A Pottery Miracle And A Possible Haunting

The challenge for this week was to see if I could throw while standing up.  Allen's wheel (and it will always be Allen's wheel to me) is raised on a platform.  It's also on the other side of the studio space from where I normally work.  I decided to try throwing over there to see if standing would be a little bit easier on my lower back.  I can also see the gallery from there.  When the chime on the door rings, all I have to do is look over to see who has come in the door.  From my usual spot, I have to get up and walk around the table to check the gallery.  I also found that side of the studio is a little bit cooler.  There is a big old air conditioner in the gallery that cools things off in there pretty quickly.  If I set up a fan in the doorway, I can get some of that cool air moving toward me which is pretty important in July.  

The answer is, yes.  I can work standing at that wheel.  Woo hoo!  I have to tell you though that it did feel very strange at first.  I kept telling myself that Allen wouldn't mind.

Here's a picture of everything that I threw this week.  Four utensil holders, eight mugs, two casseroles, and eighteen (yes, 18) soup bowls. I worked really hard this week!

Notice those white bowls in the picture?  I made them all on Saturday.  There are fourteen of them.  Each started with a two pound ball of clay.  I made the bowls and set them outside in the sun to dry. After a bit, I cut them off the bats and flipped them over to let the bottom dry a little. Then there was a little bit of trimming and handles added.  Five hours later, finished!  Ugh.  WHY did I think that was a good idea?  Because it is fun to throw, that's why.  By the end, I was pretty tired of soup bowls.  

Those are magical soup bowls too, by the way.  I used one bag of clay.  There are two bags in a box, each box of clay weighs fifty pounds, so each bag should be twenty-five pounds, right?  Well, I got fourteen bowls and handles out of one bag of clay.  There was even about a pound left over when I was done.  I'm thinking that I experienced a pottery miracle yesterday.  Either that or my scale is not very accurate.  

Speaking of strange things...several times in the past couple of weeks, the chime on the door to the gallery has rung but there's been no one there.  One evening this occurred multiple times followed by some noises in the back over by the kiln.  My two associates present at the time (who I shall not name) decided that it must be Allen expressing his displeasure about something.  Maybe he does mind that I've been using his wheel?  I love the idea of being haunted a little bit by Mr. Griffin.  In fact, I've kind of wished for it more than once over the past few months.  The other day when I was there alone and the door chime rang, I talked to him a little bit so he'd know that he is welcome there anytime.  Then I checked the battery in the door sensor.  It probably needs to be replaced.  :)

This was really a pretty big week.  On Monday, Jeff and I cleaned out and organized our garage - a major task since we only do this once about every ten to fifteen years.  In addition to moving things around so our extra refrigerator and wood stove had someplace to be other than the middle of the floor in the way and finding a new home for the three five gallon buckets of extra golf balls (I am not kidding), I found some pottery stuff that I had forgotten I had.  In that stuff were three bags of dry glaze mix.  Two of the bags had labels that were easy to read - ryoko cream and Randy's red.  Those are glazes that I know.  It will be interesting to see what they do when we test them.  We'd tried Randy's red before with disappointing results, but that was with the old kiln.  Maybe with the new kiln, it will be good.  The writing on the third bag was really faded.  I think it was "med mist." I have NO idea what that is.  Maybe Mediterranean mist? Can't wait to do testers on that one too.

This is the easy part - not tripping over the buckets while it soaks.

Ugh! Not my favorite thing to do.  Yes, I spilled it everywhere.

Speaking of pottery stuff in my garage...if you know anyone who would be interested in a seven cubic foot L&L electric kiln, let me know.  I've got an extra one of those too.  This kiln would be perfect for someone working in a home studio, but is too small for my needs now.  It is in excellent condition - never been fired actually - and has two full shelves and four half shelves that come with it.  I took the posts to the studio to use, but I would be willing to include those too if someone wanted to purchase.