You Really Can't Find Good Help

Poor Lady dog has been very annoying the last couple of days.  Mostly she is a laid back doggy, but she's been really needy recently.  Jeff has been sick with a really bad cold and I think that she's been concerned because he obviously didn't feel good.  This also means that she hasn't gotten to go on a walk in a while which also might contribute to the neediness of her doggy self.  

I brought her to the studio with me today so that Jeff could sleep.  She H-A-T-E-S the studio.  The only thing more rotten than a second straight day of nothing but glazing is the second straight day of glazing with a whining dog.  

As far as she is concerned, the only upside to the trip was when some people came to visit her.  Please note the blurry, wagging tail.  To you and me, these folks look like customers shopping in the gallery.  To Lady they were obviously there to see her and help her break out of prison.  

Yes - a second straight day of glazing.  I glazed all day yesterday except for when I was waiting on customers.  We had GREAT business yesterday for Small Business Saturday, so I got interrupted a lot.  I also had a ton of things to glaze, so I don't know that I would have gotten finished even if I had been there all alone with no distractions.  Don't misunderstand please.  I will always be happy to be interrupted by people stopping in my gallery to shop.  I was also really happy to get to spend a good part of my afternoon with Gail and her lovely daughter Sara.  It's always fun when Sara visits us.

I went back in today actually just to move the unfinished things out of the way so that Lisa and Gail could work this week, but there are things that I am trying hard to get finished so that I can get Hannah some new things for the coffee shop as soon as possible.  I decided to just suck it up and finish the glazing.  Then I decided to suck it up and go ahead and load the kiln as much as I could.  I'm about 2 shelves short of a full load, so as soon as Lisa and Gail get their glazing done, I'll have a glaze fire.  Stay tuned for pictures of new things soon.  Fingers crossed that all those darn ornaments I've made turn out OK.  Also remind me next year how much I hate making ornaments.  

Small Business Saturday!

Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday.  Please where ever you are, shop with your local small businesses.

I got the place all decorated for Christmas today.  

 

I have to give my mom credit for the decorations.  Without her help, I would have nothing, and that would be sad. The kiln god looks spiffy in his Santa hat, doesn't he?  That is the one decoration that I didn't need Mom to help me with.  Correction.  She was there to call 911 if I fell off the ladder.  All the rest was all her doing.  She gave me advice on what to buy, helped me fancy up the wreaths, made all the bows, and then came over and helped me get it put up.  She even told me it was OK when I managed to accidentally pull the window trim down.  You knew there had to be some sort of struggle, didn't you?

Allen always came in and decorated the Friday after Thanksgiving, so that is what I planned to do.  It was very strange to be doing it myself this year.  Other things that I've done with out him have made me sad.  This time though it was just weird. Maybe because I never helped him decorate, so I don't have those memories.  Or maybe it was just weird because it was 70-something degrees today and I was hanging garland and attaching bows.  Weird weird weird.  

Santa says, "Shop small on Saturday!"

Allen's Pots

Aren't these mugs amazing?

As you know, Ron Philbeck fired the last of Allen's pottery for me a few weeks ago.  Since then, I've sort of been holding them so that the appropriate people got a chance to see them before I put them in our gallery to sell.  I have priced them now, so they will be in the gallery soon.  

Here's a close up of one of those face mugs...

This one must have gotten a blast of soda right in the face. Look how shiny and almost metallic the finish is!  I think it's beautiful.  

There are pitchers...

This one is interesting.  That is a GREEN glaze on the rim, but in that one spot, it turned red. So cool.  I really wanted to buy that one myself, but I've got several Allen pitchers.  At some point one has to say, "I have enough pitchers." 

There are some cool lidded jars...

Each is lined with a different glaze. There was a green one (inside it turned purple), a blue one, a brown one, and a tan one. 

There are some smaller cups...

This is a shape that is very different from what Allen's cups usually look like.  They are almost delicate.  The glazing is probably not what he would have done, but I did the best that I could.  

There are these...

I don't know what he had in mind for these.  They could be really deep baking dishes.  I think they would look wonderful with a plant in them.  

There are some more normal sized baking dishes too, but none of the pictures of them came out all that great. This one shows a few of them.

One last picture of the tea pot...beautiful!

I will probably have these ready to move to the gallery by the end of the week, so if you are interested in owning one or more, you should stop by soon.  

Something New

Earlier this week, I was invited to be a guest on Art Works, a broadcast production of Cleveland Community College. This is a show about art and artists in Cleveland County. Having never done a TV interview before, I really wasn't sure what to expect, but it was fun.  If you would like to watch the show, it will be broadcast later this week on cable channel C-19.  For those of you who are not Time Warner Cable customers, you can catch the show streaming on the Cleveland Community College website.  A link is provided below if you are interested.

Art Works - Susan Jones, Nov 14

Other Things

I don't think that I mentioned here that the kiln chose the weekend right before the pottery show to malfunction.  After determining that the problem was most likely a bad relay (the top two elements weren't heating but the others were) and getting some advice from David Snyder the Kiln Dr, I decided to try to fix it myself.

I'd run across a relay in a drawer that had this piece of tape on it. Here the tape is on my jeans where I stuck it after removing it from the relay. I almost kept it.

What I think probably happened is back in August of 2014, Allen had David come out and replace all the relays in the kiln at once.  The two that were still working at the time, got stuck in the drawer for a time when we needed to do a switch later on.

