What I did for the Canada Day Long Weekend...

Ok, so I'm a little behind with this

On Friday, I met a new customer who is looking for a custom made bowl. He had, and I quote, “a very vivid dream” about the bowl and was looking for someone to create it for him. Apparently it is a “ceremonial fire bowl”. There will be a bowl that will go inside this bowl that will contain the fire, so I don’t have to worry about direct contact with the flame, but I decided to use a really groggy body to help prevent any issues with thermal shock. The bowl itself is fairly simple, ~10” in diameter and ~5-6” tall. There are some specific design elements that he is looking for. He wants 6, equally spaced “people” around the outside. At least I think they are people. Essentially, a “Y” with a circle in the upturned arms of the “Y”. He wants the “people” to be turquoise, and the rest of the bowl to be a medium brown, easy peasy. I threw the bowl on Saturday, trimmed it on Monday and then cut out the “people” from a thin slab of clay and then attached them. I rounded all the harsh corners and I think it looks pretty darned good. I figure it will take about 1 month to finish, as I want to dry it really slowly to avoid inadvertent peeling up or cracking off of the appliqués.

Friday was also the day that I completed the additional 2 mugs for the custom mug order that I delivered last week. They wanted 2 more, but with a raised appliqué with the initials and year. I did everything I could to get them done in one day, as this customer wants them by this Friday (if possible). I really doubt the completion time, but I may be able to squeak it through if I can access a small test kiln to do both the bisque and the glaze. I might be able to sneak them into a student kiln load when Dave isn’t looking.

The customer who wants the custom bowl was more than OK with the 1 month timeline. He was just really happy that I took this project on. I guess he had looked into this a little bit and found it really difficult to find anybody that would do it. Are all the potters out there just so overloaded with work that they are turning it away? I doubt it.

Aside from these 2 custom orders, I threw several large casseroles and cannisters, , and one complete rip off of a “pumpkin” casserole. I had been reading some past blog entries from John Bauman and was inspired to “copy” his method. I have made lots of pumkiny pots before (mostly teapots), but I have always carved out the “lobes” of the pumpkin. I was particularly keen to try out his method of attaching the “knob” which is a pulled handle in the shape of a pumpkin stem. I have always either used a different coloured clay, or glazed the clay a different colour for the handle. John paints on an iron rich slip midway through the pulling process and then continues pulling to incorporate the iron into the clay. Of course he did this without getting any iron on his nice white stoneware pot. Mine looks like it was in the middle of a bloodbath.

Sorry for the blurry pics, they were taken with my iphone and not the new camera.

This is the Fire Bowl (now under wraps for a while to dry)

Here is one of the casseroles (the other ones not pictured were thrown from BMix)

And lastly, a cannister and a pumpkin pot. I wiped it clean for the photograph. . Also, I don't believe John puts the handles on the sides of his pots. His pumpkins are more true to life.

Many Hands Make Light Work

My Mum always said that many hands make light work (or something like that), turns out she was right. Yesterday was the Fairview Studios Semi Annual Scrub Down. 10-12 students showed up around 5:30 to scrub the floors until you could eat off them. OK, I wouldn’t eat off them, but they did get scrubbed, hosed and wet vac’d until you could see bare concrete.

On a side note: If you EVER want to build your own studio and decide to go the bare concrete floor route, I highly recommend sealing it. Concrete might be forgiving of spilled clay slop and other pottery studio messes, but it does not clean up well if it is not sealed. The previous tentant had used this space to park their vehicles in, so the floor was pretty well beyond sealing it when we moved in (residual oil drips, dirt, etc)

If you are a safety conscious person, this would probably make you cringe. We got the hose out and sprayed down the floor (after moving all the wheels and tables etc to one side), scrubbed with a deck brush and then sucked up the water with a shop vac. The cord for the vac did not reach far enough to get to all the nooks and crannies, so we plugged it into several long extension cords. The plug ends of said cords spent a lot of time in puddles of water. What’s wrong with a little full body electro shock treatment?

Since we did not manage to electrocute ourselves, we got out of the studio around 7:15. Most of us headed over to the Dog & Duck for a couple of pints and some food. This was to also be the wind up party for the Water Valley Celtic Music Festival that Dave has been putting on for the past 14 years. The music was good, the food was good and the Guinness was great. They even go to the effort of putting the shamrock on the head. Most places don’t as it is too much of a bother to pull a pint of G, much less decorate it.

