Next weekend we will celebrate

Mark and I will be set up at the local show at the Luck's Cannery in Seagrove NC
Dates: November 17-19th
Opens Friday night: 6-9
Saturday: 9--5
Sunday: 10-4

Mark will have our shop open for regular hours on Friday and Saturday.
Not a crowd person, go out to the shops, many of them will be open.

Come out and bring your Christmas shopping list.
M

Tell me

would you give up a day or two to spend with family? We would and we did. We had to leave the pots glazed and unfired to go and take care of some family issues.
The bonus was time with love ones.

My mother tells me she is not getting any younger, and, yet, she is still sharp, quick witted and living in her own home. I could spend hours talking with her. It has always been this way with her and me. Even as a teen she was one of my favorite people to be around. I always wanted not to get along with her as a teen and just could not seem to find things to disagree on. Sure I was a messy teen, most are, but she was always my rock, still is.

Then the daughter and little Ms. MJ to spend time with. This is another female in my life that I find so easy to be with. Well, both of them, but at 2 plus the conversations with MJ are not real deep. She is quite a talker and we did build cities and knock them down a lot.

Time well spent.


Before we left I unloaded some tiles and was pleased with most of them. I had tried a white clay body last round and found the glazes looked washed without the warmth that I get with the red body. I still prefer this body and have crossed the white off the list.

Today we are loading Ms. B and I will get on some clean up while thinking about throwing.
We have our event coming up on the 13th and we need to think past that to the November show and Christmas orders.

I did make a number of these smaller tiles to hang. I am enjoying the quickness of them. They work great to fill in around the larger ones.

This one is about 7x7
I did a set of 3 that go together and now I am trying to decide if I want to just put the wooden hangers on them or frame them together.












And, can you stand a picture of little Miss.?

Cooking with Mom- apron made by Oma.

So, really, would you give up some time to be with family?
I would.
M

Glaze

January is zooming down the road for me. It was weeks back when I was glazing to make sure we had Allison's tiles out of the kiln. Her presentation for her Senior project was due on the 4th of January and that meant we had to fill up the rest of the electric kiln. We wanted to try the white cone 6 clay from Takuro over at Star. Mark and I both made tiles with the clay, and I wanted to use the same glazes I have been using on Red Stone to see how they reacted with the white clay body. Some of them I really liked. And others I like better on the Red Stone. I thought the red stone adds a warmth, which I am sure comes from the iron in the clay body. The small flat tiles are out of the clay from Star and the edge of one of the pillow pots is out of the red stone. I also put some thin black over the red glaze to warm it up. I like the greens in the background on the white clay but thought the red a little washed out looking. A few years back I was teaching over at the Community College in Troy NC. I was working with 11 students. I use the term lightly because the youngest was 19, but the majority were closer to my age. They were all taking a special studies semester. Some were concentrating on throwing, some on Raku ( Tracey would have been a great help! ) And I had one who wanted to learn about glaze. I spent time with each person and talked about what and how we would proceed through the semester. I had them write up what they wanted to accomplish. The women who wanted to learn about glazes came to ask if she could just tell me. I really wanted her to write it down and the she pulled me aside and told me that she spoke good English, but her writing would be in Korean. A bit of a snag since I did not read Korean. She then pulled out a few photos of her work and I found out she had a degree in Ceramics. Her work was wonderful, and I was ready to become her student. But she needed to know how to mix a glaze, this was the one thing she had not learned. She had brought along her books for us to use on glazes which I took one look at and closed. Here again was the problem the books were in Korean as well. Do you read English I asked? Yes, she said. Here is the way to the library go and check out as many books as you like on glazes and let's start there. She and I were able to find a good footing on glazes and throwing skills. And the benefit was there was another teacher teaching the afternoon class who was teaching just glazing. The one thing I kept telling the students was to find a clay body first and glazes second. Testing on one body will and can give you entirely different results. How are you going to fire I would ask them; will you be using the school body? If not bring in the body you will be using. Are you going to fire gas, electric, wood? Low fire- high fire. These are all things I wished were presented to me when I was a student. I know I came out of school with recipes and little knowledge on glazes. They are still a bit of a mystery to me at times. For the electric work and the tile project I decided I would use ready mix bought glazes. I just did not feel I had the time for all the testing along with everything else I had going on. I have found that I like some of these premixed glazes. They are formulated to brush on well and are for the most part very stable. I don't think I would ever do this with my gas kiln, but I like the ease of this for the tiles. There are whole palettes of colors out there and I have begun to realize it is what you do with them and sometimes it is okay to "cheat" a little.

