On The Road Again

The last time I made egg separators, I noticed that they were all smiling at me.  I decided then that the next group would also get some eyes to go with those smiles. 

On Friday, I went to the Life Enrichment Center in Kings Mountain and did a presentation on pottery for the participants.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Life Enrichment Center is an adult day care center.  They provide care for adults (of all ages) who for various reasons are unable to be alone while their family members work.  I did a similar presentation at the Shelby facility back in November.  

This time I got smart and took hand trucks to make it easier to get my stuff inside.  

I took several pieces of finished work so I could talk about the different shapes and glazes.  I also took some tools and some pieces that were leather hard.  I showed them how a handle is attached to a mug and I cut out the mouths and put eyes on a couple of the egg separators pictured above. It always feels kind of weird to try to do a pottery demonstration with out a wheel since that's where I'm most comfortable and what I think is most interesting to watch.  But I guess things went ok.

Mugs are still a focus for me in the studio this week.  I think the weekly total ended up being 13.  Number 14 died a quick death when I threw it across the studio because I tried twice (unsuccessfully) to get a handle it. Sometimes you just have to pitch a little fit and then things get better.

I also sanded a lot of things I'd made in the past couple of weeks.  Bacon cookers, pie plates, cake plates, and various cups all got finished up and put in the bisque fire.  I try to do most of the smoothing out when pieces are still wet or leather hard , but sometimes a little steele wool is necessary.  Sanding pots kicks up a good bit of dust.  Dust is not good to breathe.  The mask is not my favorite thing, but I'm glad that I've got it for when it's needed.

One careless move when loading the kiln yesterday and I killed this big bowl.  If you whack the green ware with a 2 by 4, it will crack almost every time.  As disappointing as it is to break something, I'm just glad it was my piece and not someone else's.  That would have made me really sad.  It was a bummer though.  This bowl was pretty nice.  Looking on the bright side, it did give me a chance to check out the wall thickness.  I'm pretty pleased with what I found.  Certainly not perfect, but relatively even all around.  Go me!

A Few Mugs Latter

Here's some of what came out of the kiln this week.

Mugs!

Six of these will go to Buffalo Creek Gallery as soon as I can get myself organized to get over there.  The other six are for the gallery at A Griffin Pottery.  Two of them sold yesterday (yay!), so there are 4 left.

Some cups.  I have the hardest time carving the design in these.  There is no room for error and I don't feel particularly confident.  So far, I've not messed one up so badly that it had to be trashed.  I do need to make sure that the glaze stays down in the texture though. On a few of these, more wiped off than I meant to.

Leaf trays.

Utensil holders/vases. 

These are the last of the pieces that will have leaves on them until spring.  I particularly like the glaze on the one on the left and the leaf arrangement on the one on the right.

This utensil holder got a totally new design.  What do you think?  Do it again or no?

And here are some of the new things that I made this weekend.

More of those cups that my friends have called wine mugs.  Flowers (above) and something a little more abstract below.

I also made some cake plates (pictured below) and some pie plates (that I somehow neglected to get a picture of). 

The cake plates will be sized so that they will fit inside one of those Rubber Maid cake carriers.  I made one for Mom last year sometime and ever since have wished that I had one for myself.  I put rings on them to help the baker center the cake when turning it out.  If these turn out as nice as Mom's did, I'll try to make more.  They are hard though.  For me at least, flat things are difficult to do.

The Answer Is Eight

How many bisque fired mugs can I carry at once?  Eight. Four with each hand.  I know you wondered.

I turned around today after throwing the last piece I was going to make and saw this.

There's pottery on every work surface.  What on earth did I do?  That's all mine there.

On the right side, that's all my bisque ware waiting to be glazed.  I unloaded the kiln and figured that I might as well get ready to glaze.

Twenty mugs, eight "wine mugs", three trays, some soup bowls with cracker rims, and a couple of utensil/vase things - all waxed on the bottom. 

Then in the middle, four bacon cookers and six mugs.  All those were thrown a day or two ago and I put handles on them today. Bacon cookers are a pain in the butt.  I remember why I don't make them often. 

Then on the left, the new things that I threw today that will get finished (I hope) tomorrow.  

Two good sized bowls.  I decided to play around with some texture on these.  Haven't done that in a while. 