How Fast Can a Pot maker Pot?

I will soon find out just how quickly I can push the making process. Can I go from wet clay today to glazed pot in 1.5 weeks? Probably not, but I’m ‘gonna give it a go. The 18 mugs I made for a custom order took me from June 6th to the 24th to throw, dry (barely), bisque, glaze and fire again. I was just able to squeak in under the 1 month minimum deadline I usually give for this type of order due to the fact that I had, coincidentally, already thrown 10 mugs on June 3rd and was able to use them for this order. So in reality, I actually started the making 3 days earlier, so that means the whole process took 3 full weeks to complete. The other and more crucial factor was that I had the minimum amount of greenware waiting for bisque to be able to fire a fairly full load of pots in the bisque. I will not fire a load less than that so as not to waste energy, or run the risk of cracked pots. In the end, the planets were all lined up just right for getting things done on time.
Now we come to why I am going to attempt the improbable (if not the impossible). The customer for the mugs picked them up yesterday evening and today she has asked if I had any extras. She needs 2 more, but this time, could the text that was impressed into the mug be raised up on an appliqué? That’s doable, but the kicker is that she wanted to pick them up next Friday (I kyboshed this Friday right away). That is 9 days away, not including today. The other kicker is that I will not be back in the studio until Friday this week, so really, I only have 1 week. I know that will not be a goal I can achieve, so I think I can get away with 2 weeks, she just does not want to wait a month. My only issue once they are complete is how to fire them. I will probably have to use the small test kiln at Ceramics Canada to get them finished on time, at least to bisque. I have more than enough to fill a glaze load, but I will NOT have enough for a reasonably full bisque load.
It's my fault for saying yes, I know, but I am always up for a challenge, just not sure how the clay feels about it. It has been extraordinarily wet here for the past few weeks. 80% humidity in Calgary is pretty rare, but that’s what it was yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that etc. Then there is the 100% humid rain, the rising rivers and ground water seepage. Work that would normally be dry in a few days is still very squishy after a week. I will have to take advantage of the natural drying powers of the sun (if it can keep shining long enough for me to finish this), as well as strategically placed fans. I just have to keep thinking of this as a “marketing opportunity” that may result in future customers. I have said that a lot about similar “marketing opportunities” but then I start to count chickens before they hatch and I usually end up with a basket full of rotten eggs. I am what you would call a pessimistic optimist. I try to always look on the bright side of things, but I know that in the deep dark recesses of my mind, in the pessimistic corner where my alter ego lives, I am thinking of all the ways this could go off the rails. Handles will crack, appliqué’s will start to peel off, glaze will crawl, or pinhole, or they will just plain warp and come out looking slightly rhomboid. But then, maybe I worry too much.

Bitter Sweet and the Signs of Summer

I fired the kiln over the weekend and the mugs I was desperately trying to finish in time are all done and all perfect, except for one with a tiny surface S crack. I made one extra anyway, so now that one is mine. The overall firing however was a mixed bag. I had a few pots to re fire from the last kiln load that did not reach temp.
There were a few tall jars, a vase, 2 large plates, a large bowl and various tea bowls that I thought could all use a few extra degrees, so I put as many as I could in this firing.. The little tea bowls all came out better than when they went in, but the large and tall refired things all bloated, ran, or both.. The weird thing is that although I know the bloating is a cone 5 Bmix issue, I don’t usually have an issue with it, but it only happened on the tall pieces, and the big bowl. Now they look revolting. The little cups are all perfect (pics to come tonight maybe). The ones I am happiest with (other than the mugs) were my shellacked bowl and the square plates with the terra sig / shellac combo. I glazed them all in the translucent amber glaze and the black slip just works so perfectly with it. So I am about 70% happy with the results, but there were definitely some issues with this one.

That’s it for the Bitter, now for the Sweet: I am free for the summer. As of this last weekend, I will not be working on Saturdays during July and August. This will leave lots of extra time to play in the clay and perhaps experiment with glazes(?). I always say that I will devote more time to glaze tinkering over the summer, but I never really do. I try 1 or 2, get fed up and quit. We will be fooling around with cone 6 crystalline glazes in July, so there will be a fair amount of “experimenting” going on regardless.

