progress

I just opened up the kiln to pull out some orders I've been  working through and almost forgot that the test pieces with my new inlay were in this firing.  I did some with plain cobalt and water, which turned out fine, just blue, nothing new, and then four pieces in cobalt with frit, which ran beautifully.  I'm so so happy with this.  So much so that this one is mine.  This is also a) my new stoneware- super white, super fine, so much like porcelain in appearance but not as big a pain to work with, and b) the largest piece I've thrown in a good long time- about 14" in diameter.

This week has been full- my new assistant began working with me, taking care of packing orders, wedging clay, and making my hand-built platters.  I've been working through a large pile of orders, making, trimming, cleaning up, glazing.  I can't believe it's Thursday already. 

Have a great end to your week and weekend.  See you next week.

this week

I heard about a big vegetarian Indian dinner in town and it's all I can think about.  Specifically spicy creamy palak paneer with its cubes of crisped salty cheese.

I spent all day one day drawing these blue zinnias on bowls and little custard-style cups.  I like them a lot. I'm keeping this one, but this morning I put the rest of them in my shop
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I've been doing a lot more production-style throwing over the past few weeks and realizing, especially after two large orders on top of another mountainous order,  that I can't really do everything in my studio by myself.  So I asked around about getting help and have some really good options.  I'm excited.

After I got my new running shoes, I found my desire to fun fall flat.  I'm still doing my routine, I just don't want to.  This happens EVERY time I buy new shoes.  Oddest thing.  I wait and wait and wait to get the shoes and then the great running deflation occurs.  Strange, no?  Pressing through it.

I think that's all I have to say today.  Have a nice weekend, y'all.

gratitude

Hi.  Things have been crazy at my house for the past few weeks, in both good and bad ways.  We seem to be in a lull, so I'm going to be grateful and tell you some of the GOOD that's been happening. 

Second week of school completed.  3rd grade teacher is just adorable.  We're excited to go to school every day, and someone has shown respect and gratitude towards his first and second grade teachers every time he's seen them.  That makes me really happy.

I brought home 400 lbs of new stoneware yesterday.  Met my sweet aunt half-way from Nashville because I couldn't get away from home for an entire weekend or fit a trip during the school day.  While on this trip, all of the ladies in my family went here and wandered around the gardens for hours and hours.  I really wished that I'd remembered my real camera, made do with my phone camera, and came away really wanting a rugosa rose that produced giant, tasty, vitamin-packed hips.  While I was gone, my boys stayed home and worked on projects and cleaned the house (!).

I learned how to use my pressure canner and have 20+ jars of tomato soup, 20+ jars of marinara sauce, 15+ jars of regular quartered tomatoes, and this evening my sister in law came over and we finished my box of tomatoes and put up 17 jars of salsa.  I may or may not have given her the canning bug.  I still want to make this.  And she cleaned up my kitchen (I'm on a roll here)!

I've been running all summer (with two weeks off for an injury), hanging out at 14 minute miles, feeling down about it.  The temps broke and I got back to a 12 minute mile.  Last Sunday was really nice, and I hit 10 for the first time since I was 25.  Today?  9.  Stunned. I'm not doing great distances- I try to keep my time to 30-45 minutes, which puts me at 4 miles, tops, but I'm pretty happy with my progress. 

Finally, today I hosted a group of creative professional women for a meet and greet.  We've been talking online for almost a month, figuring out how we could support one another to be more creative, more proactive, more balanced in pursuing our art/craft/creative consulting as a profession, and getting help with concrete issues like liability insurance, licenses, taxes- all the fun stuff.  I think everyone had a ball, and I realized that I've been standing at the precipice of the next step for me, wondering if I'll jump or not, and I'm almost ready to do it.  I'm very grateful for the insight and inspiration coming from that room.

I hope your week is wonderful and I'll see y'all later on.

hello

 

I didn't mean to be gone for quite so long.  School started on Monday.  We spent last week eking out the last bits of summer we could, along with registering for classes, buying school supplies, finding the uniform clothes, figuring out the lunchbox, and and and.  The first three days have been good- and no-homework days mean we go directly from school to the pool.  As sad as we were about school beginning so early, I do love having my "work days" back.  

The weekend before last, I finished painting my studio.  SO pleased with that space.  I still need to finish painting the trim, but I'll finish that up soon and give y'all the grand tour.  The light, bright color helps so much.  

I've begun my annual tomato binge.  I turned a box of tomatoes into 9 quarts of quartered tomatoes in juice.  A second batch became 8 quarts and 13 pints of soup.  Box #2 became 13 pints of thick spaghetti sauce (I learned to use my pressure canner for the soup and sauce).  This weekend I'm picking up box #3 to become salsa and jarred roasted tomatoes (hotwater bath and pressure canned, respectively).  This morning I went down to the canning pantry and straightened everything up, counted my jars to be sure I won't need to buy more (salsa in half-pints, jarred roasted in half-pints and pints).  It feels good to see summer's harvest ready to feed us for the rest of the year.  Once it gets cooler, I'll start making and pressure canning stocks, and I may try my hand at putting up corn and green beans (but I have certain crunch expectations, so I may not do that).

Early this afternoon I listed the first of my modern blue and white pieces in the shop, then threw almost two dozen ramekins that I'll decorate with the blue zinnias.  I'm excited about working again.

Have a great rest of your week, y'all, and thanks for reading.

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.