Being very careful to take one wire off the bad component and put it on the new one exactly the same way, I did the switch.  Then I tested the elements and found them all to be heating like they should be. Success!

I reloaded all the pots and fired it again Friday night.  Today was unload day. 

I was so relieved to see this big platter on the top shelf. It looked absolutely awful before and I was afraid it was ruined.  This is the big platter that I showed a few weeks ago when it was still on the wheel.  I could not be happier about how it turned out.  I didn't kill it!!!

There were lots of other things that I'm happy with too...

I have to say, I'm pretty proud.  Changing out a relay isn't all that hard to do after all.  Once again, I have Allen to thank for setting me up to be successful.  

Soda Fire

I finally had time to check out each of the pots from the soda fire at Ron Philbeck's.  Boxes are unpacked.  The bottoms are checked for rough places and sanded where appropriate.  Close up pictures are taken...and now shared.

Here's some tallish things.

Doppler effect mugs.  When the glaze runs down, they appear less Doppler effect-y to me.  Still ok for mugs.

And some more mugs.  These are shorter and wider than I normally make.

Bowls.

Small lidded bowls.

Small lidded jars.

My favorite casserole from this firing.  Has super cool shiny look on the outside and a wonderful cobalt blue liner glaze. I might have to keep this one. Did a "test drive" last night and it cooks 7-Layer Dip pretty well.

Here's a not so good shot of the other casserole.  Believe it or not, that liner glaze is GREEN. It's an interesting green...goes kind of purple in places.  Almost all the pieces where I used this glaze as a liner came out purpleish instead of green.  It's green on the outsides.

Here's a shot of the outside of those 2 dishes.  Look how different.  The one on the left is made of Wonder White clay and the one on the right is Phoenix.  The different clay bodies produced completely different looks.

All in all, I am very pleased with my results.

I'll share some pictures of Allen's pieces later.  There are people who need to see them in person first.  You can expect more after next weekend probably.

Sneak Peak of the Soda Fire

There will be more details that I'll share later, but I can't stand it.  I have to show these off NOW. Just look at the pretty pots!  Pots in the foreground are mine, the ones in the background are Ron's, and there are a few Allen pieces in the middle. 

Ron fired his kiln late last week.  Jeff and I went over Sunday afternoon to unload. I am so pleased.  Plus, have I mentioned lately what a nice guy Ron Philbeck is?  No?  Shame on me.  Really though, I am so grateful to him.

First row of shelves...

Unloading. 

Remind me next time to wear more flattering pants if I am going to be photographed from behind.  Ugh.  

Last row of shelves...Can you tell that the pitcher on the upper right is trying to leap to its death? Glad it didn't jump.  That one's mine.

Crawling in is encouraged and makes reaching those back shelves easier.  It's a BIG kiln if I fit in there. 

Here's another shot of a bunch of things.  This table is full of Allen and Susan pots.

There's still a little bit of work to be done to some of the pots.  A few need a little bit of sanding to take care of rough spots on the bottom.  When I do that later this week, I'll work on getting some close ups.  There are some really cool pieces.  

Post-Festival Crash

In a perfect world or at least one where I'm not working 1.5 full time jobs in addition to trying to make a go of this pottery thing, I would have written a blog post BEFORE the show.  Alas, that is not the world that I live in right now.

The Carolina Pottery Festival was yesterday.  If you have never been to this pottery show, you should make plans for next year.  It will be the first Saturday in November, and it is worth making the trip.  Amazing pottery everywhere you look in the beautiful LeGrand Center in Shelby.  As far as I could tell, everything went really well.  Here are some shots of my booth.

A few years ago, I was asked to join the board of directors for this show.  I have the privilege of working with Bobbie Black, Vicki Gill, Hal Dedmon, Vicki Halloran, John King, Robert Martin and Ronnie Blackburn.  They are wonderful people - every one of them.  We started at about 10:30 on Friday and worked hard to get things ready for all the potters.  I am also grateful to our spouses and friends who jump right in and help out where they can.  If I try to mention everyone by name, I'll leave someone out.  Y'all do need to know that my friend Heather has flown to NC from California the last two years to help us with set up.  I am a lucky, lucky girl.

Speaking of lucky, my birthday was Friday.  Normally I try to keep that on the down low.  I really don't like people to make a fuss.  Well, somehow word got out and a fuss was made.  They had a cake for me when we went to lunch.  There was singing. I think everyone in the restaurant joined in. Very touching.  Here's a picture of my cake.  You will notice that it was appropriately chocolate.  It was also delicious.

Today is recovery day.  So far, I've unpacked and repacked boxes of pots. I've returned the shelves to the storage closet at the studio and the empty boxes, the chairs, and other stuff to the utility building here at the house. I am now very ready for a nap.  So tired.  Honestly how can I be this tired?  

In a few minutes, I'm going in to town to put pots out.  Some will go to Buffalo Creek Gallery.  (Our Holiday Open House is Thursday, Nov 10. There will be food.  There will be art.  There will be charming artists to meet.)  Some of the pots will go back in the gallery at A Griffin Pottery Associates. (We are open this fall Tuesday - 12-4 pm, Thursday - 12-6 pm, Friday - 1:30-5 pm, and Saturday - 10am to 2 pm.)  You can still get a very nice Susan Jones Pottery original if you didn't get to come to the LeGrand Center yesterday.  

After lunch I'm headed out to Ron Philbeck's to unload the kiln. You can expect more pictures of those things soon. 

I might need a recovery day to recover from my recover day.  Did I mention that I am exhausted?