I had visual confirmation this weekend that summer is officially here. The “campground” by the Stampede grounds is full of RV’s and trailers now. They sprang up like mushrooms over night. I am assuming that it is for the people that are actually in the Rodeo. I couldn’t imagine that anyone else would want to stay there. 1) It’s way too close to the grounds (therefore very noisy) 2) No Trees or grass, just hot blacktop 3) your neighbor can tell what you are eating for breakfast just by looking out his window into yours.

I have mixed feelings about the Stampede. I know that it is one of the big tourist attractions for our city and the money it brings in each year is appreciated by many businesses. However, I live about 2 blocks away from the grounds in the neighborhood of Mission. I can hear the fireworks every night, I know who is playing on the open air stages because I can clearly hear them and the screaming from the midway rides is actually quite deafening any time of the day or night. This year is going to be even better (the sarcasm is actually dripping it is so thick). It is the Stampede’s 100th anniversary this year and I hear tell of extra special fire works displays, among other celebratory hoo ha. This means that they will probably start earlier, go on much, much longer and will be extra loud.

I was at the stampede last year for the first time in about 10 years and it pretty much reinforced my dislike for the whole event. It was work related, so that was one good thing about it. as I did not have to sit in the office and slave away. I got there a bit early and wandered around the Midway while I waited for the rodeo to start (nothing like sitting in the hot sun wearing dark denim). After the rodeo, we all went down to the infield to mingle with the clients that the office had invited. I got my free beer ticket (I would never BUY beer there). It was Bud Lite, all the time, no other options and for someone who pretty much sticks to really dark ales and stouts, this was like drinking warm sugar syrup. I choked half of it down when one of the project managers “kindly” gave me another to drink. I’m sure she thought she was being nice, but the headache that quickly ensued caused me to leave early. On my way out of the grounds, I thought I would relive my childhood and get some cotton candy and a candy apple to take home (I’m a grown up now, I can get both at the same time if I want to). While standing in line I watched a rather dysfunctional family order their “food”. The mom had about a zillion holes in her face from the multiple piercings (not that there is anything wrong with body adornment, but it just adds to the visual here), the dad was a very meek and mild kind of person, and the kids, well, I just felt sorry for them. The mom got 2 candy apples and some floss for them and put the apples on the narrow little ledge of the “food” cart in order to open up their pack and stow them away. However, one of the kids decided he wanted his apple now, reached for it, but because his little arms were too short, he could not reach it and it tumbled to the ground, shattering the candy coating. The mother let loose the bluest streak I have ever heard, called him names, and made the kid cry. The husband went all beet red from embarrassment, but did not do anything to calm the raging beast-mom, or comfort/protect his projeny from her wrath. It’s only an apple for crying out loud (albeit an $8 apple).
By the time I got home, I was pretty ill. 1.5 Bud Lite + too much sun + too much denim = raging head ache. As you can probably tell by now, I am really looking forward to this year’s Stampede. It starts in 11 days, July 6th, yee haw :(
If you have never been to the Stampede, give it a go, you might like it (just don't forget your wallet). But if you do, please remember that Calgary is not all about Rodeos and red necks. We do have some culture, you just have to dig down past the cow patties to get to it.

Glazing, Firing & Drinking Irish Whiskey

Kiln is fixed! I should be ok to fire this weekend. So glazing/loading tonight and if I can fill the kiln, then I will fire it off tonight as well. That should not be an issue as I always have stuff kicking around that has been glazed, but not fired, and then there is that whack of stuff that needs to be re fired from the last time a kiln element blew.


So, that will be my evening. I don’t want to have to unload a kiln of mugs the same day that they are picking them up. That would be too nerve wracking.

