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.