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I unloaded the glaze firing that included my Mississippi River clay inlay experiment.  thrilled with 2:3.  Inlay is better than brushing it on as a slip.

One of my baby chickens is a cockerel.  Confirmed by my own chicken experience (the tail feathers are curving downward), experience of other friends who have been equally unhappily surprised when their pullets turned out to be not so, and, possibly most damning, by a farmer friend who saw a photo and asked how "that baby rooster is doing".  Looking for a new home for it.  (also looking for a new home for my old volvo sedan, um, if you're interested).

One more week of school.  A week of decompression after that, then a week at the beach.  So so looking forward to that, and even more so now that I know that there is an excellent grocery store in the town.  Not having to worry about packing groceries for a week is a blessing.

Alrighty.  See y'all later.

April

 

 good morning.

Y'all, I feel like April just almost did me in.  It was truly the month in which I could not, did not, keep up.  Didn't keep up with my daily drawings (I stopped mid-month).  Didn't keep up with pottery (tried to, but).  Didn't keep up with friends.  Retreated and got frustrated and angry and had to have a big fat time out.  Last week we had a large discussion around the dinner table about taking ownership of your decisions and their outcomes and just making the best of what you're left with in the aftermath of your decisions, good or bad.  No whining, no blaming, just taking what's in front of you and making the best you/life/decision you can with what you have.  Ownership.   So I'm moving on from April because it's the second week of May.  No more dwelling on failed pots or plans or anything else that happened that I can't do anything about.  Moving on.  I'm able to move forward in part because of the support and encouragement of so many of y'all- two emails over the weekend, in particular, were especially encouraging when I was ready to just throw in the towel.  So thank you, especially, Richard and Gail.  And you countless other friends who have been thinking good thoughts and sending me well wishes and saying nice things when I whine in public forums.  It means a lot.

I did have a long long chat this morning with the technician at Standard Ceramics company, one of the largest clay manufacturers in the country and the maker of most of the clay bodies I use, including my favorite that suddenly seemed to go haywire on me.  Julie was wonderful.  She is sending me a new clay to test and is testing my old favorite with the glazes that had been giving me the most problems.  I can't even tell you how grateful I am that she took my questions seriously and is helping me to find solutions to either making my old clay and glazes work or finding a new go-to clay body.  

Today it is raining and I am glazing and firing a little load of herb markers and those pieces I made with Mississippi river clay inlay.  

Hope your week is off to a good start.

searching

Earlier this year (late 2011, actually), I abandoned my standard clay body because it would no longer behave- any turquoise glaze or underglaze sheared right off in sharp glassy shards.  Disappointing for me, hazardous to anyone who used the pieces.  At first, I thought the problem was the glaze, but after seeing this happen with multiple glazes (and then with certain colors of underglaze), I realized it was a problem with the clay.  Sad, because this ultra-white, smooth, easy to throw, easy to hand-build clay body was one I'd been using for 10 years.  I switched back to one that I knew had some problems (have to baby it as it dries or oops, that mug handle will pop right off *just* before it is bone dry), but oh, those problems.  So I've tried 2 new stonewares, one of which didn't play well with glaze (see my crazing post) and another which is fine, really, except that it isn't white.  See the cup above.  Not white, more of a french vanilla.  And I'm coming to the realization that well, it's just what it is.  Even the porcelains I've tried aren't strictly white.  (the whiter pieces above are porcelain, and they're fine, but a bit speckled with something that doesn't show up unless it's coated in clear glaze).  I've forgotten how to throw large pieces (such as plates and serving bowls) with porcelain and will need to re-learn.  Porcelain also has to dry very very slowly to keep its form and not crack. 

So, unless I can bite the bullet and order new clay bodies from afar (and either drive to get them or pay several hundred dollars for shipping), it seems that french vanilla is my new white.  There is some white-glazed french vanilla stoneware in the kiln, cooling. Test stoneware #1 showed through the white glaze (it looked dirty, not like a thin glaze, just like a dirty cup).  I am in mourning for my ultra-white stoneware, but like any loss, I'm learning to move forward with the new reality.  And the reality is that very few people will care if the base clay is ultra white or french vanilla, and the ones who do care will let me know, quite vocally.  And I'm becoming ok with the fact that it's out of my hands, that pottery is alchemy, and that I'm just not in control of very much.  And with that, I'm going to head to the studio to throw more and re-learn how to make larger forms in porcelain and figure out how to fill my dinner and breakfast ware orders that a few sweet folks have been waiting quite patiently for.