We are having our 2nd semi annual studio clean up day next Wednesday. We have been in the space for 3 years, and have had difficulties cleaning and maintaining it. Because it is a privately owned recreational studio, with all different kinds of people, cleanliness can be an issue. Some people don’t feel that they should have to clean up things like wedging tables, plaster tables, the floor around their wheel etc as they pay to come here to get away from cleaning at home. They feel it is the ownerships responsibility. Others are just plain forgetful, and others are just lazy (I probably fall in that category to some degree)

One person can not maintain the space on their own. The floors are unsealed concrete and they do not clean up well. If this was a city run operation, then there would be a budget for cleaners etc. The bonus for coming in to clean the studio is that we will all be going out to the Dog & Duck for a wind up party for the Water Valley Celtic Music Festival. There will be some of the musicians from the festival in attendance and I am sure the music will be great, as usual.

In the discussion surrounding this clean up / wind up “party”, Dave, our fearless leader, was regaling stories from our trip to Ireland to anyone that would listen. Apparently I am an alcoholic, at least in his version of events (which get distorted with every telling). Yes, I was seen taste testing various scotches, bourbons & Irish whiskeys at the Middleton Distillery near Cork (they used to make Jameson’s there) and was a bit flushed in some of the post distillery pictures. You can’t visit and not do that. I learned several things that day. I learned why I don’t like scotch, and why I actually do like Irish whiskey best. I do not like the taste of burnt dirt (aka smoky peat). I also like it because it is triple distilled, unlike bourbon (aka corn whiskey) which is traditionally only distilled once.

Yes, I was also seen lifting a pint or 2 of Murphy’s Stout and Guinness on occasion. But to hear Dave tell it, I was sloshing everywhere we went. BTW, I like Murphy’s better than Guinness, but I don’t believe you can get it here in Canada, at least not this far west, but then I have not looked that hard either. I have to say, that with the amount of food we ate, and most of it being in the form of soda bread, spotted dick, more bread, breaded fish, chips, potatoes etc… it’s a wonder anyone can get drunk in Ireland. When we were at Marcus’s for the salt firing and other pottery related demos etc, we started our day with oatmeal, at 10:00 we stopped for a tea break that usually included scones, spotted dick, other assorted bready items etc. Then there was lunch, and the 2:00 tea break and then dinner at about 6. By then, I had consumed my carbohydrate allotment for the year. I should mention that just before we went on this wee adventure, I had been on the Atkins Diet which contains absolutely no refined or processed carbs of any kind. I fell off that carb wagon very fast. It didn’t hurt much as bread is soft and apparently I was drunk anyway.

A Potters Nightmare / Girl Interrupted

Sunday/Monday

As I mentioned in one of my last posts, I am in a bit of a time crunch to get some mugs finished that I have been commissioned to create. I backfilled all the handles on Friday and left them loosely covered over night until I could get back to them on Saturday after work. I left them uncovered in the sun on Saturday afternoon for about an hour and then put them uncovered on the plaster to hopefully wick out more moisture. On Sunday, I got to the studio bright and early (9am) & put the mugs outside to dry again for several hours. If a non potter were watching me, they probably wondered what the heck I was doing. Every half hour or so I would wander outside, pick a mug up and press the base of the mug against my cheek, shake my head and put it back down. This is the only method I know of to tell if there is any moisture left in the clay. If it is cold, it is probably still wet & my cheek is the body part I rely on to gague the level of dampness. I nervously began loading the bisque kiln at bout 2:00 and set it for a 2 hour delay and a 2 hour preheat, so it wouldn’t start until 4:00. I went home and that night I sweated bullets in my sleep worrying about the mugs. Could they have been a little too damp? Will the handles and bottoms get blown out by the moisture being boiled out too vigorously? All the worrying was for naught. I checked them on Monday, and all was well, now I am a couple days ahead of schedule. I was originally going to wait until Tuesday to fire the bisque, but now I can glaze instead and take my time to get that part right instead of rushing through it and then I can load on Friday night and unload Sunday. Even thought these are very simple mugs, I am really happy with how they have turned out so far. The handles are perfect (in my opinion). They are not too big, and not too small, they are juuust right. I also had a few shellacked pots in there that have the layer of coloured terra sig slip. I am eager to see how these come out in the glaze, especially since the process is rather time consuming. I want to know that going cross eyed from all the dots and squiggles was worth it. I am not 100% sure how they will end up glazed, but probably in the translucent Amber as I love the way it reacts with the rutile in the sig).