Just be cool

You have heard the expression, "never wake a sleeping baby?'
That is how I feel when the big kiln is cooling.
We tend to walk around it the first 24 hours, tip toeing around, slipping past it's radiating heat with out so much as a glance in it's direction.
In other words, we ignore it completely for the first 24 hours.

I remember the early days when we would melt flashlights trying to see the results almost as soon as the burners were turned off.
We would look in the kiln with such anticipation and expectations.
Then we learned not to rush things. To give the kiln the time it takes to work a bit of magic on the glazes.
I am like the ball player who wears the same socks or shirt all season.
If we wait, it will all be good.
If we don't take any bricks out too fast...
You know the drill.
It is as if we have some control over the firing after it is done.

We all know that what is done is done.
The good will be good, the bad , bad and the so so - well so -so.

But tomorrow is day two.
The flashlights will come out.
Mark will sneak over and take a look and so will I.
Sometimes we find ourselves both at the kiln, flashlights in hand, pulling a brick for a little look.
Fingers and toes crossed.
Tomorrow we peek.

those pillow pots

I posted these up on facebook the other day.
So apologies if you have already seen them!

I was pleased with how they came out of the kiln.

I had one favorite, the red flowers with yellow background, which ran and stuck to the kiln shelf.
I like it well enough that I just might keep it for awhile.


I have it sitting with some pots and it will hang okay.

I used cone 6 glazes on these and fired to just below a true 6.

This is a highwater clay body, red stone. It does not like to fire all the way to 6 so I keep it around 2185degrees- this hit about 2195 degrees at the top and 2181 at the bottom.
I have some cone 6 glazes which prefer to get a little hotter or soak a bit more.

I might separate those glazes from the tiles and pillow pots. I ended up with several flat bowls and trays which I would like to refire.
This was also the first firing in the new fancy computer kiln.
We both thought it did pretty well for the first glaze fire.
And I know the pictures are not great- so more apologies!
I hope you don't go blind from looking!

Tile

This past year has been one of change. The NCPC- the fire and the joining together of many of the local potters to have a show in November.
Mark and I will be showing along with our fellow potters at "The Celebration of Seagrove Potters".

One of the events is a Friday night Gala.

Cheese and wine- early preview and first choice at the potter's wares.

Also, we are having an auction of collaborative works. I was asked to make a tile to go in what will become a larger piece grouped with tiles made by other female Potters:
Bonnie Burns of Great White Oak Gallery
Laura Avery of Avery Pottery and Tileworks
Susan Smith of Smith Pottery
Samantha Henneke of Bulldog Pottery
Alexa Modderno of Seagrove Stoneware
Stephanie Martin of Dean and Martin Pottery
Carol Gentithes of Johnston and Gentithes ART Pottery
Sheila Ray of Ray Pottery

The theme is new beginnings- rebirth- something along that line.
I had just finished looking at pictures of the work area after the fire.
And then pictures of the cleaned areas.
This tile represents how I felt at that time. The outer part of the tile is the chaos of the fire and the inner part is the will to go on- to take wing and fly again.
So there you go- I hope to see you at our Celebration in November.

Mark your Calendars for the week-end before Thanksgiving.

M