It seems there is not enough hours in the day to do everything one would like to accomplish. Ha ha. Here are a couple of recent photos of pottery in progress in my studio. The platters, once thrown and decorated, need to dry for some time before they can be flipped to add the serial number and signature. I use cloths to control the speed of the drying so that they dry more evenly to avoid warpage.
Normally I avoid production pottery, trying to impart each piece with a style/soul all its own. I've since rethought that philosophy in regards to the Asian vases, since I make so many of them. I still vary the glazing on them so that one could still call them all unique, but as you see in this photo, I'm starting to make more of them at a time for efficiency's sake.
I pulled some handles for a few pitchers I made. The photo shows them resting to stiffen up before being attached to the pots. Pulling the handles takes a bit of time, but I think the feel of the results is worth the effort. I think the pulled handle feels more natural and comfortable to use than the standard flat slab handle. Personal preference, of course. :D
Time to get back to the studio. I have a glaze kiln firing now. I was told by the power company that they would like to shut off the power one pole down to make a repair there in a few hours. Of course, they tell me this after I've already fired up my kiln. Ouch! So I'm not sure how much it will affect the load... am hoping that when the power comes back on, that it will catch back up and still fire the glazes correctly. I'm glad I put a cone pack in the kiln when I loaded it... it might help me tell what is happening in this unusual firing.
I added a bunch more photos to the Stoneware Gallery. More will be coming until either I catch up to current pieces coming out of the kiln, or I run out of disk space on this site! :D
I had the opportunity to teach the summer adult evening pottery class at the local arts center, and have a group of awesome students taking the class. Since the class is small, it will allow us to explore a lot more areas, and allow me to give one-on-one attention to the students. I also get to teach a kid's wheel class later this afternoon. It is great to be able to interact with the kids to get their perspective on using the wheel, and working with clay. Awesome classes!!!
My nephew Brandon visited me the last couple of days to help me with my web site decisions. He's a great guy ... just graduated from college ... so it was nice to visit connect with him on a common subject.
It was not all a one-way street... I got to show him how I make various pottery pieces... and he got to help me work on making this web site work. I would call that a win-win!
I will be heading out to teach my adult pottery class shortly, so this blog entry will be a fairly short one. I also have a number of pots "in the queue", so some trimming and handle work is calling my name too. Sometimes I feel like a juggler with too many clubs in the air! Ha ha.
