july

is flying by.  just flying.  school begins for us in another 2 weeks.  I showed y'all this in its raw, unfired state.  Here it is finished:

I really love it.  But I'll love it more once I put the suggestions of a lovely group of ladies in place.  I asked the twitter potters for advice and got a boat-load.  An order of chemicals later, I'm well on my way to mixing my own glazes, which really scares my pants off.  I'm starting by adding different chemicals to my commercial glazes, but in the next week or so I'm going to take the plunge and actually make some.

Also this week I finished my first big batch of chicken cups:

Several of them are available locally at the Trolley Stop Market and the rest are in my shop.  Speaking of chickens, it's been so hot this week that I installed a misting/cooling system in my chicken yard and the girls are fascinated with it.  They went from miserable, open-beak panting to amazed wonder in minutes. 

Next week I hope to get word that my new stoneware clay is in at my supplier in Nashville so that I can really start throwing again.  Right now all I have left to work with is porcelain, which is nice, but not everything needs to be porcelain. It is lovely, but it handles differently and I don't yet have the knack for throwing large pieces.  I have 200 lbs of different porcelain bodies in the studio right now, so that's what I'll be using until my new ultra-white stoneware comes in.

That's all I have  tonight.  It's late and I'm beat. 
Be well.

this week (a list)

lunch and junking out with a girlfriend I don't see often enough
glazing/experienting/firing
reorganizing the basement (fun times)
harvesting tomatoes and cukes from the school garden
salvaging pecked/bug eaten veggies from the school garden for the chickens
Jeni's splendid ice cream salty caramel ice cream
big dramatic haircut and donation to locks of love
running
all of the rain we could possibly want, all at once
figs figs figs
Fahrenheit 451
and tomorrow, an ornamental vegetable gardening lecture, plus book club.

have a nice weekend

busy week(s)

Last week and this week were quite busy.  (too much busy is in our lives, certainly in my life.  have you read this?  Food for thought).  BUT my little kiln is up and running, thanks to Mike, who finished the electrical part of the job after I replaced the elements and discovered that my rip-roaring case of "Lady Hands" pretty much ruled out a career as an electrician.  Could not make the crimper crimp.  Last night I ran a full (small) glaze load in air-conditioned comfort and have a full bisque load (full of chicken cups, by the way!) ready to go maybe on Saturday evening.  I still try to fire in the evenings, not at peak hours, because it's been so terribly hot, and my utility bill will be through the roof because of a leak in the basement and watering my garden in addition to the constant air conditioning.  But I'm grateful for it all, grateful for the means with which to pay for it, and grateful for the promise of solar cells that will plug into the grid and eventually offset my electrical use- in another few years.

Last weekend we went to a few estate sales- some so-so, some exorbitant, and one MARVELOUS.  I bought 10 interior shutters to shield my west-facing studio and south-facing bedrooms from the punishing sun for a song, but more exciting, I found a lovely transferware platter that made me put down everything else I'd been carrying.  It is quite large, unmarked, blue and white, and decorated with birds and flowering branches.  I just fell in love with it.  It's price made me wince a bit, but it was a case of knowing I'd never see another again.  When I pulled out my checkbook and only had my business checks in it, I realized that I could adapt the images to use in my own work, which, as you can see above, I happily and immediately did.

I'm a long-time blue and white china nerd.  My dream is to replicate "flow blue", so we'll just see how that goes.  I'm looking around for bees on transferware, too, though they're rare.  I'll bisque this piece and one other this weekend and see how the flow-y experimentation goes.

Happy weekend, friends.  I hope you're able to stay cool.

and it clicked

I'm excited about pottery again.  I realized that I'm going to have to stop using big bessie kiln for the summer (I'm looking at a week plus of 100+ days, and firing her requires 10+ hours of no AC) and fire more frequently with my little kiln, which was stripped of elements last night and half-replaced.  I was so proud to do it myself (with significant coaching from my friend Mike, the ceramics engineer), but my back gave out before I could finish.  Also, hello, sweaty.

I've been throwing a bit again this week and pulled out some new supplies I bought this spring before everything went haywire.  Here's one piece I just finished working on:

The blue is underglaze carbon paper, for lack of a better term.  I drew these zinnias (based on Walter Anderson's zinnias) last summer and made tissue paper templates.  I have high hopes for these- if I draw directly on the paper, the lines are incredibly fine.  If I draw through the templates, they're a little blotchy, thick and thin.  I think I like it.

Earlier this week I played around with more blue and white- I think it's a direction I'll pursue.  All of my wedding dishes were blue and white, and I've collected different blue and whites over time.  I'll be back to show you the results in a few weeks.

high summer

This week has gone by fast- we had guests.  My friend Angela and her husband Devin came through on their way to Albuquerque.  We enjoyed their visit and are glad they arrived safely. We stayed in and relaxed with many pool visits, fresh summer drinks, and a pedi treat, a small break on their long journey.

