Firings XI, XII & The Texas Clay Fest

The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind but I have a few photos here to share what's been going on.  I fired off 2 kiln loads in the wood kiln and was an exhibitor at the Texas Clay Festival which was hands down the best show I've ever done in Texas.

Here are a few photos of prepping firewood.  Notice the huge pile of cutoffs here...I wish I could find a use for all this.  The chunks are too big to fit through the stoke holes but they're also too small to be worth my time to chop up.

Pallet slats stacked and drying.  This is about 2/3 of what I need for a firing from 1600-2400 degrees. 

This where the pallet stripping magic happens.  The piles on the left and left-middle are slats that are too wide to fit through the stoke holes, I'll have to figure out a way to use them because I have a LOT of them.

I bought a new pyrometer a couple months ago to replace my last one which had a battery leak and fried the innards.  This is basically a ripoff of the Fluke pyrometer at much less cost.  I paid about $70 for this guy.  The fluke runs about $200.  This one has dual ports so you can run 2 thermocouples if you need to.  It also has a zillion other options.  One of the coolest things is that it comes with a soft ware package that you load onto your computer and then plug the pyrometer in via a usb port and it allows you to graph your firings based on temp.  I haven't done it yet but that seems pretty cool, possibly useful.  My previous pyrometer was from Axner, it worked just fine except that you had to switch to C after 2000F.  Weird.  But, if you follow me on facebook you may already know that Axner/Laguna is on my shit list and I won't be doing business with them anymore.

Here is a shot of firing XI before unloading.  It was a VERY good firing.

I don't have great shots of the work but I'm doing some portfolio shots later this week so I'll get some of those up.

Yunomi and soup bowls.

 

 Platters/bowls from XI.  Check out that slab dish in the back, that piece was killer.  It's gone into the "permanent collection." 

I have a full bucket of this copper green glaze that I mixed up when I was in college, it's a recipe from Randy Johnston but at some point in time I lost the recipe.  I use it every once in awhile.  I'd never fired it in this kiln so I glazed a couple pots with it to see how it did.  Pretty nice I think.  I prefer it over a dark body because it darkens the glaze a bit.  This is nice but too bright for my tastes.  And I think it has a good amount of barium in it, not really my thing.

 Firing XII, this firing was every bit as good as XI.  I had a few experiments in here, most of which turned out well.  I have a new nuka glaze that I'm really excited about but discovered it only does its magic in certain parts of the kiln.  A good chunk of this kiln was for a wholesale order and most of the rest came out and went right into bins for the Texas Clay Festival.

This was my first year to get into the Texas Clay Festival and it was phenomenal.  The great thing about clay shows like this is that they draw a very specific crowd.  I have never had so many people in and out of my booth.  I was there alone this weekend and was busy the whole time.  I got there over an hour early on saturday so I could walk around and look at the rest of the work but there were already people in my booth and I was selling before the show even opened.  So I never really got around, if I did get a break it was to run and get some water or to the bathroom.  I also spotted the elusive Keith Kreeger and was able to corral him for a moment to snap a photo to prove that he is alive and working in Austin.

Cheers!