Rules were meant to be broken?

The "No Drying Pots In The House" rule has been broken once again...

These make me laugh. Don't they look like they are at the hair salon getting a color?

I ordered a bag of these elastacized platic bowl covers to see if they would work in the studio. We have been trying to keep rims from drying out too quickly. Jeff cut a whole out of the center to allow the bottom to dry. We really wanted them for larger platters and bowls but they don't stretch to size they were advertised to. They were less than four dollars. If we don't find them functional in the studio we will use the rest of them in the kitchen.

We have a lot of pots to get fired in the next three weeks. After that I am sure it will be the mad dash for last minute piggy bank orders.

Working Weekend

This is what I did this weekend...

I assembled "salt pigs", that also make nice piggy sugar jars. They come with a cork to keep whatever you put inside, clean and dry. I have these listed on Etsy, and you can choose your glaze color. I have an order for two, one in tenmoku, the other Temple white... they buyer plans to use one for salt and the other for pepper! If you click on the photo it will take you to the Etsy listing.

The weather since Friday has been amazingly conducive to finishing work. The low humidity allowed me to throw, trim, and carve, these 1 quart casseroles in three days.

I have five of these completed and now I guess I should move on to two quart casseroles. The humidity has returned, so it may take a week to get them finished. I guess that means I should turn this computer off and get out to the studio.

Trying out new stuff

I have always been intrigued by ring jugs. I think it's the mystery of figuring out how they are made when you first see them. The other day I was getting bored with making casseroles and decided to give it a try...

I threw the ring form and THEN decided to do a little research on this form. What I found out was that the Moravian potters of North Carolina threw a fatter ring with a small circle, while others made them wide and thin, as I did. Of course mine just turned out that way because, as usual, I was just winging it!

I did however look at a gazillion images online to figure out what type of neck or handles that I wanted to add. I finished it off with some slip trailing. My plan is to bisque fire it and set it aside for a future wood and salt firing. It was a lot of fun to make and I might explore this form a little bit more.

The other thing I did this week was to throw a cake stand in one piece. This one is sort of small and low. 

I am letting it dry slowly, upside down, to minimize warping. If this one is successful I will try throwing a larger one in one piece.

Sadly, with all this unseasonably warm weather, our daffodils are sporadically blooming. While seeing them makes you hopeful for real spring, it also means that come March, we won't have a yard full of blooms.

How can anyone deny global warming????

2nd to the last firing of 2012?

I almost titled this post "The Last Firing of 2012" but we might be doing another between now and January 1, 2013. The piggy bank stock is getting really low and there are pots already glazed that didn't make it in the last kiln load. On the Etsy front, I have finally reached 100 transactions! Etsy sales have been good these last 30 days, I am glad there are people out there committed to shopping handmade.

The firing we did last weekend was mostly orders that have now been boxed and shipped. There were a few pots in there that weren't spoken for. Two of my 1 quart casseroles were fired. The glazes looked great on both, the shino behaved with no crawling... BUT (isn't there always a BUT when it comes to making pots?) one of them had a tiny "s" crack underneath, out to the 2nd's shelf it went. I have to say that when I was using Sheffield T-3 clay, I never had a problem with "s" cracks. This round of casseroles was made with STAR white clay. We have a hundred or so pounds that has been sitting around for awhile, and I decided I should use it up.

  The shino looks good this time with the STAR white. I haven't been happy with it in the past. It looked a little pasty. We are also doing reduction differently than when we first built this kiln.

What would a firing be without a bunch of sponge holders? I had a few of these warp this time around. My first thought is that I probably threw them a little too thin, but I also used the STAR white clay for these as well... in the past I used my recycled clay. It might have made a difference.

These little guys also work well as napkin holders...

Here is the bundt pan that Jeff made for a special order...

There really are two handles, the photo is just at an odd angle.

Our good friend Rob is visiting us this weekend and we are having a great time together. I hope you all are enjoying some time with family and friends... tis the season to be merry!

flash back to the 60's

If you read Gary Rith's blog, you know that he has been doing something called Time Warp Tuesday. I have been going through old photographs these last few months. I cam across this one tonight and since it's Time Warp Tuesday...

That's me... 1964! I have always been a fashionista :-)

and on a more productive note, I have been adding new things to my Etsy shop... the wood fired ovals are finally getting listed.

More of what Jeff's been up to...

Jeff's had some cool orders to fill this holiday season.

A soup toureen... you may as well make a few. This couple has ordered one before and when they came to pick it up they bought another. So why not be prepared?

This one is getting ready for it's fancy handles...

On the left is a steamer, another special order. I will get a photo of the interior before it goes to it's new home.

How about a very fancy bundt pan? I found this order interesting, because typically you turn a bundt cake out of it's pan to be served, so no one but the user will see this beauty. Then again, maybe people use bundt pans for things I am not aware of!

In between waiting on customers, I finished my plain jane, small casseroles and started to load the electric kiln for a bisque firing. The weather has been beautiful and warm here in North Carolina. Perfect weather to be outside, loading the kiln... and I hear it will get warmer over the next few days. I saw on Facebook today that New Hampshire had an inch or two of snow. I am so happy for them ;-).

Things that bring you joy...

I have been in a weird place this week. I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what my focus needs to be in terms of making pots that sell. In between the thinking, I needed to keep moving forward. There were piggy bank orders to fill and more sponge holders to be made.

Sponge holders are a pain, but I do like throwing them. They are quick and don't require a whole of thinking. The pig are fun to assemble, as long as there aren't 30 of them!

We have had a lot of casserole inquiries, so I have been working on some designs that won't involve a lot of deco work and can be reasonably priced...

It will be really hard not to carve some leaves into those lids!

The real joy of being an artists came late in the day today. Two women came in after 4:00 pm. One  bought the obligatory sponge holder and a small cup... the other asked lots of questions about my raku wall tiles. She asked me to take down a few so she could look at them closely and see how they would look in a group.

She purchased three of them to hang in her newly redecorated living room! She told me that when she saw them she knew they had to go home with her.
It brought me great joy to see how much she appreciated my work and was willing to spend the money on them ($95- $100 a piece)  and I hope that having these tiles in her home will bring her joy everyday.

odds & ends... that's what this weekend has been like.

two days ago jeff and i found crocus's in bloom in the front of our gallery... for a new hampshire girl to see a crocus in february is pretty exciting!  i ran into the house for the camera to snap some pics to post on facebook and make my northern friends envious.  out the gallery door i went, camera in hand, when all of a sudden like a bar of soap it slipped out of may hand onto to floor of the porch.  that was the end of my canon powershot A510.  it took great pictures and it was sad to see it broken.  on the bright side, since that camera was purchased, prices have dropped and megapixels increased.  the old A510 was only 3.2 megapixels.  i replaced it with an A495 with 10 megapixels for only $79.  i snapped some pics tonight in the studio but the real test will be tomorrow when i take some pics of work with the back drop and lighting set up.

we are going to fire our gas kiln this week so i thought i would share my tip for waxing the gallery of casseroles... i always have a fear of dripping some wax into the bottom.  i solved that problem by lining the inside with newspaper.

here are some bowls i have been finishing up this weekend... slips applied on the interiors and then the designs are carved through.

might save most of these for a salt firing with a friend in the near future.  damn i wish we had a salt kiln!