Some of Everything is Ready

I'm not sure how it is Wednesday already.  I meant to get this post up over the weekend.  There was a glaze fire last week.  Some of the several dozens of pieces that I've made were in there.  Other people have pots to fire too.  This studio is not all about me.  

Here's a shot of everything.

This covers maybe half of the glazing table.  I still have lots left to be fired.  

Here's a close up of the two trays.  Pretty darn pleased with these.  

A not so close up of a bowl and a casserole.

A big, green platter.

The glaze on this is so shiny it's hard to get a good picture.

Some tiny bowls, tiny pitchers, a few candle holders, and some business card holders.

Remember the business card holders?  

More business card holders, tiny bowls, and a couple of butter dishes.

There are still many, many business card holders to be glazed and fired.

In other stuff last week, I made 9 dessert bowls.

And six mugs.

 

There was also another bisque fire over the weekend.  The rest of the business card holders were in that bisque fire.  I'll be glazing more pots when I manage to get back to the studio.

Hopefully I can get all the rest of the business card holders in the next glaze fire. I need to get a good count so that I know if I need to do more.  There are 52 currently, but I can't be sure that I've got 52 good ones until they are glaze fired.

I Glazed Everything

I have been pushing myself pretty hard to make pottery lately.  All this was in the last bisque fire. 

That's two different views of the same pieces.  No matter what I tried, I couldn't get one shot that really showed everything well.  Please note that they cover the entire glaze table. It took several hours on Saturday to get everything ready to glaze.  The plan was to let things dry over night and come back in on Sunday and get the glazing done.  I was packing up my stuff to go and I realized that I had some really nice leaves that I either needed to use or throw away.  So I did this...

Soft clay is one of life's little treasures.  When the clay is soft, you can throw a platter, a plate, and a good sized bowl in not much time and with minimal effort.  The down side is that are three pieces that will need to be trimmed on Sunday in addition to the huge amount of glazing.  

It took almost 5 hours including a break for lunch, but I got all of that stuff glazed and trimmed the 3 new pieces.  Phew!  

Stay tuned.  I'll try to show you some glazed pieces next week. 

The Rest Of The Week

Wednesday: I put handles on the casserole...

...trimmed the bowls...

...and made some more card holders.

Thursday: I worked in the gallery on Thursday during the day.  Then about 5 pm I moved over to the studio to get ready for the Art Walk.  I set things up and got some clay ready so that I could demonstrate for folks who stopped by.  We had a good crowd that night with people stopping by pretty much the whole time from 5:30 to 8:30 pm.  Some of our visitors were friends of mine and some were people that I'd never met before.  I threw six mugs...

...two kind of medium sized bowls...

...and more business card holders.

Friday: I took the day off and didn't make anything new.  I was tired after being uptown for a good 12 hours the day before.  So it was Saturday before I got back to doing anything productive.  I trimmed the bowls...

...put handles on the mugs...

...and made more business card holders.

I think I am very close to having 50 of these now.  I'll have to count again to be sure, and I should make a few extras in case something happens.  It was my goal to get the bulk of this work done this week while I had more time.  I think the count for the week is 1 casserole, 4 bowls, 13 mugs, and about 50 business card holders.  

July 5th through 7th

We just back from vacation and this is my last week of summer before I go back to work next week.  Here's what I've done so far...

On Sunday, I picked up the pieces from that last glaze fire.  All these are now at Buffalo Creek Gallery.

Then I made about 10 business card holders. 

Monday, I threw 7 mugs. 

And made some more business card holders.

Tuesday morning I put handles on 7 mugs. 

And made some more business card holders.  

Sensing a theme yet?  I've got an order for 50 business card holders.  I think I have about 25 made now.

Tuesday afternoon, I went back to the studio (killing time between a chiropractor appointment and swim practice - don't laugh) and threw an oval casserole and two bowls. 

Pots and Cameras

Several pieces of mine were in the last glaze fire.

Here are some close ups of some of them. 

I managed to not get a close up shot of the blue platter, but here is the green one.  Maple leaves from my yard.

Red bud leaf from my yard on a blue tray with textured handles.  

More maple leaf and green on a tray.

Butter dishes.  I'm learning that every time I do slab work (trays and some platters), I can make butter dishes out of the scraps.  

Textured tray in blue and green (two of my favorite glazes together).  This tray is smaller than the two pictured above.  

There were also 6 mugs that I made for Hannah at the coffee shop.  I delivered them this morning.  These are available for purchase at Hannah's Coffee House on Marion Street.  

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of days, you know about the terrible shooting in Charleston, SC on Wednesday night and the subsequent man hunt for the suspect.  That search ended Thursday right before lunchtime just west of Shelby when the Shelby PD made the arrest after a woman from Kings Mountain recognized the guy as he was traveling west on highway 74.  (Having a bad bowl cut can seriously impede your get away.) She followed him while on the phone with her employer and police departments from Kings Mountain and Shelby.  It's a cool story I think and one that doesn't (I hope) make us all look like a bunch of backwards red necks like the last time we made the national news cycle.  

Allen's studio is right across the street from the police department on Lafayette Street and this truck was using our parking lot to get ready for the evening news.  The driver was really nice  and asked if it was OK to park there.  

I left a few minutes before 5.  I needed to be at the park by 5:15 to swim and figured that it would be best if I got out of there before they started broadcasting.  I was NOT dressed to be on TV.  

Understand that it was very close to 100 degrees yesterday afternoon in Shelby.  How was this man wearing long pants, long sleeves, and a tie and not dying?  I had on a bathing suit, shorts, and flip flops and I was melting.  Seriously.  What is his secret?

And Another Month Goes By...

My last post was just before Mother's Day.  Since then we wrapped up the semester and had graduation at school, I completed my first Olympic distance triathlon, and then I graded AP calculus exams for a week. This blog is supposed to be about pottery, so I'll spare you the details of the triathlon (embracing my inner athlete - 12th place overall and 3rd in my age group - Woo Hoo!) and the AP reading (imagine over 900 calculus teachers in one place working to grade over 400,000 AP calculus tests - embracing my inner geek).  

I was too busy the last two weeks of the semester, but once school was out, I managed to get back in the pottery studio for a couple of weeks before I left for Kansas City where the AP reading is held every year.  There were some pots that were finished up during that time, but I forgot to take pictures of them.  Here are the last few things that I worked on.  

Covered casserole - I really like making these.  

Mugs with texture - thinking about tan outside with red and blue on the insides of these.

Now that I'm back home for a few weeks before vacation, I hope to work on embracing my inner artist a little bit.  It sounds strange to me to refer to myself as an artist.  Two different times today (I'm working the gallery) people have asked what I do.  My answer is always, "I'm a teacher," but that wasn't what they were asking.  They wanted to know which work in the gallery is mine.  I guess I've got to work on considering my location when answering that question from now on. 

I hope to have more pictures of pottery to share with you soon.  I would really like to build up some inventory so that I do not have to work so hard this fall.  

Mother's Day is May 10

I took some new pieces to the gallery last week.