2017-05-06 - Saturday - Lana Wilson workshop

Saturday was the first day of the Lana Wilson workshop at Clayworks. Handbuilding is not the way I usually make pots but I was very impressed with Lana's technique. She was a joy to work with and had us laughing many times with her stories.

This was my slab.

I made these two cups from it.

.

2014-03-01 - Saturday - Crackled hands

I only had a couple of hours in the studio today.  I had planned on glazing, but the gas kiln was already loaded when I arrived.  I skipped the glazing and made some new pots.

I decided to make some crackled pots and wanted to add something to them as an accent.  I thought of painting designs on them but didn't have the time so I used my hands.  I really like the design and will experiment further with it.

The one on the left has blue slip and the one on the right has brown slip.  They both have white slip hand prints.  It's interesting to me how the hand print grows as the surface is stretched.

Out of the seven cups I trimmed on Wednesday, four had "S" cracks in the bottoms so now I have three.  It's been a while since I threw cups off the hump and apparently I didn't compress the bottoms well enough.  Live and learn and learn again.


.

2014-02-28 - Friday - TGIF

This week was crazy.

Work was a bear and I had to wrestle with everything I tried to accomplish.

I put more than 600 miles on my van and many more on my brain and body.

Working under the pressure of having customers' servers down really wears on you.  They are at a standstill if the email server or data server is down for any length of time.  If you have to do it, keep it short or it will drain you.  If you're like me you feel the weight of the whole company on your back while you mentally run through every possibility of what could be wrong and try to make valid decisions in a hurry.

Luckily I've been doing this for quite a while now and usually have more than one way to find a fix for problems, but it doesn't make it any less stressful when you're staring at a screen and none of the results make sense.

Welcome to the IT industry.

On to pottery...

I only managed to get to the studio for a couple of hours on Wednesday night to trim some cups.  I am planning on spending some hours in the studio tomorrow to get some pots made.

Cups.

.

May 9 - Glazing

On Wednesday night I was glazing for the upcoming gas kiln firing.  Lots of different work to glaze.  I have SO many things I want to try that I'm all over the place.  We'll see how it goes...

.

Still at 58...

I didn't get a chance to throw any more pots Thursday, but I trimmed some more and made some more handles.

I wasn't really crazy about the handles I made on Wednesday so for the final three mugs I asked my friend Rick to show me how he does his. (He does AWESOME handles, just like his pots.) Rick graciously shared his time with me and gave me a great tutorial on pulling handles off the mugs. I didn't know about all the steps he uses to make those handles. I was doing it all backwards and I'm so glad he set me on the right track. THANKS, RICK!

I didn't bother photographing the ones I did on Wednesday, but here are the ones from Thursday. Check out those handles! Now I need to change my cup form to something I like better. Something with a bit more personality.

Check out these babies.

It's all about the handles.

I have been given so much great help by so many great people that if I live to be two hundred I will not be able to pay it all back, but I am very grateful --every day.