it smells like goat in here.

We have a couple of new family members. Lee(white) and Harvey(black) have become our new resident weed eaters. They like to sleep and lounge in my kiln...while that is kind of adorable I fear that it's not too safe. We'll see how this pans out.


Cheers!

procrastinating.

I came up to the studio today just to put these little handles on the covered jars pictured below. I'm supposed to be chopping wood for the upcoming firing but sitting around on a saturday listening to wait, wait... and cartalk on npr sounded much more enticing. To further the procrastination I decided to post some photos of some recently finished pots.

Detail of handle on jar...I really like fat handles.

Some small condiment bowls, or "guinomi" of you're a pottery elitist ;)


Some large casseroles.

Slip decoration as a base for further decoration later.

Mixing bowl, this was a new idea that was moderately successful.

Well...back to work.

Cheers!

full again.

The racks are nearly full again. I've already emptied these racks once, looks like I'll be doing it again soon. I've got a couple dozen pots under plastic for handling/trimming tomorrow and then this work cycle will be coming to an end. I'm sure I'll have some last minutes pieces being produced Kline style.


Here is a texture detail of a big platter I made the other day. I'm pretty pleased with this, it took nearly half an hour!

I'm running a special on shipping over in my etsy shop...you'll have to go look to find out what it is.

9:12pm...suppose I should go eat something.

Cheers!

myth busted.

This last weekend we had a customer in our showroom that made a comment about my mugs being heavy. I mumbled something about better heat retention and left it at that. So today for curiosities sake I decided to measure and weigh one of those standard straight sided mass produced coffee mugs.

Let me preface with this: my mugs are made from one pound of clay and then have an attached handle. After firing they vary in size and shape and hold about 12 oz give or take. After firing they weigh around 13 oz and the walls at the thickest are 3/16" thick.

The mass produced mug holds exactly 12 oz. The walls are consistently 1/4" thick and taper to 1/8" on the rim and it weighs exactly 1 pound. They have possibly the most uncomfortable handles known to man.

What is with this notion that thinner is better? Thin cups chip/break easier and they lose the heat/cold faster. Functional pots should function properly.

I'll leave it at that.

Cheers!

Elmer Taylor Workshop

Pottery workshop with UNT Professor of Art Elmer Taylor.
HSU Frost Center, Abilene, TX
Nov. 5th 10am-5pm.
Free for students
$5 for non-students.
Lunch provided but bring your own beverages.
RSVP @ bphillips@hsutx.edu


For more info on Elmer go here.

Cheers!

kiln shelves.

I recieved new kiln shelves for the university today. We ordered from Larkin Refractories, a place where I've gotten the majority of my kiln supplies since I left school. I ordered a bunch of their 12x24 "Fines Bonded" silicon carbide shelves many years ago(chinese imports)and I have been more than thrilled with them. 30+ salt firings, 15 wood firings, never flipped, never cracked, flat as when I bought them. In salt firings the salt just beads up(or foams up) on the surface and is easily scraped with a rub brick, never once had to use a grinder on these from the salt kiln. The salt and ash combo from the wood kiln can require the use of a grinder but it never takes away any of the shelf, they come out looking brand new. They are 1/2" thick and have relief cuts that are supposed to keep them from warping & cracking, in my experience it works. So at $45 each I thought they'd be fantastic for the school.

The new shelves come with a kiln wash already applied. It's powdery so I'll just scrub it off and apply my own...I don't like not knowing exactly what's on them(can someone say"control freak"?)


I've heard some rumors on clayart over the last couple years that these kiln shelves often show up slightly warped, I thought this may be a fluke since mine were fantastic. I don't know if Larkin changed the supplier or if the supplier changed their quality control but many of ours are warped. You can see in the photo below the gaps between the shelves as they rest up against eachother.

About 1/3 of these are warped enough to notice, but still much flatter than the shelves we use now. If they're anything like the shelves I use they shouldn't go any further out of shape. If I were a production potter making lots of flatware(plates) I probably wouldn't buy these shelves. On the other hand for student work, small work, or kilns where the pieces are wadded I think these are a great buy. Hopefully they're just as study as mine, they'll go into rotation real soon so I'll keep you posted.

Cheers!

lots of pots.

I haven't been making too many pots this last week which is okay considering I have nearly 500 pieces waiting to be fired. The next firing is set for early November...soon! I picked up a few loads of wood last weekend and will have a few more this weekend. I'm going to start cutting/chopping/sorting this week as well as getting the kiln ready. It's been sitting idle for six months so it'll be nice to get it going again.

I spent a good amount of time this last week doing glaze testing..about 35 tests. I fired them up with student work in the gas kiln and wouldn't you know there was a little oxidation pocket right on my glaze tests, geez. Fortunately I was looking more at the surface than color so it's not a big deal. I've been modifying my main ash glaze as well as a couple other glazes I have. They've not been coming out so well in my new kiln so I've been tweaking them to see which ones show promise and then I'll test a few of those in the next wood firing. I have a couple really nice new glaze ideas...I have the test pieces at home so no pictures yet.

Here are a bunch of pots I finished up this weekend. Baking dishes, mugs and large bowls.


Some large platter/bowls I made today...just for the heck of it. The biggest is 23".

This is a nice little cup one of my students picked up this last weekend at the Texas Clay Festival. It's by a fella named Patrick Veerkamp, if you've been a long time reader you know he is one of my favorites. This is a nice piece, a celadon over a crackle slip and soda fired. Similar to some work I'm doing right now.

That's all for now. Cheers!