And how about some cups with feet?  These may not end up being any good, but I saw a picture of something similar recently and I like them.  Why not try, right?  

Here's a slightly different view of them.  What do you think?  

Slow Start

Christmas sales were amazing for us at A Griffin Pottery Associates this year. The day after Christmas I took down all the decorations and rearranged all the pots in the gallery.  A lot of Allen's work was sold, so I needed to consolidate his things and make some more room for Lisa, Gail, and Ronnie.  Jeff was a big help with this, and I think everyone was pleased overall with what I did. I think we did a pretty good job of reorganizing so that each potter's work is together and everyone has a pretty fair amount of space.  

In addition to having a lot of empty places on the gallery shelves, we were almost out of bags too.  I ordered new bags in the week after Christmas.  I probably spent too much money, but I'm excited about what we have now.  Yes.  I said it.  I'll say it again.  I'm excited about buying plastic bags.  They are pretty and they (almost) match the color of the building.  Come by and make a purchase and I'll send you home with one of the new pretty bags. 

Beyond those two things, it feels like I've gotten a very slow start to the new year in the studio. I've not been able to be there much, but here's a little bit of what I've worked on. After Christmas sales were all said and done, I only had 2 mugs left in the gallery at A Griffin Pottery Associates, I think there are 3 at Buffalo Creek Gallery, and there might be one left at Hannah's Coffee House.  More mugs are a definite priority right now.

On Dec 29, Jeff and I headed to Charlotte to visit the grand kids.  Lady got to go with us that trip.  We started out with a few hours in the studio before we headed that way.  She loved the visit with those three little people who adore her.  She didn't love the studio all that much.

We got smart and took a baby gate so we could keep her out of the gallery.  It's not that I think she would misbehave in the gallery and break things, but I'm sure that she would run out of the door the first time it was opened. The baby gate was much more effective than blocking the doorway with a rocking chair and buckets of glaze. 

After that, we spend a few days away visiting the family in Greensboro.  I got to meet my 2-month-old nephew Ewan.  That's pronounced "You-un."  Don't feel badly.  They had to tell me how to say it too.  How sad it is that he was 2 months old before I could get there to see him?  I knew that the fall was going to be busy, but I don't think I was really prepared for how crazy things were in November and December for me. Next year, I'll know what I'm getting into and maybe I won't be so freaked out by it all. 

 

Here's Ewan and 2-year-old big sister Fiona in the sweaters and hats that my mom knit for them. Too cute!  Go ahead.  You can say it.  Everyone is thinking it. Ewan is huge!  It looks like he's almost as big as his sister.

This gives a little bit better perspective.  Here's my brother Jack, Ewan, nephew Callum who is almost 13, sister-in-law Kelsey (yes, Callum is as tall as Kelsey now), and Fiona.

Mom and Dad with their three grandkids.

Lady got to go on this trip too.  This was her first overnight trip away from home.  She did great.

What's that you say?  This blog is supposed to be about pottery? The previous pictures are some of the explanation of why I haven't done much in the way of pottery lately.  We were out of town and then it was back to work for me.  This part of the school year is especially challenging because our spring courses at Cleveland Community College begin on Monday (no, I'm not ready yet) but our fall courses for those of us teaching at the high schools in our county don't end until Jan 20.  I have a substitute lined up EVERY SINGLE day next week because of the conflicts.  It is great fun.  (That was sarcasm.)

I did allow myself to spend a little time in the studio late Thursday afternoon.  I'm trying to maintain something resembling regular hours at the studio even though I completely overwhelmed at work and freaked out about it. These will be some more of those "wine mugs" that I tried out this fall.

  

I worked on the designs on Friday.

Two sets of 4 cups.  A little bit of an abstract design on all of them.  The design part is the hardest thing for me to do on these cups. I compare what I can do to the things that I used to watch Allen put on his work and I feel like I'm no good.  I know I will get better with practice, so eventually I'm able to suck it up and get started. I don't think I'll ever get things to match exactly, but may be you can tell that these go together?

I spent so much time trying to figure out how to decorate all these cups that I didn't get done with everything that I hoped to finish on Friday. My goal was to get these trays ready to glaze in addition to finishing the cups and throwing some other pieces.  

Sometimes I have unreasonable expectations for what a person can get done.  I was also slowed down significantly by my lunch.  A salad is tasty but takes a long time to eat.