Our summer is heating up.  Every morning I go out to water- turn on the hoses on the front of back yard gardens and let the water drip into the garden beds.  They dry out so fast.  My plum tomatoes are ready- a few coming in every day.   The air is on almost all the time, and I watch the extended forecast for days/nights that it's cool enough to fire the big kiln (we have to turn off the air for the highest/longest firing cycle.  I try to time it for the hours we're asleep so that we don't wake up to a hot, humid house).  I can run the little kiln while the air is on, so perhaps it's time to get started on replacing those elements?  Hmm.

My boy finished two weeks of tennis camp, so for the next two weeks we have few plans but reading and self-entertainment in the mornings while I try to squeeze in a few hours worth of work, followed by pool time in the afternoons.  Things seem to be looking up with pottery-finally.  The kiln is full of test pieces in the new stoneware that I hope will work to replace my old favorite stoneware.  I also have two bags of dry glazes to mix and test in my basement glazing dungeon.  I'm looking forward to a smooth period of making and restocking after such a rocky spring.

Summer's here- I hope you'll enjoy yours.

journey

This morning I spent some time outside in the golden light with my coffee, watching my birds (big and little chickens and tiny songbirds) and bees in the back yard, wondering at the sprouting seeds and life what exactly it is that I'm supposed to be doing.  And I came inside and began drawing on plates and cups- bees and chickens- exactly what I'd been watching outside.  I am doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

Twice this year I've gotten really nice notes from friends thanking me for what I'm doing- honesty in my process and struggles with figuring out my work and keeping on with it.  I feel like I've done a huge amount of growth in the first half of this year because I have struggled mightily.  I have a professional friend who is working like gangbusters, producing and producing and really cranking it out.  And I remember a few years ago when I was doing that and I marvel at it now, because really, that's not sustainable for me.  I think that I'm finally coming to the point where I'm ok with the lull in my professional journey.  I still feel bad that I haven't restocked my stores or filled some individual orders because of my trials with the clay and glaze and kilns (really, I feel really bad about it, but not bad enough to keep beating my head against the brick wall that's presented itself squarely in my path).   So I'm working on throwing better, drawing every day, still experimenting on finding that right clay and glaze fit, and realizing tactile leaps forward will come with time, and progress isn't necessarily measured by your output.

Speaking of journeys, I want to thank all of you who helped me with this project.  My friend Angela is coming through early next week on her way to her medical relocation to New Mexico.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for helping me help her.  This project has been immensely satisfying to me, and I'm so grateful that my work could provide so much financial assistance.  I am still making these cups and hope that their sale will continue to provide some small measure of assistance as Angela and Devin start fresh in NM.

It is Friday and I am going to a specialty nursery later this morning to buy succulents to fill my growing klompen wall outside my back door.  I hope you have something fun planned, too.

As always, thanks for reading and being on this journey with me.

honey

This past week I spent more time worrying about my bees than doing anything else.  The city mosquito truck came by and I noticed some bees on their backs, little legs flailing, inside the hive.  I called Vector Control and had my house taken off the spray route, and plan to cover the hive the next time they come spraying.  We already knew that the spray was bad for bumble bees and butterflies, and the supervisor I spoke with was very responsive and concerned about my hive, which I appreciated.  Then, later that day, when I went into the hive to really do a full check (something I do every couple of weeks, and I'd noticed some problems I needed to take care of), I let one of the frames of honey, quite large and weighing almost 10 lbs, get too warm and it collapsed/fell into the hive.  What a mess.  I salvaged about a quart, cleaned up as best I could, and let the bees clean up the rest.   It wrecked my day.  But, I learned what NOT to do next time I go in, and I learned how to manually extract honey and render wax with a top bar hive.  Not the best day I'd ever had, but the results, well, they were sweet.  And my bee mentor came over the next day and helped me do a frame-by-frame inspection to check for mosquito-spray damage and melissa-inflicted damage.  Not much of either.

I also spent a lot of time grinding down my kiln shelves and had to stop before I was ready because an hour + of using the grinder aggravated my tendinitis. Gary ground more for me, but I've realized that I will need to finish the rest in stages, mix the kiln wash and grind/coat several shelves in each firing I do for the rest of the summer.  I hope that new thicker kiln wash will save some of the porcelain-sticking issues I'd been having this spring.

This week will be a busy one.  Two friends are in from out of town, I'm ready to work again, and I've been bit with the purging/reorganizing bug.  Tennis camp (this week and next week) begins in the morning, and I'm ready to get rolling.

Hope yours is a good one.  Night, friends.