What's Been Happening This Week?

We fired another bisque last weekend, so this week involved a lot of glazing.  Seriously, it took me all week to get all my things glazed.  In a few weeks, my production is going to slow way down, but I've been cranking out the work lately.

The glaze shelves were full, so I loaded up a glaze fire on Saturday afternoon.

The  most important kiln loading tool that I have is this 2 by 4.  First I set up the posts that will hold up the next shelf.  Then, if the piece fits under the 2 by 4, it will fit under the shelf. No guessing.

Speaking of tools...Lisa asked the other day, "Is there a way to extrude a handle or two without having to use the big extruder?"  Why, yes.  Yes there is.  Here's a tiny handheld extruder.  I've never used it, but we've got it. She then decided that the piece she was working on didn't need handles.  Maybe I should give this a try to see how well it works.

I've been working with some cone 10 clay this past week.  Here are a couple of casseroles.

Small bowls with lids.  Really. These are small. This is a close-up.

Pitchers. These are relatively tall.

Here's my next project.  A customer came in on Saturday looking for a butter dish.  She described what she had in mind, and I know that Allen had made similar ones in the past, but we didn't have any in the gallery.  She wondered if she could bring hers in to see if I could make one like it.  I took a few pictures and measurements...

...and I stared on my first attempt before I left yesterday afternoon.  

The bowl on the right will be the lid. I'll turn it over, and trim it up and put a handle on the top.  That lid should fit snug on the tray.  I made the tray the same way that I would make a lid for a jar.  It's been a while since I made any lids with flanges like this, but it more less came back to me when I tried.

When these are leather hard, I'll check to make sure they fit and do any necessary trimming to make that happen.  Then I'll cut the bowl off the bat, trim it, and add the handle.  It's going to be really hot in the studio today because the kiln fired over night, but I might just have to go work on this.  I'm excited to see how it turns out! 

Cool Visitors This Week

I didn't get a chance to update this blog last weekend.  It was girls weekend in Chicago and there was no pottery involved.  It was a nice break and we had a wonderful time.  I came home excited about a city I'd never visited before, tired from not quite enough sleep, and a little sad that I don't get to spend time with Liz, Melanie, and Jenni more often. 

Here's some photographic evidence from our Chicago trip.  The Bean in Millennium Park is a must see if you visit this city.

We had tons of fun with the Bean!  The reflections are so cool.  

 

After I got back, I fired a glaze fire on Monday.  I had just a few pieces (ha!).  Didn't get any close ups of them.  What was I thinking?  Anyway, there are some new things at Buffalo Creek Gallery and in my gallery at A Griffin Pottery.  If you are in the area, come check them out!  

I know that I worked in the studio every day last week, but I cannot tell you what I did.  Definitely was not the productive week that I had a few weeks ago where I made all that stuff.  I guess some of what I did was get all those pots from before ready for a bisque fire.  Loaded that up yesterday, so I'll have things to work on glazing next week.  Yay, glazing!!

I made a few mugs...these are inspired by Sheldon's Doppler Effect costume from The Big Bang Theory.

Something bad happened to the mug below.  Rather than smash it and start over, I let it be a pitcher.  Might turn out cool.  Might not.  

I mentioned visitors in the title above and haven't said anything about my visitors.  Things have been very quiet this month at our studio.  I think its just been too hot for people to be out walking around Shelby.  However, due to our location (I LOVE being in Uptown Shelby), I have had the privilege of meeting several interesting people who have stopped in recently.  

A mother daughter pair stopped in one morning.  The mother of this pair is (struggling with how to say this) a very mature woman and the daughter is probably 20 to 25 years younger.  They are distant relatives of Mr. Black. (Our building is the old Black's Service Station. I don't remember Black's Service Station, but many others do.) The younger of the two ladies told me that she remembered a Co-cola (pronounced the good, southern way) machine in the office that is now the gallery.  Mr. Black would get her a Co-cola and then sit her up on top of the counter so that she could see what was going on. She told me that she thought that Mr. Black would approve of how the building is being used now.  About that time, the chime on the door rang.  Nobody there.  Guess that was Mr. Black saying "Hi" this time.  Or it was Allen saying "Thanks".

On Saturday, there were a few folks who stopped in while I was there working on things.  Two couples were from out of town and had come to Shelby to explore and get something yummy to eat.  My last visitors yesterday were from Florida. They were on the way from Charlotte where they'd been visiting some family to Asheville.  They saw my studio through the window while they enjoyed lunch at Bar Celona across the street. As we talked, I discovered that they both had worked at Wake Forest University.  Small world!  We had a wonderful conversation about how exciting it is that Shelby and other towns are experiencing revitalization of down town areas.  We also talked about what has changed on campus since I was a student there.

Another one of my out of town visitors this week told me that I was "very interesting".  This person is from Oregon. That's not really important except that her sister, who lives here, made a point to bring her to my place to see the pottery.  VERY cool.  It's kind of funny to me how surprised people are when I tell them that I am a full time math teacher.  When I say that I teach, often they assume that I teach art.  Ha!

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. 

I Did OK

I was so relieved to see that all four of these pitchers turned out OK.  These are very special and all of them have homes already.

In other news, I just finished up writing checks and such. The rent is paid for July and utilities are scheduled to be drafted. My associates are all paid (as soon as they pick up their checks) for their sales for the month of June.  Is it silly to feel a sense of accomplishment?  We've made it three months. Fingers crossed for the next three.

There were some other pieces that I want to show off from the last glaze fire...this happened back in June, but I was on vacation last week, so I haven't shared them yet. 

Leaf tray with white satin and oil spot.

Floating blue plate.  Kind of interesting that the blue sort of fades to brown in places.  I must have dipped pretty fast. The stripe is where the two dips overlapped.

Textured vase in falls creek shino and EP green.

A few of the next round of mugs to go to Hannah's Coffee House.  Tried something different with a little texture on these.  Not bad.