happy, happy, holidays!

this was one of my christmas presents from jeff...

it is my first ron philbeck pot!  i have been reading his blog for a couple of years now and always loved his work.  jeff, being the smart guy that he is, went to my etsy shop and looked at the things that i had marked as favorites and chose my christmas gifts from the list.  he totally surprised me!

i have already eaten dinner on it... baked stuffed chicken, mashed potatos and green bean casserole.  

...and i hear there is one more surprise on it's way :-)

the last firing of 2010

this morning we unloaded a very warm kiln.  we typically like for it to be cooler but the buyer of the soup tureen was coming to pick it up.  overall we had good results.

jeff had three soup tureens made - one cracked in the bisque and the other two were in this kiln load... the buyer liked them so much that they ended up taking both of them home!

these are the assorted cone monsters from this firing... i added teeth to this bunch!

platter with evergreen impressions and white slip... this one sort of makes me think of SNOW.

speaking of snow... we are heading to NH the day after Christmas and now it sounds like there may be a big snowstorm along the east coast.  i am hoping that it fizzles out!!

let's talk about jeff today...

... and i don't mean gossip.  it's all good stuff :o)

he had a special order for a soup tureen.  jeff makes the coolest tureen's and he hasn't done any in a few years.  i am excited to see this one finished.  it is going in the kiln today to be picked up on wednesday... yep, it will still be warm from the firing when it goes to it's new home.

and here is a finished soup tureen from his web site... i really like the matching ladles

check out more of jeff's tureens & casseroles on his website by clicking on the picture above!  and of course you can purchase his work on etsy as well

i got up early to get the wood stove going and make the studio warm and toasty.  time to go make some cone packs for the firing today.  i wonder what kind of creatures they will be this time?

the pigs are done... eleven of them... the twelfth didn't make the grade and went into the scrap bucket.  only top quality pork at this studio.

boredom set in so i had to spice a few up... these guys won't get roasted until after the holidays.  speaking of cooking pork,  jeff smoked a pork shoulder outside in the freezing cold this week.  the pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw were to die for!

bringin' home the bacon...

i have been busy making pigs for the last two days... threw most of the bodies yesterday and today some of them were ready to be assembled.  i extrude some small cylinders and use them as blanks for the legs and ears.  typically i attach a die to my pugmill, but since that is not set up yet, i have been using my little kemper hand extruder.

these are the pigs that were completed today...

and here is a shot of their porky little behinds...

aside from the pigs, i prepped some dried pots to get bisqued tomorrow... platters, spoon jars and a couple of vases.  jeff has some orders for christmas so we will be glaze firing this weekend.  the christmas rush is almost over!

pottery visitors

we spent the first half of our day trying to keep everything, including ourselves warm.  north carolina is still experiencing super cold weather.  we woke up to a frozen well pump.  thankfully it thawed out by about 11:30 am.  jeff spent the afternoon super insulating it.  hopefully we won't have a problem tomorrow.

the second half of the day we had an unexpected visit from Seth Guzovsky and Brad Lail.  Seth and Brad are two very talented potters who are currently serving an apprenticeship with Mark Hewitt in Pittsboro.  we met Brad at a kiln opening at Hewitt's pottery in the late spring and we met Brad Seth at Daniel Johnston's large jar event in October.  we enjoyed a couple of beers and good conversation about pottery and apprenticeships.  these two smart and talented guys are going places.

Seth brought us this sweet tumbler from the last firing at Hewitt's

too bad i had jeff pack up the photography set up or i could have gotten a better picture.  thank you Seth for the generous gift!

it's beginning to look a bit like Christmas...

this is the pretty scene we woke up to this morning... i am ok with the snow as long as it doesn't have to be shoveled!

this weekend i worked on berry bowls and some simple round bakers

i have new stuff on etsy as well... orders placed by Wednesday can be shipped in time for Christmas...

wood fired vase... click on the photo to go to my Etsy shop

missing you...

John Zentner

February 17, 1951 - December 12, 2008

and this little piggy cried wee, wee, wee, all the way home!

this little pig came out of the kiln on monday and yesterday i posted him on my etsy shop... low and behold he has already found a new home in Cincinnati!
john taught me how to make pigs a few years back.  he always said he could sell as many pigs as he could make.  i have to admit that i too have sold them quickly... so why am i not making more???  i enjoy putting them together but can't seem to knock off more than 4 or 5 at a time.  i remember john would make 20 or more in a day, along with whatever else he had in production.  i think i should focus more and set a goal.
one of jeff's first production jobs was making piggy banks.  he used to make them all sizes, sitting and standing.  he keeps saying we should have a pig making competition... something tells me he would be the winner.

i sold a pig at the Celebration to a young man who bought it for his mom for Christmas... their last name is BACON... how cute is that?!

new pots!

we unloaded the kiln today and we had mostly good results... a few of the copper reds were a little pink, but all in all it was a good firing.  i will have some new pots to post on etsy in the coming days.

remember when my photographer friend ken came to the northwood, nh studio and tried his hand at throwing pots? well i finally got them fired and i think they came out really nice.  i will send them off to him so he can have them in time for christmas...

i think these are great little cups for a first attempt at the wheel!

and here is a little peek at what i have been working on in the studio today...

i applied white slip to the vase and then carved the oak leaf design... seems i am getting into more tedious work these days!  not sure yet how i will glaze this.

good wood and wavy ovals

wavy baker - listed on Etsy... and the buyer will get my artichoke dip recipe to bake in it!

YUMMY

yesterday we had a cord of wood delivered by a reputable company... not rednecks who arrive in an 

S-10 blazer towing a trailer made out of an old pick-up truck bed (yes, that is how our $40 dollar mostly wet wood & sticks arrived).  these people had a real truck, the wood was dry and split and here is the BEST part... they came into the gallery and bought lots of pottery!  in the end we pretty much just exchanged checks.

P.S. we fired the gas kiln yesterday, can't wait to peek in later!

winterizing...

we ran out of firewood this week... we were so busy this summer and fall we never got around to buying more.  luckily we do have a propane heater in both the house and the studio but i hate sending all my money to the propane company (they get enough just through firing the kiln!).
i found a decent price on seasoned hardwood and they will deliver a little more than a cord on saturday... in the mean time we called someone on craigslist and they delivered a pick up truck load today.  it was only $45 dollars and quite frankly we wanted to see what we could get for 45 bucks... it was hardwood, and did appear to have been cut some time ago but it was wet from being out in the rain we had last night.  it also was lots of small logs. we won't buy wood from them again.  it will get us by these next few days and then we will mix it with the wood that is coming on saturday.  so today i spent stacking wood, which i really don't mind doing at all...

we also fired a bisque kiln today and while i was stacking wood, jeff put up a wall next to the electric kiln to protect it from the weather.  this was something we had put off all summer.

no more trying to remember to cover the kiln with a tarp during bad weather!

so that's about all thats new here at the pottery... pretty dull stuff.