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.  

Updates

A few weeks ago, I had pictures of the yummy pots that I'm making for Robyn.  Well, they have been bisque fired and glazed and they are ready for the next glaze fire.  I thought you'd like to see them in their present state.  

The one on the left should be yellow and the one on the right will be blue with some kind of purple at the top.  The glaze that I used at the top is one that really moves a lot, so I'm hoping for purple running down the sides of a blue pot.  We shall see.  

Do you remember the rectangular baker from a few weeks ago?  Well, it is completely done now.  

I was hoping for a little bit darker color on the glaze, but this isn't bad.  It did warp a little bit, so it doesn't sit exactly level on the counter.  That's how you know it was hand made, right?  For those of you who wanted to know how big it is, it ended up with about 9.5 by 11.5.  So if I do this again, what color(s) would you like to see?