Ups and Downs

As some of you know from reading this blog long term I often get a case of the winter blues. The past couple of weeks has been a fight for me. I've gone from feeling unstoppable to hopeless and back several times. One of the things I like to do at this time of year is count my blessings and I've had to do it several times. Today I was chanting my blessings like a mantra because I had a really rough day.

First item on my list is the dryer. The door won't stay closed. we close it, it spins for a couple minutes then the door pops open. WTF? I duct taped it closed so we could dry the last load. Ro said she would check on the warranty. I THINK it's covered for 5 years. I hope so. January is a bad month for potters to have to repair appliances. August is much better.

Second item is the kiln. I was already cranky about losing two mugs to handle cracking, but was somewhat mollified by the fact that I was about to fire some plates a woman has been waiting for for 2 years. I trimmed them, loaded them and started the kiln. An hour later I come out to find the kiln is too hot by 50 degrees and the display is flashing FAIL. I open it up and see that one of the plates has blown. I grouse and growl a bit but decide it's a damn good thing I made extra plates and that we have 2 kilns. BUT it did kill my mood so I came upstairs and made pizza dough and eventually a pizza and despite feeling crappy I managed to only have 2 slices (another blessing!) When Ro came home we watch some silly Futurama episode and eventually I went back downstairs feeling refreshed again and made these tankards and soup mugs. Slow and steady wins the race right? Tomorrow trimming and handling and making a few more of something, not sure what yet, I'm kind of feeling like bowls might be a good thing and a board full of the round mugs. If there is one thing I always need to make it's round mugs.

Getting it together

This has been a very busy week for us. There has been a lot on our minds and even more to keep our hands busy. I've been working steadily on two different processes. I started out the week throwing butter keepers, goblets and mugs and in between the trimming, assembling and handling I managed to glaze and fire the last two kilnloads of work to send off to Florida. Yesterday and today Rowan joined me in the studio and she made 125 wee bowls over the two days. I am amazed at how productive she is. I keep joking I'm going to chain her to the wheel and we'll make our whole living off of her wee bowl production. I'm only kidding a little bit. She IS that good.

On the finished work front I unloaded the glaze kilns, everything is looking good. I started pricing then got some extra help from Cheyenne, a delightful and helpful young lady who seems to be fond of Morgan, for what reason I'm not sure.

Rowan did an amazing job getting everything organized and inventoried while I did some last minute Raku firing of some medallions for magnets and pendants which had mixed results..batch 1 was underfired, batch 2 was close to overfired and batch 3 was perfect. Fortunately I only lost 3/15 for the second batch. Some of these medallions are really nice! I'm pleased.The bonus is I know I can refire batch 1 and get perfect results.

So the plan now is finish packing in the morning, perhaps do my refire if time allows, load the rest of the greenware into the kiln and start a bisc, then drive all the pottery to Lancaster, load it into the bus so Elliot can drive it all to Florida and get our season started with the Fort Meyer Renaissance Fair.

Everything Stops

It's time to leave for The Party. The end of the year bash my friend and business associate throws. 4 days of not worrying about the world that has me by the throat. I trimmed a board full of mugs and wrapped those and the rest up. I'll deal with them when I get back. These have 3 layers of plastic over and under them, they should be just fine.