Let's Eat!

I haven't had much time for blogging, but I always make time to eat! I figured I was overdue at posting a food shot. Last night was lasagna primavera, served beautifully in a slip trailed bowl by Maureen Mills. Maureen is chair of the ceramics department at NH Institute of Art (where I learned to make pots AND met Mr. Brown). If you are looking for a good information about surface design, her book "Surface Design for Ceramics"would be an excellent addition to your library. Lark Books is the publisher.

It didn't dawn on me until after my second cup of coffee this morning, that we have a kiln to unload today! The big ginkgo vase is in there... keep your fingers crossed for us.

These came out of the kiln week before last. Aside from a sink with some crawling shino, we were very happy with the firing.

I hope everyone had a fabulous 4th of July weekend. My friends and family in New England had a very rainy Independence Day, and we had gorgeous blue skies and low humidity here in Seagrove, NC. We are now on day three of this great weather and I am taking advantage of it while it lasts.

What did we do before the internet?

I for one, probably read more books and wasted less time, but this weekend Jeff and I were very thankful for the internet.

Saturday we sanded pots and loaded the bisque kiln in preparation to fire it on Sunday. As usual, we had some pots that weren't completely dry so Jeff wanted to turn it on low for a couple of hours. He turned the switch to on and nothing happened. He checked the breaker and it was in the on position, yet it didn't appear there was any electricity running into the kiln. The timer on the kiln sitter wasn't even working. Before the last firing Jeff had replaced the plug and prior to leaving for NH he unplugged the kiln. We don't own a tester for electrical outlets and it's not like we had anything else that runs on 240 that we could plug into to see if it was working. After fiddling around a bit Jeff finally saw a spark on the kiln sitter, so it appeared we did have electricity.

This kiln is a very old manual L&L...

Once it was determined that there was electricity going into the kiln, Jeff knew that the problem was in the kiln sitter box. He went on line and read that sometimes crud gets on the contacts and needs to be cleaned off. He took the box apart, cleaned them, and when it was re-assembled we had power!

If it wasn't for the good ol' internet we would have had to wait for the next work day to call L&L. Since this was a holiday weekend, that would have meant waiting until Tuesday to fix and fire this thing.
While the kiln was firing yesterday, Jeff went to load pots in David's anagama, and I threw some bowls and assembled these...

only 30 more to go... guess you know what I will be doing today.

Happy Labor Day!

let's do the math

Mr. Young commented on my last post, asking how many pots fit into our little gas kiln. It just so happens that we do, on occasion count the pots. So I actually have an answer for him today.

The total number of pots in this firing was 74. The retail value of this kiln load is approximately $2000+/-. 

The goal we set for the LNHC show at Mt. Sunapee in NH is $10,000. Simple math says we need a minimum of five firings for show inventory. We have done three in the last two weeks and we will fire once more, although we are not sure it will be cool enough to pack up for Wednesday! Aside from these three firings, we have inventory fired over the last couple of months to bring with us as well. If there is anything left after the nine days on the mountain, it will go to galleries in NH... we are planning to come home with an empty trailer!

These are a couple of Jeff's that were my favorites from this kiln....

 Textured bowl with nuka and gloss green

Platter with ash glaze, there were two of these and they both are beauties.

Time to get to work. This kiln load needs to be sanded, priced, and boxed. 4 days till departure.

There's a whole lot of celebratin' going on...

Jeff un-bricked the door to the kiln this evening and we took a few things out...

Jeff's large textured bowls came out awesome...

The test tiles for nuka and peach blossom look good so pots with those glazes will go in the next firing, which will get loaded on Sunday.

And the BEST news we are celebrating is...

Jeff had a wood fired piece accepted into Strictly Functional! He has been in the show before but missed the deadline the last few years. He was feeling good about getting in, since Jack Troy is the juror this year.

Tomorrow we are celebrating two years in Seagrove and Eck McCanless Pottery is celebrating their one year anniversary. We decided to celebrate together... pottery demonstrations at both shops and food! Eck and his wife, Rhonda, are serving up heavy hors d'oeuvres and then you can wander around the corner to our place for dessert... m&m brownies and blueberry oatmeal bars. Or come see us for dessert FIRST and then head over to Eck McCanless Pottery for lunch (we won't tell your mother).

... and if you come late we'll be on the porch, drinking beer. Help yourself, they'll be in the cooler.

Tuesday at the Pottery

 I picked these in the early afternoon at Whynot Pottery, don't they look delicious?!

Thank you for sharing them Meredith.

Later in the day I unloaded the kiln. Overall it was a good firing. For the first time since building this small gas kiln we decided to put all the pots on one table, count them, and figure out the retail dollar value of each firing. Jz and I had done this with the big gas kiln in NH. It seems since we moved to NC we haven't had the opportunity to do this. It seems so funny to have all the pots fit on one table! When the big kiln was unloaded it seemed we hardly had room to move in the studio once the pots came out.

