Good Bye, 2017

Happy New Year, everyone.  

OK.  Can I be done with that now?  I really do not enjoy the whole New Year's Eve, New Year's Day celebration thing.  Staying up past 9:30 or 10 pm is no longer my idea of a good time and New Year's Day is always the last day of vacation.  I am about to enter into that difficult couple of weeks where I'm not yet done with Fall classes because I teach at one of the high schools, and at the same time, Spring classes are getting started because I teach on our campus.  It is cold.  I don't like cold.  Bleh.  

Lots of people look back over the last year to remember the things that were joyous or difficult or of which they are particularly proud.  Right now, all I can think about is how I didn't get around to calling the repair man about the refrigerator.  Meant to do that for when I was out of work.  The house still isn't clean.  Jeff is going to take offense to that.  He vacuumed for me yesterday which I very much appreciate.  However, the bathrooms didn't get cleaned and the window treatments in our bedroom and bathroom are very dusty.  My house plants are all ailing and puny.  I only took one nap the whole time I was off.  Sad.

They look forward to great, exciting things for the new year.  Me? I am not sure how I'm going to get ready for Treasures of the Earth the first week of February.  That's only one month away now.  Eeek!  I wonder when I might hear if I got in the Catawba Valley Pottery Festival in Hickory in March.  If I'm accepted, how in the world am I going to get ready for that one too?  Oh yeah, I've got a huge teaching load again this semester too.  That will be fun. 

See why I don't like New Year's?  

OK.  Let me see if I can put a more positive spin on things for the rest of this.  Sorry for being so blah.  

Looking back at the last year...

I paid all the bills.  Seriously, this is a big deal to me. There is enough money coming in from sales, commissions, and studio fees, that I have rent and utility money every month and money for the other expenses that come up (toilet paper, paper towels, glaze, shopping bags, ant spray, etc.). When I started this adventure 19 or 20 months ago, I wasn't sure I would be able to do this.

Vicki Halloran came back.  Those of you who know Vicki understand why this is such a big deal.  Additionally, Vicki was there from the very beginning of my pottery adventure.  When I was brand new, if Allen wasn't there, Vicki was to help me figure out how to do things.  The first mug that I made all by myself that was actually large enough to drink from I made on a Saturday morning when Allen was out of town for something.  I still remember Vicki giving advice from her wheel just to my left.  I didn't realize how much I missed her the last few years while she's been absent.  We've had some great fun together at 302 South Lafayette St and a few other locations too.

I finished out 2017 doing some pretty cool things in the studio.  

This monster survived the bisque fire and is ready to glaze.  The customer who ordered it stopped by the other day when I was there.  She just wanted to check the progress.  She is delighted with how things are going.  We discussed glaze colors, but I need to check in with her because I don't remember if we made a decision or not.  I really need to make another one or two of these.  Ladle included - although I haven't gotten my head wrapped around how I'm going to fire that ladle.  It will involve two levels of shelves and stilts I think.  Should be a fun challenge, right? 

I made another rectangular baking dish.  Did the handles differently this time around.  

This is another smaller casserole. It's kind of oval shaped instead of round.  I should mention that I did that on purpose. Sometimes things are not round because they are just badly off center.  Sometimes things start out round and then I alter them.

After I made honey pots a few weeks ago, I have been looking forward to trying garlic keepers.  It's the same basic lidded jar but instead of cutting a notch in the lid for a stick, I cut holes in the sides for air circulation.  

I start by lightly scoring a couple of lines on the piece so that I have a prayer of keeping the design even as I cut out holes.

Clearly I have improvement to make on the design.  Also I remember why I don't do holes more often.  What a pain!  Cutting them is kind of fun, but then there's all those inside edges that have to be cleaned up and smoothed out.

I made four of them.  Please note the one second from the left.  Yes, that is a sine wave pattern.  For that one, I scored a line for he maximum values, a line for the minimum values, and a mid-line. (Nerd)

 I worked on some mugs for Hannah's Coffee House. She got a stamp made for me with her logo on it.  This is my first attempt at using the stamp to put the logo on mugs.  I shall withhold judgement until they are fired I think.  I had some difficulty with getting even pressure all the way across the stamp.  Also this stamp really distorted the shape of the cup.  Mostly I could sort of fix that later, but it is still a little lumpier than I would like.  

Last and certainly least in the excitement category, I reclaimed 29.5 pounds of clay.  

It was cold and it sucked. 

I have another bucket full almost ready to go.  I guess that will be part of this week's work. 

Looking ahead to 2018...

I have a bucket of clay to reclaim.  Always a good time.  It will be cold.  It will suck. Perhaps I can find a cloudy, dreary day so that my misery can be complete while working on this chore.  Ha!

I have glazing to do.  There are three or four special orders that I hope to get completed in this glaze fire.  Money coming in for January.  Woo hoo!  I hope that I can get the glazing done so I can fire this weekend. That is probably a reasonable goal given the fact that I am back to work starting tomorrow.

The opening reception for Treasures of the Earth is Feb 8.  Set up will be Feb 6 I suppose.  I will have to check my teaching schedule to decide if that is even possible.  The 6th is a Tuesday, and I have kind of a heavy load on Tues/Thurs.  I might have to ask for permission to set up a different day this time.

The Catawba Valley Pottery Festival is Mar 23 and 24.  I am not sure if I am in that  or not, but for the time being, I am keeping that weekend blocked off.  In the happy coincidence category, Mar 23 happens to be a planning day for Cleveland County Schools, so I won't have to get a substitute for my two classes at Kings Mountain High.  I dreamed the other night, that I was turned down for this show, but I think that was just a dream.  I haven't gotten any correspondence yet from them.  If I get in, great.  If I don't, it's OK too.