Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Tools of the Trade

I have an order for some porcelain plates and bowls. Today I had to clean up my act to get ready to throw that pristine white stuff. It makes me feel like a doctor getting ready for surgery. As I was cleaning, I chose the tools that I would most likely need to throw these pots. Out of the myriad of ribs, wooden knives, needle tools, and sponges that I own, in reality these are the ones I use most.
...and probably the only ones I really ever need. But I do like looking at my collection of "stuff", and I would find it hard to give them up.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Out with the old...


One of the by-products of doing paper work is cleaning out some clutter. Jeff and I have a big coffee table with four drawers. I love having the drawers, but we all know what happens with drawers... they collect "stuff". When I was entrenched in paperwork, I realized I was missing an important paper. I decided to completely empty a couple of those coffee table drawers, thinking that it might have gotten lost in the "stuff". The handy thing about these drawers is if you have unexpected company arrive, and the table is covered with paperwork, you can quickly hide it away in one those nice big drawers. Unfortunately some things become lost in that black hole of a drawer.

What I was looking for was not in the drawer, but I decided that the stack of old Clay Times magazines didn't need to reside there anymore. Before I could bring them upstairs and place them in the plastic bin that holds my collection of pottery magazines, Jeff started to look through them. Needless to say, they haven't made it upstairs. Now I want to look back at them. I am sure I will find articles in there that didn't interest me 10 years ago... yes, those issues have been in that drawer for nearly 10 years. They even made the trip from New Hampshire to North Carolina in that drawer. I plan to spend a little time with them this week and then they will find their new home in the plastic bin... because I just can't bring myself to throw away ceramics magazines.

My mother would have thrown the old one out when the new one arrived. How about you, do you save certain magazines? Or are you good about getting rid of the clutter?

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Bugs & Birds

Yesterday there was a new visitor to the hummingbird feeder...


One of the hummingbirds was not impressed with him. He flew in and pecked at the praying mantis a few times, then settled on the opposite side to drink. I think he chose the feeder on the porch for the rest of his meals.

By late afternoon the praying mantis climbed down from the tube and settled on the perch. When I woke up this morning he was still there, but hanging upside down from the bottom of the feeder. I think they are the most fascinating bugs!


Meanwhile, on the pottery front, the kiln was firing and we took advantage of the cooler, drier air and did some studio cleaning. The place was a mess since the rush to get to NH this summer. There is more work to do but it was looking much more organized by the end of the day. 

Thursday, July 12, 2012

please dance lightly...

We have been needing rain desperately and I think that all of us in Seagrove have been doing the rain dance.
Maybe we all danced a little too much.

Yesterday afternoon the skies opened up and it rained cats & dogs, and maybe even cows. It rained so hard that it looked like a river was running between the studio and the house. In no time at all we had a fast flowing stream running through one half of the studio! It brought with it a whole lot of silt and muck... the water that was coming in had run across the corn field next door, over our leach field and into the studio. Needless to say it didn't smell very good :-(.

Jeff ran outside with a shovel and started digging a trench along the studio and house to divert the water. I stayed inside and moved all the bags of glaze materials to drier ground.
When the rain stopped we had quite a mess in the studio and some water in our kitchen as well. The kitchen was an easy clean up... the water did not come from over the leach field so it was a matter of using the wet vac and running some fans to dry things out quickly.

The studio was another story. We had to hose down the concrete floor and suck up the mucky water. The we gave it a spray of bleach and water to disinfect it and one more wash down. We didn't get finished until around 10:00 pm.

On the bright side... it wasn't 100 degrees AND one half of the studio floor is now really clean.



This little piggy is now in the Etsy shop. I like this combo of shino with a turquoise belly. I hope he finds a new home soon.


Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Respirators and the Pottery Studio...

Strapping on that respirator should be second nature to potters, sort of like buckling your seat belt when we get in the car... but many of us have some bad habits.


Last month a company that makes face masks contacted me, via e-mail, after coming across this photo on my blog. They make a less cumbersome mask and if they sent me one, would I review it? I would never say no to free stuff, especially if it could be useful! The company is called RZ Mask, and when I went to their website I saw motocross riders, hmmm... do they know I am a potter? I explored the site and realized that they are expanding their market to industries outside of motocross and ATV riders.

This is what their mask looks like:

Smaller, lighter AND I can wear my glasses with progressive lenses while using this mask! When using my other mask, I have to switch to my old reading glasses and they still are not comfortable.

The mask is made of neoprene and straps on quickly with a velcro closure. The neoprene fits snugly around your face and doesn't get sweaty feeling like the rubber mask. Jeff tried it on and he thought the fit was good around his beard.

A replaceable filter attaches to the inside. The RZ mask rep sent me specs that said it will filter out particles as small is .1 microns. My Survivair mask filters out .5.

It even comes with a zippered storage case.

Since getting the mask I have used it mostly for spraying glazes and once for mixing a bucket of glaze. I really like how it comes on and off easily. I still felt a little claustrophobic wearing it but it was much better than my old mask.  The best thing was there wasn't a build up of condensation inside the mask (ick). I was a little concerned that it doesn't create as tight a seal as the Survivair, but I have to tell you that there have been more times when using my old mask, I would suddenly have fogged up glasses, which means I didn't have a tight seal anyway. I am constantly making adjustments with the old mask and it's a pain to put on and take off.
I will probably reach for this mask more quickly when deciding to do a little clean up around the studio. I will often times skip the mask because it's just a quick scooping up of some dry clay, and it's too much of a pain to put the bulky one on. I stupidly say I will hold my breath instead!

My old mask cost about $70 a few years back. The RZ mask is $29.95 and replacement filters are $6.95. They even have some cool designs to choose from! If you need to replace your mask or find you aren't wearing it as often as you should because of it's bulk, I recommend giving this one a try.

**If you are looking for more information about respirators in the pottery studio, here is a link to a Ceramics Daily article written by Jeff Zamek.



Tuesday, November 29, 2011

transitions

the good thing about doing a show and packing up pots from the gallery and some of our display is that it gives you no excuse not to clean and dust. when your gallery is an old log cabin and attached to a pottery studio there is certainly no end to the cob webs and dust. last week we worked hard at dusting, cleaning, touch up painting and installing some more track lighting. thanksgiving night we were done and ready for the "black friday" shoppers.
next on the list was getting photographs taken and get our etsy shops freshened up... i was slacking in that department lately and i think there were cobwebs in there too!

salt glazed oval vase

salt glaze orb/rattle with tulip sgraffito design

Saturday, March 6, 2010

de-cluttering

it's a gorgeous almost spring-like day here in new hampshire. my plan was to do some laundry, go for a walk and then head to the studio for the day. i got a little sidetracked by my incredibly disorganized office... it was getting to the point where you could hardly see the desk top anymore. it took half the day to sort through stuff and put things away.
...i was too embarrassed to take a before picture

...the fun thing is my friend cindy called to chat and she was organizing her clutter as well... so we were able to catch up on stuff and get our work done at the same time!
...off to the studio now to assemble some oval bakers and get some more glazing done. i promise that the next post will really be about pottery and not this boring mundane stuff.