The plan for tomorrow is to finish pots in progress and then get some photographs of these new one. My Etsy shop is needing some fresh listings.

... but before any of that gets done, those blueberries will calling my name!

South Korea's National Treasure

Jeff and the other international artists visited Chun Han Bong while he and his daughter fired his wood kiln. Amazingly spry at 84 years old and still firing this big kiln!

strange visitors

Yesterday afternoon I busy throwing pots in the studio when I heard the gallery door open. I looked up from my wheel and saw a guy in a suit walk in... then two more suits behind him. My first thought was oh  no, it's a group spreading the word of their religion, how am I going to get rid of them without being rude? THEN I noticed they all had name tags and I thought detectives? Are they here to question us about something??
I said hello but wasn't too quick to get up from my wheel. They finally wandered down to the studio door and one of them asked if they could come in and watch. That is when they told me who they were...

FUNERAL DIRECTORS!

Our studio is across the street from the Whynot Church. They were there for a funeral and where early, so they decided to come across the street. They watched me throw a couple of bowls and asked lots of questions about firing. They joked about one of them having a crematorium, how hot it got and could they fire pots in it?! The crematorium owner said it gets to about 1800 degrees - I told him he could only do low fire work. :o)
They didn't buy anything but it definitely was the most interesting thing that happened on a slow Sunday afternoon.

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.

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.

first firing of our new kiln

 overall we are happy with the firing... we did have a cold spot that should be corrected with a change in the bag wall.  we also won't load the back as tightly in the next firing.

 one of  my plates with slip & japanese maple leaves

 jeff's large altered bowl... this was a re-fire from the last salt firing.  it was very dry when it came out of the salt kiln and the 2nd firing really juiced it up!

 handled oval baker

another of my oval bakers (left) and a re-fired bowl from the salt kiln

i am heading back out to the studio and finish glazing so we can load this kiln up and fire it again...  only three days to the Celebration of Seagrove of Potters!

kiln building update

the push is on to get this kiln finished... we would like to be able to fire it twice within the next seven days. we have the big celebration of seagrove potters happening in one week.  it would be great to have more of our new work to sell at the show.

yesterday jeff worked on cutting and fitting the bricks for the door and i worked on the chimney...

i was just past the damper when i took this picture in the afternoon... i worked until it was too dark outside to sort through the bricks and bring them around to the backyard where the kiln is located.  when i quit i was nearly to the roof of the kiln shed.  today jeff will cut the hole for the chimney to go through the roof and complete the job.
jeff also lit the burners for a few minutes last night... when i asked him if there was a technical reason for doing so his reply was...
"because i am a pyromaniac"

my arms and hands are so sore today... the hard brick in the chimney weigh a lot more than your standard fireplace chimney brick.  and the weird thing is the insulating brick in rest of the kiln are like handling styrofoam (and very fragile).
no more whining... time to go back to work.

the magic of the arch...

for me it is always scary to pull out the arch form... even though i know that physics says it will be o.k.

phew... it is still standing three days later... jeff has been working on the chimney while i have been getting the logistics down for our trip to NH...  the second week of november we will be firing our new "baby kiln".  in between we will also squeeze in a wood firing with joseph sand.

progress...

next we cut and place the key bricks in at the top of the arch... build the front and back walls, then start on the chimney.  today we are taking a break from kiln building - we will be unloading the wood kiln at daniel johnston's this morning and then this evening we are attending the preview to his big opening tomorrow.
have a happy friday!

on with the show...

the kiln is pretty much down and packed into boxes...

it sort of looks like ancient mayan ruins doesn't it?

this is an interior shot of the bus as jeff was loading the bricks.  all of the soft brick is packed in banana boxes... i visited the local hannaford's grocery store everyday (sometimes twice a day!) to pick up banana boxes.  the hard brick was laid out on the floor of the bus and we packed other things on top of them.  jeff kept a close eye on the leaf springs under the bus to make sure we weren't overloaded.  we didn't take all of the hard bricks this trip so that we could keep the weight down.  we plan to finish the job in august.  at this point we will have enough bricks in seagrove to build a smaller kiln.  a smaller kiln means we can fire more often!

tomorrow we hit the road again... our kitties are coming this time.  we are all anxious to get settled in our new home

kiln deconstruction

yesterday we removed the arch and some of the brick in the sidewalls... this is what the kiln looked like when we started work at noon today....

by 6:00pm it was looking like this... the biggest achievement is the chimney is down!  we are packing all the brick into banana boxes to transport them to seagrove in the bus.  i think this is by far the most exhausting job involved in the move.

we are fortunate to be staying with our friend roni so we are still on bow lake.  jeff and i finished the day with a quick moonlight dip in the cool water... it felt great on my tired aching body.