Tuesday
I taught my Tuesday class last night and the kiln was on from a firing that one of the other instructors had loaded and fired. It should have been done a long time before that. About a half hour into the class, the computer on the kiln started beeping indicating that it was not heating fast enough, and it shut off at 2140 F when it was trying to reach 2175 F. I have a sneaking suspicion that this load only reached cone 4. So that means that my load of mugs etc will not be fired in that kiln this weekend as I had planned. Now I will be madly glazing on Friday night in order to pack it all up and take it to Ceramics Canada on Saturday to load in their kiln. I got the feet waxed on the mugs and a few other pieces, so I’m a little bit ahead.

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.

When the Potters Take You, it is the End!

I was listening to the radio last night before I went to sleep and the station I had it set to plays old radio shows from 11pm to 1am. I happened to catch this one last night “Dimension X – Potters of Firsk” If you want to have a listen, go to archive.org and you can look it up. It is great…in that cheesy 1950’s Sci-Fi kinda way. Apparently there was a band of renegade potters living in the foothills of a volcano on a distant planet who would claim the dead of the nearby villages and use the bones for their glazes. If there were not enough dead people, then they would kidnap living people. Apparently they were easily convinced to stop this practice in return for a yellow glaze recipe and a less bloody source of tricalcium phosphate (aka bone ash). Tooo funny.


If only the potters of Earth could demand that kind of fear and respect (without the body count of course). “Come to our pottery sales, or reap the consequences” something like that.

I wonder what was going through the mind of the person or persons who wrote this story? Were they that hard up for a plot?

Can't we all just slow down a bit?

I’m sure this has already been written about a zillion times, but here is my take on it as it pertains to a craft that is by its very nature, slow.

Ever since the introduction of the personal computer and by extension, the internet, our lives have become a bit more hectic (as if you needed me to tell you that.). Every time you turn around now, the new technology that just came out is obsolete. It also seems that along with the increased pace of turning out the newest, fastet, smarter gadget, so too has our desire to be instantly gratified. Everyone wants what they want now, not tomorrow, and definitely not next week or next month. OK, so what’s my point?

Well, here it is. I got a referral last week for an order of approximately 24 personalized mugs. Sounds great and I have no issues doing small orders as that is usually all I have time for. They wanted oversized coffee mugs with a specific text stamped either on the side or the bottom. Again, not a problem. I did mention that I usually require about 1 month to complete these types of orders. They came back to me and said that they needed them by June 28th. I agreed, as it was not that far off from the month that I would usually require and as luck would have it, I had already thrown 10 mugs the previous weekend but had yet to trim or attach handles, so they would work. My issue is not by any means with this particular order, but it did cause me to reflect on the reality of making pottery by hand (vs machine) and what the general buying public seems to expect when it comes to the hand made vs the machine made product.

I have run into this scenario a few times:

Customer: “I was wondering if you could make me a gift for a wedding present.”

Me: “Sure, no problem, when is the wedding, or when do you need to have it by?”

Customer: “Next week, Friday at the latest.”

Me: While trying not to choke “Um, no, I can’t do it by then, but would you like to look at some of the stuff I have that is already finished?”

Customer: “I was hoping to have it personalized with their names and the date of the wedding, so no. How come you can’t make it by Friday?”

You can see where I am going with this. There is a perception out there that what you want/need now, should just be available to you whenever you want it. For these people, I am very glad that Wally World and other similar purveyors of crap exist.

The slow process of making pottery is not meant for this type of consumer. I have tried to explain to more than a few people, when they ask how long it takes to make something, that it is more than just the making. I could say “Oh, about a minute”, but that would only apply to the initial throwing of the basic form. I could also say “ about a month” as that is sometimes how long it takes for things to dry, trim, attach handles, dry some more, bisque fire, glaze, fire again”, or (in my case) I could say (and I know they never really get this) “12 years”, to which I usually get blank stares.

I even had someone question why it took me so long, because they were able to pick up the mugs they made with their kids at the u paint it place the day after they did them.

I don’t think she saw my eyes roll to the back of my head…

So, not to be a Luddite or anything, but there seems to be an odd overlap of wants and expectations born from the mechanized mass produced world, with the hand made world. To me, it seems that the consumer must be unconsciously thinking “I want to buy a unique, hand made object that means more to me than what I can buy at the big box store, but I don’t want to spend too much, and I don’t want to have to think ahead and just be able to pick it up off the shelf as soon as I need it”. They want the best of both worlds, and I am sorry to say, at least in this, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I also don’t believe that this could be a conscious thought pattern, it’s just too ridiculous, but if it is, then there is really something wrong with our world. It kind of reminds me of an open air street fair that I had a booth in a few years ago. People were more than willing to shell out $15-$20 for non permanent tattoos, but not for a hand made mug that would last way longer than the tattoo they paid too much money for. My booth was right beside the tattoo tent, so I was a wee bit bitter by the end of the day. I guess a mug was just too cumbersome to carry around while drinking beer and getting a fake crappy tattoo.

Perhaps I get too wrapped up in the beauty of a well made object and tend to expect the same of everyone else. I mean, what is better than a handle on a mug that was lovingly attached in such a way that it looks and feels as if it was designed for your hand to hold, and not 3 billion other hands as well? (this is what I was doing on Saturday – lovingly attaching curvaceous and uplifting handles, back filling the attachment points to give visual balance to the overall piece, wiping away the drool …).

So back to my point, if there even really was one. I think we need to slow down, expect that something of quality will take time, not be in such a rush and accepting mediocrity as the price for immediacy.

Sanity seriously in question now

This is the last one for now...

And another one before bed...

I must be crazy...

One before bed

I applied a black slip tonight and then spent the evening after I got home shellacking the pattern and dotting the dots then wiped back the slip to reveal the white clay underneath. Now to bed to dream of dots and swirls.

Sunday's pots on Monday

So I'm a wee bit late posting these, but this is a little bit of what I was up to on Sunday. Well, Ok, so I did not make all of this on Sunday, but I touched them all. I refined the feet on the squared off plates, wiped off the shellacked mugs and the tea bowls, threw 10 tall mugs and 4 porcelain bowls (trimmed them too after a few minutes in the sun to dry a bit), and and refined the lid to the casserole. 

I will handle the mugs tomorrow, uncover the rest of the wet work to air dry and terra sig and shellac the 3 square plates. not a bad day. I probably could have done more, but I have been suffering a bit from "potter's elbow" and arthritic thumbs and fingers, so I took it a bit easy on the grunt work. 

I am starting to use more of the terra sig slips on the bas relief pots. I have added in a bit of Mason Stain 6600 black and ceramic rutile powder in one and just the rutile in another, and then apply them to the pot when bone dry. As soon as the sig is dry, I shellac the pattern on. This gives me colour on the very first layer and a white ground colour which I then go over again, wipe off again (but not too much). This process is still evolving in my mind and am thinking along the lines of octopi and other life forms that have a curly cue nature like tentacles, and tendrils etc...

Does anybody read this, or are you all Spam Bots?

I am always a wee bit curious about how people are driven to this little blog, where nothing of significance is discussed (like geopolitics, economics, war etc). I actually think that most of what I write about is really only interresting to me (I could be wrong). Anyway, back to the stats. Blogger tracks the referring links, referring URLs and the search keywords used to get here. I know my mother links to my blog on her blog, so that explains that. I am listed as an artist on the Centennial Gallery blog, so that explains that. But everything else is still an unknown as to where the traffic came from. The only thing I can think of are spam bots and other mysterious internet robots. I do get a kick out of the fact that people other than myself are googling me and my alter ego the cracked potter. What is weird, is that one of the referring sites is an "alternative social media site" that I do not belong to. I barely use FB. So it is a bit weird to see that my FB presence generates nothing, but other social media that I don't know anything about is generating traffic. The other weird one is a URL fingerprint site, that uncovers "hidden relations", whatever that is supposed to mean. Other people who are more techie than me will just shake their head and roll their eyes at my www naivete.

Anyway, 'nuf said about that. It now less than 42 hours before the sale on Saturday and no, I wont have any really, really, really fresh pots in it, just the month old ones. I thought Dave was going to load the kiln with my stuff that needed to be refired and fit student work in amongst it, and he thought I was, so in the end, he just loaded the student stuff and fired it. So look for the, brand new, fresh as a daisy pots on Etsy in about a week, once I recover from this last sale. I am pretty sure there are going to be some gooders in that batch.

Additional thought:

I have noticed again and again that people keep landing on the post "Late Onset ADD?". I was just trying to be funny, but people also seem to be searching these very words as well, so is late onset ADD a problem that I am not aware of? Do I really have it? Probably not, I can focus really well when the big comfy chair grabs a hold of me and the television is showing something I really like.

Dodging Murphy's curve ball

It might just work out in the end, but its gonna be tight (just like OJ's glove). The kiln is getting a new element today (fingers crossed) and then my stuff will be re-fired tonight. So Friday I will be unloading that kiln, then pricing and cataloguing everything else. it's gonna be a long Friday night.


I must say that even though everything was just a tad bit under fired, the glazes looked OK. I still want to refire though, the feet felt a little dry and the glazes were not 100%. The gloss liner glaze was satin, the translucent brown had a purple/bluish haze with little depth, the black and rutile slip on my bas relief stuff did not develop as nicely as it has in the past (begins to react with the glaze and forms a milky opalescence where the glaze pools) and again, the F96 brown clay was still quite orange. I always worry with a refire that the glazes will run off the pots and stick to the shelf. They had already started to flow the first time round, and now will be subjected to a full firing again. Luckily, most of my feet are quite substantial. I love a nice fat foot. However, I have several tall jars and vases that have flat bottoms and the glaze stops quite close to the bottom. Everything should be ok, but you never know.

So, if all goes well, I will have everything priced and packed on Friday night. If I don’t sell anything, then on Sunday I will be posting a whole bunch of stuff on Etsy, so look out...

Long Weekend Shennanigans...

This past weekend was the Victoria Day long weekend. I spent Friday night and all day Saturday at the studio, as well as a split shift on Sunday (sounds a bit sweat shopish). I was at the studio from 9:30am to 1pm madly glazing, then I went open housing with a friend of mine who is thinking of buying a condo. Her rent will be going up and other life situations have brought this to a head and now she is thinking of moving, so I went to a new condo project with her and then we drove around for a bit looking and then stopped for beer and food and then I was back to the studio at 4:30 and glazed and loaded the kiln until 9:30pm. I wouldn’t normally spend so long on the glazing at one time, but I was hoping to get one more load out of the kiln before the Mad Potters sale on Saturday. I took Monday off. I slept in for the first time in a really long time, got up, didn’t shower, barely got dressed. Dealt with the ribs that were defrosting in the fridge (I cooked them up and had a mid afternoon dinner out of them). The air outside my condo was heavy with the scent of the lilac in the front yard that is just starting to blossom, and the small tree outside my patio that I don’t know the name of, but it must be a cherry of some type. The pink/white blossoms are all out and I am sure some of what I smell outside is from that.


I did not think about the pots in the kiln at all on Monday, I just vegged out. I got an e-mail this morning addressed to all studio members and the title was Kiln Stuff. Hmmm. I read on and it looks like one of the elements went again. As this is not my kiln, I can’t really comment on how it is maintained, but when the elements start to go, it would probably behoove you to change them all out at the same time. Not so here. In an attempt to not have to buy all the new elements at once, they are being replaced as they die, which has been about 1-2 firings in between every replacement. I think so far 3 of the 6 elements have been replaced, so this would now be the 4th that needs changing.

This is of course interfering with getting ready for the sale. I had a few things in this firing that I really wanted to put out on Saturday. Maybe it will get fixed today and then no worries, but then again, maybe it will get fixed on Thursday, which would mean very hot pots on Friday. I will be in the studio tonight to teach so I can take stock of the situation and find out if it might be fixed in time for a refire on Wednesday. I had a lot of my bas relief shellacked pots in there. Approximately 14 teabowls, a tall jar with wire doodads on the lid, a test piece for Dave using some Alberta slip, a couple of large platters and other random tall stuff. I had a few glaze combos in there that I was anxious to see as well. Oh well, just another case of Murphy rearing his ugly head again.

I won't be taking these pots to CC to refire, just not enough time. I have a lot of stuff for the sale, that is not the issue, I just wanted some of these pots too.

Off to the Bronx...

