I work Friday nights

and usually Saturday nights too.

It's been a pretty good day in the life of this potter. I woke up far too early, but I started out the day with a special treat: a visit to The Waffle Shop. Now..this is NOT a Waffle House (I LOVE Waffle House) but this is a local place with 2 locations. It's got the menu of the average breakfast place, but it's always good. Nearly perfect every time. Fresh squeezed OJ and really tasty home fries. Ro tells me they have amazing bacon. On "event" weekends around here they have a 50 person line out the door. On normal weekend maybe a 15 person line out the door.So I started the day with a Feta Omelet, home fries and an English Muffin I love being able to have a nice breakfast with my lovely wife. It always makes the day better. She and I parted ways for the early afternoon, she went off to run some errands and I went to the studio and made rice bowls...then something strange happened. I got the urge to rearrange. I moved some stuff around, set up a new table and suddenly it feels like a larger space with an extra work surface :)

After Ro came home we went on a couple more errands together, one of which was dropping off more work at Way Fruit Farm who will be having their annual Apple Blossom Festival this weekend. Then we came home and got to work again. I threw tankards and mixed two glazes while Ro did some office work and then came and decorated some oak leaf and acorn goblets and waxed some scale mugs. I think the goblets look amazing! The scale mugs look good too, although this is a new technique for us. I used to wax the scales in with wax, or wax with iron, but it never quite looked right on the lighter clay body I use now. The test piece we did like this looked good, so I am hoping the real thing will too. I'll know by Monday.

I decided to take dinner break around 9 and got sucked into 50 first dates...I'm not sure if I am going back downstairs to the studio now or not...I DO have all those fresh glazes to use :) Maybe I'll do some tonight and some tomorrow. One of the glazes is a test for a new brown glaze to replace the Temoku I currently use. It's not working as well as it used to and I just found out that it is my most expensive glaze..so I thought maybe I should experiment with some others

Ready for another Bisc

Today was very productive. I pulled 40 handles, assembled 9 goblets and as a final act of diligent productivity threw 5 more goblets and 9 travel mugs from the leftover clay in my buckets. YAY!

Tomorrow after teaching I start fresh with tankards and xl round mugs and some rice bowls (which I really wanted to get to today, but hey, it's midnight!)

Goblet Making Tutorial

Making Goblets:











I make my goblets in two sections.




The stem and the bowl are thrown separately from the same weight of clay and allowed to dry until both sections are a uniformly leather hThe bowl is centered on the wheel. I use a little water on the rim and press down to create suction to hold it steady to trim.

I trim a shallow opening just large enough to fit the stem.







Then vigorously score each piece with a serrated rib.










The scored stem is dipped in water(to create slip) then attached to the scored bowl while it is still centered.
























The stem is then re-centered (light tapping) and the joint and foot are trimmed







Common problems encountered while using this method include the stem popping up, the stem tearing off or pushing the stem through the bowl.To solve or avoid these problems make sure you are carefully following these instructions.


It's really important to wait until the clay is truly leather hard to do the trimming. Too wet and you have no stability and the trimming tool tends to catch and pull the stem causing it to torque and break or come off entirely.Too dry and the join is weak and will tend to crack.

I also have a video of this process and it can be seen >here<