Feb 18 9PM Eastern Time The Big Day

Feb 18, 2015 9PM Eastern Time 

at our website. www.hughespottery.com

We've worked hard. Laughed. giggled, sweated, and cried. The final kiln is loaded.

This has been so much fun. More fun than the everyday work we have been doing for the last few years. There's always a thrill in doing new work. A carbonation of the creative spirit.

 We are Carbonated!

There will be somewhere around 80 pieces.

All of them one of a kind. All of them with the theme of Forest Spirit. Some will have faces and leaves like the traditional Greenman, some will simply have texture and leaves. None will be repeated. Some are sold in sets, most are individually sold.

More previews can be found on our Facebook page, in the 
event called Forest Spirit

This little TC mug

 

This mug has some history, it's 12, maybe 13 years old. I just glazed it a couple of days ago. I've been carrying it around for a long time, waiting for the right glaze for it. I think I made the right decision. I got it from an art center I used to help run called The Creative Oasis in State College PA. 

It was made by Tony Clennell as a demonstration piece. It sat on our museum shelf with pieces from Seth Cardew, Mel Jacobson, Ian Stainton, Jack Troy, retired PSU instructor David DonTigney as well as pieces from our own instructors. Unfortunately we had to close the Oasis so I gathered the biscware and hauled it around for years. After unpacking the studio when we moved to Tionesta PA, I put the pieces on the shelf absolutely determined to finish them so they would have a useful life.

So I knew Tony was a woodfire potter and this little guy should have ash on it, the trouble is it's cone 6 clay, no one woodfires at cone 6.

So recently I feel like I've been having a mid-career crisis. After doing production work for years, some of the shine was wearing off the 70 hour work weeks. I wanted a return to my roots. Cone 10, gas, wood and salt. Ash glaze. But that doesn't fit in with our business right now so the next best thing is changing everything that can be changed without building a new kiln and disappointing our customers who have come to love everything we're doing now. I needed to have a frivolous relationship..a fling with something new, so, as you do, I hit the internet and searched for my glaze-lover. I searched and searched and made some advances..tested the possibilities. Then I found it.

 For years I have wanted a fake ash glaze at cone 6, so I look and I test and I look and I test and fail and fail and fail.

 This time something happened. I risked a very precious piece on a hunch and after adding a very thin application and a double dip on the rim, this beauty showed up in the kiln. Perfect. I've been drinking tea from it since I pulled it out. It's amazing to me that this much variation came from just one glaze. Anyone who does cone 6 knows that the layers make the magic. This is one glaze and it fits like skin, not a glass over clay.

I'll be mixing up more of this glaze and perhaps doing a delicate blue version too, but I love the glaze as is, just for me. 

I believe this may be a glaze from John Britt but it has not been confirmed.

 .

 Golden Fake Ash cone 6

28.0 Redart
24.5 Dolomite
21.0 Ball Clay
10.0 Gerstley Borate
9.5 Strontium Carbonate
5.0 Bone Ash
2.0 Lithium Carbonate

Snow Jobs

Our lovely Tionesta home has been getting a few inches of snow every day. Not a huge dump and go blizzard, but a steady build. My commute has been a cold 20 steps to the studio with a carafe of hot tea and a dog who thinks snow is the best thing ever.

This weather has made it easier for me to decide to settle in, hunker down and be a homebody. I'm loving it. Rowan has been taking the time to create some really lovely homemade meals that we have been willing to go back to and consume every bit of the leftovers. There is no need to go out until we need groceries or the USPS.



Our promise to ourselves to work smarter has been in effect for a week now, it's been pretty good. We've been getting to bed before midnight and getting up between 6 and 8 and getting to work soon after. We work until early evening usually between 5 and 7 and I finally have had some time to relax, reflect and think. Its been a long time since I haven't felt completely exhausted and overburdened. This is nice and I want to keep it up as long as possible.

The best part is we have been getting a lot of work done. Rowan has even found more time to be creative in the studio. She's been making new things, working with me on the Forest Spirit things. We're building good stock and I feel on track for making this year one of working from a perspective of joy rather than burden.