Thanks for reading.

local

I stumbled across this video earlier this week.  It's really stuck with me.  It is quiet, meditative, purposeful, inspiring.  I began thinking about the local impact of pottery-  in terms of my local economy (including but beyond my family), local influences (people, seasons, materials), and I was particularly struck by a scene of this potter digging clay to use in her decorations. 
Several years ago my family camped at a state park on the banks of the Mississippi river.  We spent a day on one of the sandbars and found deep, dark, iron-rich clay veins running throughout the sand.  We all marveled at how black and sticky it was, took note, and went home.  Later in the season we returned with small shovels and buckets to bring some of that clay home.  I made a few test bowls to see how this local clay would fire, closed up the bag and forgot about it.   Because I work with light clay bodies, switching between light and dark clays is problematic- all of your tools, wheel, bats, etc have to be thoroughly cleaned when switching between clays to prevent mixing that is either ugly (dark or light streaks showing up unexpectedly) or catastrophic (some clays have different rates of shrinkage and absorption- this means explosions in the kiln or bubbling glazes, or cracks, none of which makes this potter happy). 
Returning to the video, I thought about this stash of dark local clay in my studio, pulled out a small jar, and made some slip.  I'm experimenting with using this dark clay as an inlay.

I only decorated two tumblers that I'd made with this local slip- we'll see how it works.  Local is very important to me- I try my best to support local food and farmers, shop at local small businesses, but all of my supplies come from who-knows-where.  I'd love it if this works and I could add this to my regular work.

A second thing that stuck with me was the artist's statement that "we have enough things already in this world" and she is careful about what she makes.  Is everything that I make worthy of firing?  The energy expended by the kilns, the materials rendered from the earth?  The money I've spent on clay and glazes?  No.  So no more firing of warped bowls, pieces with design flaws or drawing bloopers.  Seconds happen (speaking of, that kilnload of ^7 cups didn't heal.  The chicken platter was better, but the cups were still crackled from too-thick glaze on bottom).  Most of my flawed pieces go into a smash bin for mosaic work, but I don't want to put time or energy into firing pieces that I know are flawed before they are fired.  Lots to think about. 

Have a nice weekend friends.  I'm returning to my quiet.

tuesday

New bee flight school on Sunday when it was warm and sunny.
Little kiln ticking away to ^7 to see if the glaze fit issues will resolve on cups and the chicken platter.
Big kiln waiting for a large bisque load.
Lots more cups drying and drawing in the studio.
Chilly day.  If it were March I'd start a fire in the wood stove.  
Enjoying the quiet.

some quiet

Thank you, sweet friends, for your kind comments on my last post.  They mean a great deal to me.
I'm going to take a few weeks "off" from the internet- after losing so much time to the flu and then the unpredictable chemistry of pottery, I feel like I have a great deal of work to do (and I do, several orders still outstanding, some custom dinner sets I have yet to finish or even begin) and I need to figure out where I want to go with my work.  I'll be popping in periodically with photos, and I hope to be able to have a body of work to put up for y'all, both locally and in my etsy store, at the end of my internet sabbatical.  So I'll leave you with my favorite piece that I finished from my recent surface decoration e-course.  I want more of these!

Have a lovely weekend.

snap, crackle, & STOP

Of Friday or Saturday I opened my kiln to a total disappointment.  I knew I was testing, but I'd hoped to have some pieces I could use, and I didn't count on it being so bad that it would bring me close to tears.  Most of this work had been previously fired, to a low-ish ^6 (that's in the high 2100 to low 2200 F range) and I had a lot of problems with glaze fit.  I glazed a bunch more work, including some porcelain that I hadn't tried in the little kiln, and fired it again to a hotter ^6 (that's pronounced Cone 6, by the way, and I took it to the 2260 F range).  Still, it was crackle city.  Can you see it in this cup?  The crackles in the bottom?  The ones that will trap the honey and the tea from your hot cuppa and grow bacteria?  I'm trying it again at ^7 (almost 2300F) later this week when my cones come in.

This is a platter I made just for me, and the entire thing is a fine map of crackles.  Both the cup and the platter are a new-to-me clay (the glaze is one I used and liked well enough to buy a gallon of).  I'm out of the clay and won't buy more of it.  I'd love to rescue both the dozen cups I made and the platter- the cups because they're pre-sold and the platter, because, well, I'd like to use it.  All told, this is two weeks' worth of work that is potentially lost.

I've moved on to another stoneware and ordered several more white and clear glazes to keep testing.  All this to say that I'm feeling perpetually behind.  Glad that I'm not signed up for any events or sales or markets.  But I have some custom dinner orders that I'm sitting on, and I'd like to get them out the door.

I would like to address one thing- so many of my customers were kind and understanding to the absolute utmost degree when I told them that their orders would be delayed further.  I had one negative experience out of the whole lot, which shook me pretty badly.  It was downright venomous, and I think it was due to a miscommunication that made me feel defensive and then downright shocked.  I try hard to accommodate all kinds of requests and try to send out my best work.  I think that *most* people who have handmade businesses try their very best to please their customers.  They all have feelings that are easily bruised by unfair, or, even if fair, harsh, criticism.  This just to say that we should all (me included) remember that we're dealing with people who have lives and families and feelings and we never know what's going on in their lives- illness, failed work, failed relationships.  I'm stepping off my soapbox, but I was accused of gross misrepresentation and unprofessionalism, and it hurt.   I'm mostly over it, but I wanted to address it for my own learning, as much as anyone else's.

I had a lovely Easter, and hope your Spring holidays were wonderful, as well.  See you again soon.