A good productive day

Today was a smooth day..not too many hitches. I delivered 2 ordered pieces, made these cute little bottles and assembled all these goblets. Right now Morgan is pricing and packing up the latest goodies from today's kiln. We've saved back a few for the staff photographer (Rowan) but I will be ready to deliver tomorrow night!

Very Pleased

Here's a taste of what was in the kiln. Overall I am very pleased. One of my favorite pieces is the plate, which I can't get the color to turn out in the picture. The stripe down the middle is a lustre-like purple. solid sweet purple..but somehow I can't get the camera to pick it up.

Today's efforts

Since I am still not feeling well, today has been pretty tough, but I feel pretty good that I got some things done regardless.

I threw these goblet parts and these small bottles. Soon I'll be able to unload this kiln and get at the stuff I wanted to get at :)

I had Morgan set up a table, put out all the pots we have in totes, inventory them and pack them up again. I'll be shipping those off to Jessa for this upcoming weekend. Thankfully we have 2 shows this weekend. we've had quite a dry spell lately. Then the next weekend is our home sale, which I am hoping will be amazing as we have a lot of catching up to do.

The most difficult part of being a potter

People can say a lot of things about how difficult it is to be a self-employed potter. The complaints range from becoming established, maintaining creativity, finding good shows, irregular pay, having to do ALL the parts of a job from manufacture to marketing.

The worst and most difficult to me is waiting for the damn kiln to cool so I can get at my stuff!

Pepper

Pepper enjoyed being out all day today..and he especially enjoyed playing with a new ball...really an old orange with a few bad spots. He loved it!

Tree Update

Morgan's friend Quentin offered to come and take care of the tree for us..We struck a deal on payment and off he went. He did a good job. Apparently he grew up doing this kind of work for his dad. Now all that's left is the fun part..the burning in a fire circle. Morgan promises to start tonight and have it all gone by the time our home sale rolls around.

Slogging through the day

Today was one of those days where I wish I didn't have to work, even work for myself. My chest is congested, I'm running a mild fever and I have no focus whatsoever. BUT we have shows coming up and in order to sell the work I must make the work.

So..here are a few shots of the pieces I made today and yesterday. Tomorrow I'll finish them up and start another round of work..I'll probably also spend some time cleaning the studio a bit and mixing some glazes.

Tomorrow I'm going to have some extra help from Quentin, one of Morgans friends doing a little Tree cleanup and yard work. I'm glad because wow do we need some help and he needs some $$

Rowan is working hard on our Creative Oasis Birthday Bash and our own Mother's Day sale, though these are hectic times...I think it's all going to come together beautifully.

SORRY

for the repeats..most of you have seen these before. I was having some serious trouble with crossposting and I seem to have reimported everything I exported...dunno. Hopefully this post will show up on the other sites (blogger and livejournal)

A new, at least recycled idea

Last night as I failing miserably to fall asleep..I was in and out of consciousness thinking about some bowls I need to create, I really like doing the carving on pieces, but often it isn't as dynamic and lively as I like it to be. So I thought last night about how I love to use the steve tool to make textures and stretch them out, watching the clay stress and stretch to accommodate the shape being forced onto it. So I envisioned making thick cylinders, doing my carving then stretching them down and into bowls with only a rib on the inside...they will have to be thick to stretch properly and when then are low and wide like a serving bowl they should actually be fairly thin. We'll see, I'm going to try it sometime this week..

Tree Down update

I decided I should tackle the tree today..it seemed to have shifted lower overnight and I am not too keen on it making an unplanned collapse.

Pepper and I jumped into the truck and went to the storage unit and got the trusty plug-in chainsaw and had at it.

I trimmed off all the branches so I could really see what was going on..and to my surprise I fount the only thing holding the thing up is the end of a branch jammed into the gutter. I think it is going to require going onto the roof and cutting it from there so it has a place to fall.

Or the other option is to toss a rope around it and pull it and the chunk of gutter down with it from about 20 feet away. I'll think on it...

Apple Tree

This morning I awoke to a surprise out my kitchen window and in front of the door. The old apple tree has finally given up. It came down in the 50 MPH gusts we were having all night. Fortunately it looks like it did minimal damage to the house..there's a bit of crumpled, but still hung and useful gutter, but no holes, torn shingles, etc.

Looks like it's time to learn how to use a chainsaw :)

Salt Plates only a partial FAIL

As I unloaded the refired kiln today I noticed something strange. I had red pots in my electric kiln!

yep..The plates straightened up a little..2 more are salvaged, but almost all of them have a red tint/wash effect. The question is why?

I have heard that if you fire a kilnload of reduction copper red pots that don't go red, you can refire them in a bisque and they will go red for you.

Here's the problem...There was no copper in the initial firing..Coleman Apple Celadon..1% Iron, no Chrome. the plates were a nice pale green color. The top photo -the plate on the right, shows the original color.

I added the same recipe, but with 2% Copper and 1% cobalt carb to the surface of the already fired plates, put them into the electric kiln and fired them to cone 6.

I got red!

Anyone know why?

Greenback Blues

Feeling it hard today..it's a beautiful day and the sunshine makes me happy, but I'm bummed out about our finances. The big picture isn't so bad, but as always it's the cash flow....flowing out more than in right now. I need that shop in the backyard NOW. A few weekend sales would trake care of the whole mess.

*sigh* new clutch in the Neon $670

Both the blazer and the truck have to be inspected last month..yep..just noticed, no time now..

Ro is heading off to another money sucker...Nationals for Cath's Cheerleading Squad.. Ocean City Maryland, hotel for 2 nights on the beach..$250 plus gas plus $110 entry fee for Cath PLUS $40 just to get in the door as a spectator.

Morgan killed a tire on the blazer last week. $75

Morgan has a Tae Kwon Do tournament this weekend $40

I spent $30 on hangers for the plate show, maybe someone will buy a few :)

Time to pay the mortgage and the phone bill as well as another installment on the gas and oil bills.

OH yeah..groceries. ugh.

So yeah. Let's hope for good sales this weekend. Next weeks expenses won't be nearly this bad.

Anyone need some mugs?

Amazing method for moving bricks

This floored me when I first saw it.

Salt Plates...FAIL

The salt plates didn't work out so well...So to try to salvage some of them, I am refiring with another layer of glaze at cone 6. Hopefully some of the warps will settle out and the color response will be better.

The top plate is the ONLY perfect plate. I liked it. The next three are of seriously pringled plates..the last one you can see the glaze I added. I have a kiln full of plates I want to salvage..we'll see how it goes.

Plate Show

I just hung a show of my plates at Webster's on Aaron Drive. I have a few more to put up, but I need some more hangers!

Watch..LOVE the Onion

FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful