Time Crunch

I took a quick look at the calendar (eeek)….I know I am in a bit of a time crunch here with these mugs, but I guess my brain had not quite fully realized how much of a crunch it was until just now. I have 13 days, including today to dry, bisque, glaze and deliver them. The first batch of 10 are mostly dry now, just sitting under loose plastic to protect the handles from drying too quickly. The 2^nd batch of 9 is assembled, but the handles have yet to be backfilled. So once I get that done tonight, they will be dried as quickly as possible and probably fully uncovered on Sunday. I will attempt to bisque fire on Tuesday night, as I need to fire a glaze load sometime next weekend if I have any chance of meeting the June 27^th deadline. It is supposed to be partially cloudy and 24 degrees on Saturday, so I may take the chance and dry them outside for a while. The problem is that it has been so wet here. Last Tuesday there was a torrential downpour with intense thunder and lightning, it rained on Wednesday, some on Friday and the weekend. Then this week has been more of the same. Clay does not dry well in this weather at all. Usually the problem with Calgary is that it is too dry and things can get away from you if you don’t keep a close eye on the moisture content. I often double wrap my work in plastic and will even go so far as to cover the ware board in plastic before I wrap it up so as not to let too much water wick out of the pot into the board. Usually over the summer, if I spend all day at the studio, I can throw a teapot in the morning and have it fully trimmed and assembled by the afternoon. In fact, this weather is reminding me of Ireland. We were there for 7 days and it took forever for anything to dry. Good thing we brought our bisqued teabowls with us for the salt firing. I don’t think anything we made there ever fully dried by the time we left.