Butter Dishes

One of the nice things about working in a studio with other potters is getting to use their stuff.  I'm using Ronnie's butter dish template here.  

Start with a slab and trace out as many butter dishes as will fit.  

 Smooth off the edges with a sponge, and apply any decoration.  I used a leaf from the yard in the picture above.  Sometimes I just decorate the edges of the dish with some texture.  

Place the flat butter dish on the foam textured side up.  Carefully position the wood block in the indention made by the template from the first step.  

Push down into the foam.  This causes the edges to curve upward around the block.  

These butter dishes are done and ready to dry.  

Remembering Things That I Used To Know

  

 Allen was working on some pots yesterday and I watched him make the lids.  I've done lids like this before, but it's been a long time and I had forgotten some of it.  Its always good to watch someone else throw.  Even when they are doing things I'm pretty comfortable with, I still pick up something new.  In this case, I was reminded of the steps in a relatively complicated process.

I decided to give it a try today.  The picture at the left shows the pot and the lid (before it is finished of course).  The perspective is a little weird, so I put the coffee cup in the picture to give you an idea how big it is.  The bottom was 4 pounds and the lid was about 1.5 pounds.



I realize now as I'm thinking about how to describe the process, that I need more pictures.  (Anyone want to guess what my next post will be?)

The lid is thrown upside down.  The flange will fit down inside the jar.  If I've measured correctly, it will be a snug fit.  Since I need to finish this tomorrow, I covered everything plastic so it wouldn't dry too much.  Since it poured rain all day today, the plastic probably was unnecessary, but better safe than sorry.

Tomorrow I'll try to get some pictures of the steps and of the "finished" piece.

Salt Fire

I've been in the studio almost every day for the past two weeks and it has been wonderful.  After not having  the time or energy to do much over the past couple of months, it is great to get back into it and find that I can still make stuff.  

I'm currently working on pieces for a salt fire.  Allen and I are taking some pieces over to Ron Philbeck's later this month to be fired with some of his work.  This is something new for us and I am SO EXCITED about trying this out.  The opportunity has also given me a goal to work toward and has been instrumental in getting me motivated to make pottery again. So THANKS to Ron for inviting us and to Allen for including me and making it possible for me to participate even though I am going to be out of town on the actual day of the firing.  More about that later...

Pictures of some of the things I've made for the salt fire are below.  There are also some mugs and napkin holders that I didn't get pictures of for this post.  I'm making lots of things of various sizes with the understanding that it might not all fit.  Anything that doesn't make it in will get glazed and fired in our studio later.  

Candle holder

Cookie jar or large canister (this might end up being too big)

Cream and sugar set

Small lidded bowl (that handle isn't as crooked as it looks)

Large lidded bowl 

Never Say Never

I am excited about what the glaze did on this candle holder.  I used a combination that I've used before - white covered by blue and then something called "textured burgundy" at the very top. (See the lidded casserole in a previous post.)  I like it because it runs down the sides of the pot as it fires.  I wasn't sure if the holes would cause the running glaze to speed up (running farther), slow down (not running as far), or it it would end up dripping off the pot and making a big mess. I'm still not sure if this was a speeding up or slowing down result, but I'm pretty sure there was no dripping.

If I had it to do over again, I'd flare the top of this piece out just a little bit.  Maybe not quite as much as the first candle holder (see the picture to the right), but I think it needs just a little something up there at the top.  I'm forgiving myself on this though because I'm so happy with the glaze.

This pair of mugs has the same glaze on the same clay body.  Without the holes, the look is pretty different.  Note how more of the white glaze is exposed as the burgundy and blue ran down.  There are a few places on the candle holder where the white is exposed but not as much as here.

This post is titled Never Say Never because I think I said that I'd never make another candle holder with the interlocking circles again.  They are a pain in the butt to make, but when they are done, I forget all that.  I threw another one yesterday and made sure to flare the top out some.  I will be cutting out the circles today.   In just a few hours, I am sure that I'll be swearing off candle holders once again.  

Finally!

In April of 2011, I shared a picture of a wheel and kiln that I'd bought.  Here we are two years later and I can finally report that I have now used my wheel!

A space opened up in the studio and Allen gave me the go ahead to bring my wheel.  Jeff and I moved it in on Saturday morning and I promptly got to work.  I have to confess that I was a little bit worried that I wouldn't be able to throw on this wheel.  It is very different from the one I'd gotten used to using.  

I guess I did not need to be worried.  I managed to make several things that morning.  Looking at this picture reminds me that I had a bowl to trim.  Ooops!  I haven't done that yet.  There have been a number of other things that have gotten in the way since Saturday and I haven't managed to get back over there.  I hope it hasn't dried out too much.  Yikes!  

Finished pieces

Here are the finished Yummy Pots.  I'm taking them over to Robyn tomorrow to see how I did on the size.  If I managed to get this right, I'll be making more of these.  I LIKE them!  

And the lidded casserole that I made a few weeks ago turned out nice too!  

I Love Recycling...

I've recently learned how to "reclaim clay."  (OK, I confess that I'm not sure that I spelled that correctly.)  What does that mean?  Put simply, reclaiming clay is the process of taking scraps, adding a whole lot of elbow grease, and making usable clay.

Without getting too technical, here's how it works:  We all dump our scraps into a bucket.  Periodically someone adds water to soften everything up and holes are poked if needed so that everything really breaks down into kind of a slime.  (It's delightful really--especially in winter when it is cold slime.)  When the clay is pretty consistently slimy, it is ready to go.  I recommend working it up when the bucket is about half full.  Trust me, you do not want to do more than about half a bucket at once.  Dry clay is added and it all gets stirred around until it looks more or less like what you see in the picture below.  Notice that this looks like more than half a bucket.  It grows when you add the dry clay to it.

Now the real work begins.  Pull up your sleeves because it is going to get messy.  Pull out about 3 or 4 pounds of the mess and wedge it in more dry clay until it is kind of crumbly.  Then move to the pounding board and wedge until all the dry clay is worked in, some of the moisture is worked out, and the entire lump of clay is still soft but is no longer too mushy.  (You love this super technical language that I use, right?)  The softer the lump, the more wedging it takes.  Repeat over and over until the bucket is empty.  Periodic rest breaks are permitted. When I finished with this bucket, I had 47 pounds of clay, my arms were sore, and I'd sweated through my t-shirt.  

Then the clay is sealed up in plastic bags and stored for a couple of weeks before it is ready to use.  Even after all this work, there may be parts of the clay that are more firm than others.  Sealing it all up in plastic allows the moisture from the softer parts to transfer to the harder parts.  

I've done this twice now and this is my stash of reclaimed clay.  I think the bags on top should be ready to use now.  When I get back in the studio (have I mentioned how I am working too much this semester?), I will let you know how I like throwing reclaimed clay.