February 2022

 It's February!

January was filled with much snow and difficult situations that we will just chalk up to Mercury.  One step forward 3 steps back. Mak and I are now working on our own parts of filling kilns. He is on the wheel while I am glazing tiles.

There is a lot of time to think while one is glazing.

Maybe too much time. These pasts few years have us all in a place where we are evaluating what is important to us. Silly us we had plans to travel. Now, who knows? We still find ways to get away it just doesn't include planes and rental cars, at least not right now. Maybe later in this year. One can hope.

We are still open by appointment only for now, mask required. You can reach us through email or call. If you call, leave a message and we will call you back as long as you don't want to sell us anything. 

Stay safe and warm,

M

The mess

A quick picture of the mess of the glaze.
We are almost ready to load the kiln but I am teaching tomorrow so, we will load on friday.
Is it really, really the down hill slope of 2017?
Hold on!
M

Ms. B makes Queen of the day

Ms. B is in

And fired!
Stay tune for pictures tomorrow.
Fingers crossed!

Ms. B in action

We just loaded and fired Ms. B this week. We are finding a better footing with this new, small kiln.  There are still some kinks in the bottom of the kln, but nothing like the, tossing of glaze off the pots onto the shelf, that we had in the last firing.
The bottom shelf is still colder than we want it to be but we are working out this glaze that fires a bit lower with a top glaze on it that is more in the cone 7 range,
Considering that most of the kiln reaches a good cone 10, or, at least a good nine, we are puzzled over that bottom shelf.
I guess that will stay a mystery for now.
Pictures:

Not bad overall.
Now to get these off to new homes.

Ms. B

Mark fired Ms. B again this past week and I finished up a glaze load of tiles.

We will be at Luck's Bean Cannery in Seagrove this coming up week-end, for the Celebration of Seagrove Potters.

Come on out for some Christmas shopping before the family comes next week for Turkey and all the fixings.

 See you there!
M&M

And, when she's good...

she's very, very good.
There is a learning curve with any kiln and I think that we are back on the correct path with this one.
Much happier.

Let's do it again!

Spring

is coming.

Happy Spring.
M

There will be mud

 Yes, there is mud.
But, not the good kind, not the kind that we like to toss on the wheel. There is the slippery mud. The good old Carolina red mud.
When we get the out of state visitors in the store they will ask us if the red mud that they see everywhere is the same mud we make our pottery from.
The short answer is no.
That red clay that you see is good for one thing and one thing only, it likes to cake to the bottom of your shoes or tires and let you just "carry" it with you to the house or to the road. When bringing that wonderful Carolina red "mud" into the house it will then make its way into the rest of your life.
If you don't leave those shoes at the door, you can have Carolina red floors, rugs, furniture, just about everything it comes in contact with.

Do we make pottery from mud.
No, we make pottery from clay.
And, clay is not mud.

  From Wikipedia:

Clay is a fine-grained natural rock or soil material that combines one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Clays are plastic due to their water content and become hard, brittle and non–plastic upon drying or firing. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure. Depending on the content of the soil, clay can appear in various colors, from white to dull gray or brown to a deep orange-red.

Yes, I know the real information is not interesting to all of the people that like to think we just dig up our back yards in order to make things. For the most part we do not dig up our yards, but if we could, would we?

There is a lot of work that goes into creating a good clay body. If you are one of those lucky folks that stumbles on a bed of clay that is perfect for throwing and firing you are a very lucky person indeed.
Most clays need something else added to make them work.

Mark and I use a high quality commercial blend, that works for us.
There are potters today who are experimenting with local or native clay in their areas.
We are of the mind that this is one of those steps that we don't want to do.
We also know  many of the children of  the older generation of potters. Many of those people had the job of digging and processing the clay for the family business. They use to tell me about how hard the work was and that they would rather eat off a paper plate. It made me laugh, still does.

At school we mix our clay.
I spend at least twice a week with the help of my work study student processing clay for the classes.
It is an interesting job. It has made me think about the clay I use at home and the clay I make at school.
I think it is good to have to at least learn how to mix a clay body,  knowing what it needs to do, and learning about all the things that you want it to do.
Does it make me want to mix our own here?
No.

I'm too busy keeping that mud out of my house.

Spring is coming, it has to.

For most of us

 we don't really have to worry about winter. We are the people who like to watch winter on the news. Oh, look, we like to say smugly to one another, snow. I am so happy they have it and not me.
 Watch out what you say, make those words sweet, winter is listening.
As soon as they reach the tip of your tongue you need to swallow them back down, DON"T say a word, don't even think about it.

Snow has come our way again this week, with promise of more.
Is this a problem?
I am trying to make it a non-issue by not fretting about not being able to get to school once again. I was up, showered, dressed, lunch packed when the snow started.
So what to do when you plan to go away and then find out you are staying.
First thing is enjoy that cup of coffee.

