whoa...wait....that's not clay!

I'm back...but I'm not potting. I had these grand illusions of making a couple hundred pots before school started but the wife and I had a week of illness and some travelling to do. School starts monday and I've made 23 pots. Bummer. It will probably be awhile before I get back to the clay. I'm teaching a kiln building class this semester which I haven't completely sorted out yet, lots of out of class prep for that. One of the prof's in the art dept. is having surgery and they asked me if I could teach her art appreciation classes for the first 6 weeks. To be fair I didn't say yes out of the goodness of my heart, they offered me more $$$ for those 6 weeks than 6 weeks of my 3 ceramics classes. It's not terribly difficult, the presentations and schedule are already set up, I just have to lecture and take attendance. The class is a general ed. and it is the class that all the jocks...I mean athletic students take because it's notorious for being the easiest art credit. I've taught the class dealing with ceramics every semester since I've been here so I know what to expect, I'm sure it's going to be a test of my patience though. We'll call this one a "growing experience"...and a fat paycheck.

This week I started a job building some cabinets, it's not clay but I'm not complaining, I enjoy it. It's a small job for a little workshop, easy enough.


Woodworking/carpentry is full of problem solving just like clay, that's probably part of the reason I enjoy it. I will admit to part of me being the stereotypical male and enjoying working with power tools. Even after several years I still think that dado sets are cool.

When you don't have fancy clamps you have to improvise.

That's all for now. Monday starts the grueling 6 class teach schedule. Bleh!

Cheers!

the year in review.

2009 was a good year. In all I made 1200 finished pots with another 100 that are ready to be fired. Not too bad for part-timeish. So here is a quick recap of some of my favorite events.

I built a new kiln, 2.5 times bigger than my previous. It's a hoss, holds about 200 pots and fires like a dream. I fired it 5 times this year.


I built myself a treadle wheel, I've wanted one for years and now I have one, I rule.


I made a lot of pots.

I had a show with some of my favorite potters and sold a boatload of pots(not just mine) to our community. It was a ton of work and I had a 2 month period of burnout afterwards, but it was worth it.

We welcomed 2 new members to our clan and they made themselves right at home.

Here are 3 of my favorite pots from 2009.

We added a few pots to our cupboard this year from bloggers Hollis Engley, Ron Philbeck, Michael Kline, Sequoia Miller, Scott Cooper, and former blogger Kent Harris. We also snagged a few from non-bloggers, we're addicts.

Hoping for an even better 2010.

Cheers!

porcelain

I'm going to be mixing up a lot of porcelain this next week, about 1200#. It's about time for my fix I suppose. I'm really excited about this departure and I am excited to be able to spend a decent amount of time exploring it. I really enjoy working with porcelain and would probably do more with it but it doesn't do anything that interests me in the wood kiln...at the moment anyways. I'll be firing most of it in the gas kiln, I really enjoy a gestural surface with a clear glaze. I have done some work with a bold green and wax resist that was well received.

Here are a few pots from last year, not the best pieces but the only ones I could find photos of.

I have a few hundred pounds of stoneware to work through while the porcelain dries in the racks. I'm ready to get back to the wheel and back to work! I've had three out of six rejections so far for spring shows, my worst stats ever! Oh well...I hate art festivals anyways. I have less need to make pots now, though that doesn' mean I'll be making any less. Less deadlines means more exploration and better pots.

Cheers!

pots from firing V

Here are some pots from the firing. Overall I'm very pleased. Some of my glazes didn't behave as I had expected but they're still nice. Out of 229 pots I had 2 crack and 2 that need grinding...that's pretty darn good. I was hoping that the residual salt in the kiln would flash the bare areas a little but that didn't happen so some of the pots looked like they came straight out of a gas kiln.

I meant to take photos as I unloaded but once I got in the kiln it was the furthest thing from my mind. So here are a few of my favorites.

Shino teapot. I don't do much with shino, I love it like most potters do but it's a difficult glaze to master(and sell) so I only do a few pieces from time to time. There are tons of potters out there using shino but in my opinion there are less than 10 potters who have really mastered it. Shino is not just a glaze, it's a combination of glaze, clay, firing, phase of the moon, etc. It's easy to get a shino to get some nice color but to get real depth you have to pay attention to every detail of the materials and process. I'm really pleased with the glaze on this guy, I guess I got lucky.


Pitcher, Ame glaze.


Lidded jar with crackle slip.


Ash glazed teapot.


Butter Dish, Ame glaze.


Yunomi.


Small bowls. For those of you who don't know Abilene is the true windy city(windier than Chicago!) The guy on the left is a weed from out back yard blowing in the wind.


Mugs.


Cheers!

firing V photos.

I finished firing #5 today at about 5pm. It's been loaded for sometime now but has been dutifully waiting for it's turn to be fired. I had originally intended to fire it before our holiday sale but upon organizing the showroom I discovered that I didn't need those extra pots nor did I have room for them. I did however have an order that needed to come out so I went ahead and fired it off today.

The firing was a little more erratic than most. It fired unevenly most of the way and ended up with cone 10 down evenly on the bottom, 9 3/4 top-back, and 11 top-front. Since this firing wasn't meant to be salted I packed it tighter which I'm sure was the cause for the erratic behavior. It also used more wood, again I think because of the tighter packing, more pots=more thermal mass.

Firewood. The small stuff in front is for below the grates, up to about 14-1500 and then I begin stoking above the grates in conjunction with below until cone 08 falls and then it's just above the grates until the end.


Photo through the stokehole at about 600 degrees.


The pyrometer...a tool I've become way too dependent on, but certainly nice to have.


The passive damper is a feature on this kiln that I rarely use, usually only when the kiln is uneven. It's purpose it to reduce the drawing power of the chimney, the result is that it slows down the kiln and can make evening it out a bit easier. It has seven bricks in total but I've never pulled all 7. Since this firing was all glazed work I wanted to have at least 2 hours from cone 7 to cone 10, it usually flies through in about 50-60 minutes. So I pulled all 7 bricks and it slowed it to my desired rate. I've tried a number of different methods in the past to slow it down/soak it but nothing else works as effectively.


Cone 10 down. So hot you can barely see it.


Unloading on wednesday morning. This was something new and a big gamble, so I'm not keeping my hopes up too high. Hopefully there will be a few gems though.

Cheers!

pb&j

I just went and picked up a loaf of bread so I could have some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and iced tea for breakfast. Isn't that weird? Who does that? Maybe I'll tell you why tomorrow evening.

Cheers!

where yer osh-kosh's at?

Real potters wear overalls. I knew I've been missing something.

That took far too long for the small amount of humor involved. Back to the firewood.

Cheers!