not least that I lost only two ice cream bowls to glaze flaws and kiln mishaps. That's got to be a record! For me anyway. Here's how it looked part way out:

Onward! We'll fire the workshop kiln tomorrow, unloading Wednesday; and then my mind is on the Maine Pottery Tour - and delivering these pots to their various destinations.

Download the Map!

I've been all over town today, taping up posters advertising the Maine Pottery Tour. It's been bugging me, though - how do I get the maps into people's hands? Posters are fine, Facebook is dandy, but folks will need to be holding a copy of the map if they intend to take the tour.

Duh. Here's a link to the downloadable PDF. Hope to see you Mother's Day weekend!

What's Coming Up

I have several important dates in rapid-fire in the next few weeks!

• Tomorrow I am firing my kiln, ^10, with work for Monkitree, On the Main, and Kennebec River Artisans, and some mugs for Phil at Bay View Company. A May Day firing, that's got to be good luck, right? I'm feeling really good about these pieces: I've finally learned that taking my time wiht the glazing is key to getting "wow" instead of "meh." Here's hoping for WOW.
• Friday Portland Pottery's Annual Teapot Show opens! The image is a teapot which will be in the show, made by my friend Diane Aromando.
  
  I'll have work in the show, too, as will several of my students.
• Saturday and Sunday I am teaching a soda firing workshop offered by Portland Pottery at The Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts. This is the first time we've offered this workshop, though I've done a couple of small ones at home. Saturday we'll be glazing and loading, and on Sunday we'll fire the kiln. The workshop is full with 10 participants, but we're hoping to do it again in the fall, if you're interested.
• On Wednesday we'll unload the firing from the workshop. Pics, or it never happened!
• Thursday I'm at Cony High School here in Augusta, doing throwing demos. 
• The Maine Pottery Tour is happening on Saturday & Sunday!!
  

After that I can perhaps breathe, although in between all that stuff I will be throwing both ^10 and ^6 - I'd like to do another firing of each in May.

One Out, One In

This morning Malley and I unloaded the first ^6 soda test firing, which we had fired off on Thursday. There were a lot of promising surfaces in there! Most of my pieces were teabowls, with a couple of vases and little jars in the mix; the best teabowls I will send out as Kickstarter rewards. I'll also photograph some specific pieces that I want to share slip and glaze information about - that's later. For now, here's the mass of pots:

See that nice orange oval? Liz Proffetty made that - it's a test piece, quite different from what Liz usually makes; but guess - go on, guess! - what is creating that great, brilliant red-orange on the interior.
Give up? It's a ball clay sig. One ingredient: ball clay. And it's on the inside, so we know it will turn even if it doesn't get much soda.

I am taking a break right now from loading a ^10 kiln, mine here at home. I am thinking it will fire on Wednesday. Then I am teaching a soda-firing workshop at Watershed, offered through Portland Pottery. Whole lot of firing going on!

The First Official Test Firing

is now cooling.

It was a loose stack, but not ridiculously so. We went into body reduction at 012, just as with a ^10 firing, then into a light climbing reduction until ^4 started to bend. We added the soda when ^5 was soft.

When firing at home, I add my soda ash/ baking soda combination in a mixture with wood curls and water, on a length of angle iron the way one would add salt to a kiln. (Somewhere around here I have a video clip of this. I am too lazy to look for it right now but will post it this weekend.) During another firing of Watershed's soda kiln, I used that method and the resulting pots were quite dry - not sure if it was due to the method or not, but to be on the safe side I thought we should try the more conventional approach. Watershed's kiln is built differently than mine, and the ports are much higher...I don't know why that should affect anything but maybe it does.

Unloading Saturday! Pics to follow.

Thursday Inspiration - Vanessa Conyers

See lots more of Vanessa's lovely work here.

My Pots Are Numbered

This morning I am glazing for the first official test firing of my project. Me and two buddies - excuse me, two buddies and I - are planning to fire ^6 reduction soda in Watershed's new spring arch soda kiln on Thursday, loading tomorrow. My buddies are Malley Weber, of Hallowell Clayworks, and Liz Proffetty, a potter from Newcastle.

It quickly became clear that I was not going to figure out the glaze calculation software in time to use it to re-write my own glazes for this firing, so I went with Plan B, and mixed up a bunch of recipes that I've gathered from various sources. I'll be testing seven glazes, two flashing slips, and stained trailing slip, and an underglaze. Malley and Liz will bring their own test, so hoping for a very informative firing!

I've numbered all the bottoms of the test pieces, in order to not be half-assed: I am writing down what glazes, slips, and combinations are on each piece, instead of pretending I'll remember, or assuming it will be obvious.

Since the Insight instructional videos proved pretty useless for me, I plan to spend the hours of the firing reading the 139 page manual. Big fun!

Stay tuned.