Pushing Hard

I talked to my friend Vicki on the phone today and she encouraged me to use this last week of my summer vacation to relax.  She went on to describe what relaxing is since she observed that I am not particularly good at it.  Sleeping in, sitting in my recliner, snacking on nachos, reading books, watching some TV shows, etc. all sound like good ideas.  I'll probably do some of those things too. 

But there is a lot that I planned for myself for this two weeks that I've had free.  Last week, I was in the studio every day.  Every. Day.  It was great! 

I started with these smallish pitchers. Each is about 2 pounds of clay.

Over the next couple of days, I finally got around to making some bacon cookers. I still need to have more of these on hand, but this is a start at least.

I only took a picture of one leaf platter.  I made a couple of other rectangular trays with leaves as well.

Four more pitchers.  These range from 3 to 4 pounds of clay each.

I think there were some mugs that didn't get photographed.

I glazed some.

There were also a few other relatively odious tasks that I had been putting off doing that I forced myself to get done.  I have a new batch of reclaimed clay now and all my kiln shelves are scraped and have a fresh layer of kiln wash.  I. Loathe. Those. Chores. But they are done now!  For the time being, I am going to continue to ignore that other bucket of clay that needs reclaiming.  

This week will be some different.  I'm going to pick up an order of clay and dry glazes in Charlotte in the morning.  Then I'll have to unload all that when I get back.  At some point, I'll need to process the new glazes.  I spent all of today working on some stuff for Buffalo Creek Gallery and I'll need to devote a good chunk of another day to get all that finished up.  Wednesday is July 4, so I should act like it is a holiday.  Then there's some family stuff going on Friday that will probably keep me out of the studio most of that day.  I guess it is a good thing that I got some pots made last week, because it isn't looking all that great for this week.