One Month to the Tour!

The month of April is busier for me than the month of November. It wasn't always like this! About 12 years ago - or 13, depending on how you count - I started an event called the Maine Pottery Tour, intended to showcase the incredible well of talent of Maine's community of ceramic artists. 

This year we have 71 participating studios, over 100 artists - the largest tour so far. It's been a long road, getting from there to here. I'm proud & excited about the success of the tour, and also exhausted, if I'm honest. The bigger it gets, the more work it is. I have a lot more help than I did those first few years - Ellen McCarthy of Peeper Pond Studio has been amazing, as has Milly Welsh of Zwellyn Pottery, whose secret identity is a wed developer - Milly built the Maine Pottery Tour website, and this year has made for use an incredible app to help visitor plan their pottery tour weekend. They are donating their time -as am I - so if you feel like showing them some love on their Facebook pages, you'd be doing me a solid. 

• Peeper Pond Studio
• Zwellyn Pottery
• Zebralove Web Solutions 

As often happens in April, I am a little stressed. I've got to complete two firings between now & then - one that I am loading today - and schedule social media posts on all fronts, and do a number of ad buys both online & in print newspapers. As usual - maybe more than usual - I feel like I am falling down on the job. I keep reminding myself: there are ONE HUNDRED artists on the tour. All of them are (or should be!) promoting, too. It's not all down to me. 

Actually pretty good message to carry into the rest of my life: it's not all down to me. There are other people pulling their oars, too; if I need to stop & catch my breath, nothing terrible will happen. In fact, that's what I've been doing, as I write this: taking a break from loading the kiln. It's chilly out today, although pretty seasonal, & after our two big spring storms, it's a mudpocalypse out by the kiln. Gotta hope for a dry stretch, coming up to the tour. 

Back to it! I expect to unload Tuesday - Patreon subscribers at the Medici level (& up) get first access. Oh & speaking of! Subscribers at the Pottery Patron level get 10% off in-person purchases during the Maine Pottery Tour. Click the link to learn more.  

Another Spring Snow!

After a virtually snow-free winter, we've gotten clobbered by TWO big early-spring snow storms, but honestly? I don't mind. I feel for the folks who have lost power, of course, and that's about 20% of the state of Maine. But for me? There's something about a snow day. All your errands & obligations will just have to wait. It's enforced downtime, which is the only downtime some of us feel entirely comfortable taking. 

The charm wears thin, & those put-off tasks start to pile up if it happens too often, but two per winter spring is an acceptable number - especially when I know warm weather will make it all go away within a few days.

So, what will I do with my snow day? Make spaghetti sauce in the crock pot, & go into the studio to glaze. Still hoping to fire this weekend!

One month until the Maine Pottery Tour! If you haven't checked out the new Plan My Tour app on the website, you should! Just choose the studio you want to visit, and Plan My Tour will make a map for you. 

Anyway! Off to glaze. I hope you still have power, that you are warm & safe & dry wherever you are. 

Last Things before the Bisque!

Just before the bisque firing is when all the little stuff gets made: refrigerator magnets, button, ornaments, stuff like that, while I am waiting for the bigger items to dry enough to fire. Today it was soap dishes. These are fun & easy to make, and fit between big bowls to prevent wasted space in the kiln. 

I start with an oval ball of clay, like an oversized potato, then cut it in half with a curly wire - you know the kind, they are shaped like a stretched spring, and actually you can make one yourself by stretching a spring! But I got mine from Mudtools.  The wire leaves an undulating texture on the surface of the clay,'

I then stretch each half of the ball until it's about 3/8" thick, and pat in the sides to make them curve upward, giving it a bit of dish. 

You can see a video of this process (free!) at my Patreon page. Check it out! 

Let's Talk About Slip!

Sgraffito tile with decals

The word "slip," in a clay context can be kind of confusing, in that it can be applied to so many different things that are similar in form but vastly different in function. Slip refers to any mixture of clay and water, so, the lumpy slurry that we use to attach handles is slip; the smooth, deflocculated mixture that one would pour into a plaster mold to make ware is slip; the yogurt-thick material used for decorative trailing is slip, and so on. These each require different proportions of clay to water, different clay material ingredients, different additives.

A key thing to know about your slip: what clay condition is it meant to be applied to! key thing to know about your slip: what clay condition is it meant to be applied to! Leather hard (or wetter) is pretty common, but by no means universal, so make sure you know before you mix or use a slip: is it for wet/leatherhard clay? Greenware? There are even slips intended to go on bisqueware....Read more

Meet the Potters of the 2024 Maine Pottery Tour!

Got My Handles Done!

 

I mean, at least I got that done. 

I also won an epic battle with MS Word to force it to comply with my Mail Merge request, & Doug & I have been plugging away at getting the snow shoveled away. There's a lot! Like 13 inches ,and it's heavy as hell - I broke a shovel on it! 
There's more to do, too, so I better get on it. 