 Then make a plan.
Or, try to make a plan.
Last week my plan was tiles.
In order to get these made, carved and finished for dying, I need more than one day. It takes one day to roll, one day to start setting up, one day to lay out designs, one day to carve and one day to finish them enough to leave them alone.
That is 5 one days.
If I am going to teach, I have to plan this for when I know I have 5 days, even if that means that Sunday, before I work on Monday, is one of those days.

To your left, a blank

 To your right, a cut out of the tiles.

I like the 6x6, but I like the fun of leaving  some of the tiles with that natural roundness that happens as I am rolling.

I have a number of patterns that I use 8x8,6x6,4x4.

I try to get as much goodness as I can out of the space, but that is not always possible. I use to make many small items from the leftovers, but now that eats into my days, so I don't.

Mark is staying on the wheel as he adds to his pile of production pots.
Oil lamps, bowls, and pitchers are flying off the wheel on the other side of the room.

I love a good pitcher.
There was a discussion the other day asking if any one still needs a pitcher, or if people still use pitchers.
I started thinking about how I use them; water my plants, water my guest, flowers, gravy, maple syrup, melted butter, oil, salad dressing...
 just to name a few.
How about you, do you have a favorite way to use all those pitchers? Tell me, I need to know.



A public service notice from Mark.
Happy 24 days people, 24 days, just hold on.

Yes, there are times

that no matter what you do work can take a detour.
There are many times that work just clicks along, we all love that don't we?
You clock in, work, have lunch, work, take a break , work and go home.

Then there are times that no matter what the plan is a roadblock is put in place. When this happens there is nothing, nothing you can do but go with it.
In repairing the broken wire in the box below the ceramic piece, just like the one that you see on top, broke in half.
There is nothing to be done but order a new one.
This means that the kiln that was going to fire last week, which was moved to fire this week, has now been moved to the wait stage while we wait for the parts.

If only the local wally world carried kiln parts....

The only thing to do is go back to the wheel.
The wheel is always there just waiting for some clay to be tossed at it.
So while we wait we throw.

 I am working on an order for a customer that wants a jar to hold her weekly oatmeal. It needs to hold 7 days of oats at 1/2 cup for each day.
( Look Mom, math!)

This one is a tad bigger with a larger opening to get into the jar with a 1/2 cup measure.
I made 3 and I hope that one will be perfect.

To go with the jar will be a garlic jar.
The first one had a wiggle in it that I needed to cut off making it too small. The middle one is a good shape but maybe too narrow in the opening, the last one has a larger opening and I think is just right.

Mark was shut out  of his firing this week by weather and he was helping me by doing the repair on my kiln.
Today would have been the best day to fire Ms. B. but....... because we have some other things that we need to get done this week and weekend we have moved her to next week as well.

He is no slacker and hit the wheel as well.

After all there can never be too many pots in the bisque bank.

Hopefully we will be showing you some fired results next week.
I am all for things turning around.
M

Gallery snaps

One of the things that I do for customers is to do a little shopping for them. I have folks that email or call when they need a gift.
In cases like that I get to go shopping in the store for them.

I pick a selection of pots, snap some picture and then let the customer decide what they would like to ship off as a gift.
It can be fun and a bit of a challenge to come up with something that works for them.
I thought this 2 pound pitcher was so sweet, with lots of great drips running down the sides.

This went back on the shelf to wait for someone to come find it one day.

Two other choices I picked out to suggest were the vase and jar below.
They would both be useful and beautiful.
The lid has some great detail on the top of it and a hit of glass to set it all off.

I figure you can remove the lid if you want to fill it with flowers.
Or, you can fill the jar up with whatever your heart desires.
Usually when I send pictures I make sure that I have removed the price tags.

Then I see a little whoops on the bottom side of the vase.
Whoops.... my bad.

 We are waiting for some winter weather to head our way tomorrow.
Cold, wet and possible snow.
I have been thinking about the many people that have been hit with this wild, wet, cold, winter we are having.
I feel lucky that I don't have to worry about going out in it,that my job is close to the house.

We will be layering up.
Stay warm!
M

No, it's not you.

It's me.

Mark and I loaded the kiln and fired this past week and then we made a decision that we would take a mental vacation.
There are so many things that pull us right back to the studio that there are times that I feel we have to put breathing on our list of things to do.

Instead we decided that we would do some much needed things that we all find mundane.
First on the list was a house cleaning.
I know- yawn, but it was clean the house on just give in and let the spiders take over.

Second was bookwork.
Yawn.... double yawn.
But- if these are in order it will make my life easier at tax time.

Third- lunch with Tracey!
No yawns, we had a blast seeing each other and gabbing away and eating at the new eatery in Asheboro that could become my second home.

Now if you have stayed with me here are the pictures of the kiln.

back

middle

front

Jars, Meredith

a favorite jar....

Picture with a fancy a** handle

I want to thank the many folks that tell me they still come here to read and look at our work.
We will be back to the wheels next week, but not before Mark and our son have taken many of the fish out of the pond today.

Teach a boy to fish and he will come home and take you with him.

M