I will be shipping a package to NYC (specifically the Bronx) today. It contains a cute little jar that was purchased from my Etsy shop. I must say that trying to figure out shipping costs for things before you sell them is a bit tricky. I knew from the outset that I would probably not get it right the first time and would probably end up either grossly over estimating shipping costs, or even worse, under estimating them. If I overestimate, that is fixable, as the extra can be refunded to the customer. It is the underestimating that is the real problem. Before I listed anything on Etsy, I did a quick survey of other Etsy shops selling roughly the same thing as me to try and figure out what they were charging for shipping. I also focused on those shops that were Canadian to try and get a handle on how much they were charging their US and international customers. But still, I have never shipped pottery to the US, or internationally for that matter, so the whole pricing thing was still a bit of a mystery. I have since discovered a couple of charts that are buried a couple of layers down on the Canada Post website that explain (that’s generous) how things are priced for shipping to the US. If you can keep your parcel under a certain weight (2lbs) and try and keep the dimensions of the overall package on the small side to reduce your “volumetric weight”, then you will only pay about $12.66 to ship to NYC by ground, otherwise, it jumps up to about $20. I am still not sure if my package is under the size and weight limits, but we shall see. Pottery is a tricky thing to wrap too. It’s fragile, so lots of packing materials go into ensuring it arrives in the same number of pieces it left in (usually 1). You need at least 2-3 inches around your piece to make sure there is enough room for the bubble wrap and extra padding, so your box size increases rather dramatically. At this point, I am not even considering the cost of the packing materials themselves. I went to the post office on Monday to pick up some bubble wrap, tape and brown kraft paper. That alone cost me over $11, but will wrap a few packages, so probably $2 or $3 went into the packing supplies for this one. My pot sold for $25, and shipping was charged at $14, so if by some miracle this comes in at $12.66, then I may just have guessed my shipping costs correctly, give or take a buck. If not, then this “road to riches” through pottery is going to be hard and all uphill (one can dream can’t they?).

This weekend is a long weekend (Victoria Day) and while most people take advantage of the nice weather to go camping, or go to their cabins, or whatever, I will be in the studio, as per usual. The Mad Potter’s Sale is quickly approaching, and I need to get one more load fired off before then, so I am hoping to load a bisque on Friday and then a glaze on Sunday. I have yet to price anything, or set in stone what I am taking (mandatory catalogue sheet). I hate catalogue sheets. In fact, hate is not a strong enough sentiment. I loath and detest them with a passion usually reserved for things like war & puppy kickers. For the amount of work that goes into putting them together, I don’t see the benefit. I like the way we do it at the Fairview sale. Blank sheets, price sticker goes on sheet when sold (re-written for security sake) and totaled. Catalogue sheets really mean nothing to me. For instance, if I have 10-12 bowls of similar sizes, then they will all be the same price, so when one sells, I can’t tell which one it was that sold by the catalogue sheet, unless I get really, really descriptive when writing them up, but that takes way too much time, and how many different ways can you describe a bowl in 2 inches of space? I never look back at my catalogue sheets (maybe I should), but I can usually tell, at a glace, what has sold really well, and what didn’t. It becomes very apparent when you are wrapping up your stuff at the end of the day too. The other reason I hate catalogue sheets is that I am a prolific potter for the amount of time I spend in the studio. I always take way too much stuff, and that means having to catalogue approximately 100 pieces that I know will never all sell, but I don’t want to limit my potential, so I tend to bring it all and cross my fingers.

Mad Potters...we don't bite (hard)

I will be in the Mad Potters Sale on Saturday, May 26^th this year. If you are in the Hillhurst/Sunnyside area and want to see some excellent pottery, there will be all kinds of wonderful, functional and sculptural work by local Calgary artists ranging from Cone 10 reduction stoneware to mid range porcelain fired in oxidation. So come on down to the HHSS Community Centre and check us out, we would love to see you there!

First Etsy Sale

It may have taken 3 months, but I just made my first sale through Etsy. It was for a little stoneware jar thrown all in one and then the lid is seperated from the body at the trimming stage. It will be going to the Bronx in a few days. Now I just have to find a box...

My new T's arrived in the mail yesterday....


I was not able to decide which one to get, but as it is for a good cause, I bought both of them.
I got the link for the t's from Carole Epp's blog Musing About Mud, however, I just checked and unfortunatly it looks like these limited edition t-shirts are now all gone :(