Mail Merge & Handles & Snow, Oh My!

 That's basically my to-do list for today. 

The mail merge is for the Maine Pottery Tour postcards that need to get out to the studio early next week, so they can get them out to their mailing lists. It seems like a long time since I've had an office job - and in fact, it has been a long time! - but I still sometimes use skills gained during that era. Excel is one of them. 

I hope I have the right mailing labels in, though, because I am not going out in this snowy mess today. After a mild, dry winter, Maine is gifting us with one big storm now that it's spring. I find I don't mind! (Ask me later, after I've shoveled, or if the power goes out! You might get a different answer.) The whole of next week will be above freezing, so it won't last. 

And last but certainly not least, I have to get handles on some mugs I threw on Thursday. I am planning to do a short handle-pulling video to post to my new Patreon. If you are interested in demos, tutorials, glaze recipes, tips, & techniques, follow me there! I have several videos available at the free subscriber level, and a $5 membership tier that will give you access to more videos, first access to shop updates, and the occasional coupon code for discounts on Fine Mess Pottery. If you like what I do & hope I can keep doing it, becoming a patron will help ensure that. You can check out my Patreon at this link. Thanks in advance!! 

New! A Patreon Page

 

So, I got a wild hair this morning & decided to create a Patreon page. I hope to share videos, tips, & tricks gleaned from my 30+ years as a pottery & ceramic educator. You can join the page for free - eventually I hope to have paid subscribers but I haven't figured that bit out yet. (This is another opportunity to LOL ALL DAY at the folks who think I'm soooo tech-savvy! I am whatever the opposite of that is.) 

I've posted an instructional video this morning, on throwing a mug. Check it out! 

*Actually I just realized: it would do my page a world of good in terms of visibility if you would join, even at the free level! More popular pages rise in the search. Thanks in advance!  😘

A Few Pots Out of the Soda Kiln

 

Maine Pottery Tour, May 4th & 5th

 

Regular readers know that I annually organize the Maine Pottery Tour. I'm in the thick of it right now, ordering postcards, making ad buys, gathering up longitude & latitude for each studio on the tour. My favorite part is always creating the postcard. I'm especially pleased with this year's version. These postcards have become collectible! Shoot us an email at info@mainepotterytour.org if you'd like to receive one in the mail. 

We expect to have more than 70 studios on this year's tour - the largest ever. We have somewhat less funding than in previous years, so we're having to skip the spendy magazine advertising, & will need to double up on free and low-cost social media & small newspaper ads. 

As I have for the past few years, I will be doing a kiln opening Saturday morning of the tour. There will also be wheel demos, plates for visitors to paint, a drawing to win a piece, and - new this year! - bonuses for folks who rack up visits to 5 or 10 studio on our new applet, launching next week. I'll announce that here when it's ready to go. 

I'm hoping to see you at the 2024 Maine Pottery Tour! 

Reeves Green Glaze recipe

 REEVES GREEN 

cone 10 reduction

CUSTER 75.0
WHITING 15.0
FLINT 5.0
KAOLIN 5.0
CHROME OXIDE 4.0

So Long, Solenoid!

This winter, man. I don't even dare to ask what more could happen. 

We've had car trouble, dental trouble, veterinary trouble - one of my elderly cats passed away in February. A dog I loved like family died last month also. Losing the pets was devastating, of course - the rest is uncomfortable, inconvenient, and sometimes expensive. 

Add one more to the list: I was supposed to fire a couple of weeks ago - my annual load of student work - but a solenoid on one of the burners died. I don't actually know why it did - it looked like it melted from the inside out. Burners are not my area of expertise (to say the least! LOL) but I had watched Tyler Gulden - who does know a lot about burners - replace this very solenoid two years ago. That time I knew what had gone wrong - it was, let's say, operator error. I left the power burner out in the rain! 

Anyway, I had a pretty clear memory of that process, and I emailed Tyler to refresh that memory, just in case. Replacing the solenoid is a 3-step, 3-step process: remove the plug - held on by one screw; remove the metal clip holding it in place; slide the solenoid off the spindle. That last was the hardest part, as it did not want to come off, maybe because there were melted bits on the inside holding it in place. Then do it all in reverse.

See that weird melty blob? 

Took the plug & the little metal clip off...

...and pulled the solenoid off the spindle

Easy peasy! 

So, with that out of the way the firing could finally proceed. It was blessedly uneventful! Cooling now. I won't be able to unload Monday, because I've got classes all day, so Tuesday it is. Again, this is mostly student work, so there won't be a web store update. I plan to fire again the last week in March. 

If you had any plans to buy a t-shirt, though, or a tank or an apron, now would be a great time to do that - help get some of these car repairs & dental bills paid. ("Buy my product, I need the money!" Some pitch, huh? I suck at marketing.) More colors & styles here. 

Here's hoping spring is a luckier season.