eek

what a crazy week it's been.  Easter was lovely, then the weather came.  All of our friends and family are safe and well, but the toll on the mid-South has been really steep.  I complained about three straight days and nights of tornado sirens wailing, but the reality is that I'm glad we have them and I'm very grateful that Memphis escaped most of the damaging winds.

Pottery-wise, I'm having a bit of a crisis.  My old reliable white glaze has begun acting up on me- either not covering properly or shivering off - which means that the glaze cracks and bits of razor sharp glaze flake off.  I grabbed one of my new latte cups from its bin on Wednesday and cut myself.  Not badly, but that's not supposed to happen.  I suspect that my clay has been reformulated, but my clay and glaze supplier has sent me a new batch of white to test and I've purchased a few other glazes to test the next time I fire.  I'm waiting to glaze a fire a ton of work until these problems have been worked out- which must happen, oh, next week.

My colored glazes all seem to be working properly, so I will be using them, instead.  I put up a bunch of these speckled spoon rests at Etsy and will list the solid colors over the weekend.  I had hopes for honeypots, but many of them are supposed to be white, and, well, ahem.  Soon, I hope. 

I think that these are growing pains.  It's interesting to me that these problems are cropping up now, eight years after I began using this clay and this glaze, and I'm working more carefully and mindfully now than ever before.  There's something to learn, I'm just not sure what it is.  So in the meantime, I'm doing a lot of thinking and throwing and yoga (I've discovered that I can do a mean headstand.  The handstand triggers my old friend tendonitis, so I'll stay away from that, thanks much, but I'm a bit tickled by the headstand action) and reading and refining my pottery-making process.  Maybe that's what I'm supposed to be doing- refining rather than producing.

Well.  I've said all I have in me.  I hope your weekend is nice and relaxing.  Thanks for being here with me, friends.