New addition

Well, it's official, there is a new member of the family... no name yet, hopefully one will become evident.

New Opportunity on the Horizon

I was contacted recently about showing some of my pots in an exhibit space in one of the buildings downtown. I am not going to say anything more until I know more and when, but I am meeting on Saturday to hopefully send the work off to be displayed. This would not be a selling opportunity (an honorarium will be paid instead), but my business cards will be displayed along with the work and the public will be able to contact me directly regarding purchase if they want. Once I know when the exhibit will be up and running, I will post the info. This is my new(ish) business card for lack of any pottery pictures worth posting...

This is the front

and this is the back

2013 In Review

We are now 1 week into the new year and I thought I would do a little recap of 2013, as I saw it.

Way back in January 2013, I was getting ready for a salt and soda firing in Medalta. The firing was not until April, but I was making pots in preparation for it really early.

I think I was done making for this firing by mid February. These are most, if not all of the pots I was to take with me.

A group of students and instructors at Fairview Studios were also in the middle of organizing the 1^st ever studio OPEN HOUSE in the hopes of attracting new students as enrollment levels have not quite been what they used to be since we moved to the new location. So at the end of March, in preparation for the June open house, I threw a few groggy tea bowls to be raku fired on the day of the open house

.  I also made some really, really good ribs and served them up on one of my sgraffito plates.

and the amaryllis plants that I started from seeds that I had pollinated by hand many years ago, decided to bloom too.

My pal Susan and I trundled off to Medicine Hat in April and fired off the salt and soda kilns

. We were very tired puppies by the end of it all.

Not much happened in May. I was exploring more with the sgrafitto, trying to come up with unique designs for every pot (almost). That taxed the brain and I have since pared the patterns down to one or 2 good ones.

.

I  got a new photo cube) and in June, I began seriously documenting all the new pots that were coming out of the kiln.

But then came the flood and washed it all away on June 21^st. All the rain we had gotten over the spring had saturated the ground and when some parts of the mountains received over 108 cm of rain in 24 hours, the ground couldn’t hold it and the water surged into the little creeks that became raging torrents and they cut swaths of destruction all the way down into the foothills and the prairies beyond.

This first pic is looking down on the elbow river where it winds around behind Lindsay Park and is just 2 blocks north of my street.

)

This image shows the vastness of the flooding in the Victoria Park and Mission neighborhoods and is looking south towards my part of Mission.

. This one shows Macleod Trail looking North from Cemetery Hill. If you were able to turn left at the bottom of the hill, my condo is 2 blocks west and 1 block north of this image. The water kept going all the way over to the Stampede Grounds and Saddle Dome that are just to right of this picture.

I got my first up close look on June 24^th and this is what I saw

. The next day I was floored by how many people came out to help. There were roving groups of people in rubber boots with shovels ready and willing to lend a hand. All of the people I know that were able to come out did, all of my sister’s friends came and helped, local businesses helped with food, water, supplies and even beer. Everything I have ever owned is on the lawn in this image.

 The next day we all came back and began the process of moving all of the mud caked and water logged mounds of garbage into the back of the garbage trucks that were there at 8:00 in the morning.

As soon as I was able to get back in the studio, I started making these flood mugs and gave them away to fellow floodies and selling to any and all that wanted to buy them.

The year progressed as it always does – in a blur. Fairview had it’s Christmas Sale, and I had a couple more of my own sales at the end of November and throughout December. I also kept scratching away on my sgrafitto pots. Just before the Christmas/New Years break, Ceramics Canada moved to a new location and I was there helping with some painting and unloading of trucks.

So things have changed a lot for me, but they have also remained the same in many respects. I started the year out living in my condo and have ended the year living in my parent’s basement. I am still making lots of pots (no change there). I still work for Ceramics Canada, just at a newer location. Calgary also saw lots of change, there was the flooding, there was a train derailment over the bow river (no leaking of oil or explosions thankfully) and there has been record breaking snow falls.

So 2014 has a lot to live up to. It can’t be much worse than 2013 was (knock on wood).

Last kiln load of 2013

I got a few nice pots from the last firing. There were a few uglies too, but I can deal with that.
These two pots came home with me last night. One of them is the urn I made for my great Aunt Ellen.

Last Chance!

Friday, December 20^th from 7 – 10 pm will be your LAST* chance to get some of my HAND MADE pottery before Christmas. I will be showing my work at Brandy & Moe’s Christmas Market located at Brandy Leigh’s at 233 10^th Street N.W.

Along with my pottery there will be lots of other art and craft vendors to get that one of a kind and very unique gift that has eluded you this shopping season.

I will have a lot of my very new black and white sgraffito work, as well as some more colourful items. I will have tons of teapots, many mugs, copious casseroles, plenty of pitchers, bountiful bowls, you get the drift. If you want the alliteration to stop, come to the sale!

In fact, some of the items I will have on offer will be still warm (ish) from the kiln. I don’t even know what they look like yet!

So tie up your galoshes, put on your toque and come cheque it out. Oh ya, if you need more temptation, there will be bevies and snacks to munch on too!

It should be noted that part of the proceeds are being donated to charity. It’s like killing a whole bunch of birds with one stone. What more could you ask for?

* Technically it isn’t really your last chance, if you contact me at ashleymorrow@shaw.ca we can always work something out before it really is too late.  

These pics are some of the items that will be there, they are just in the kiln right now, so I can't give you a "finished" pic. You will just have to come check out the sale to see what they look like all shiny from the kiln.

An Urn

I finished carving the urn for my great Aunt on the weekend. I will bisque and glaze this coming weekend if I can fit a firing in. The urn will have a wash of blue underglaze and then a clear glaze all over.

Condo Restoration News

It would appear that there has been some movement on the condo restoration front. I was called on Tuesday to arrange to meet with the flooring company and pick hardwood and tile for my unit and I went over yesterday afternoon. I have picked it all, and it came in a little under budget, so hopefully I can use that extra money for something else that might cost a bit more. I ended up going with a hickory hardwood. It is dark, but not too dark. It is a really warm colour and I am sure it will be nice.

As for the tile, I only need a bit of floor tile in the bathroom and the laundry “room”. The laundry room is actually no more than a closet big enough to hide the stacking washer and dryer. I ended up going with a ceramic tile with a warm but neutral “marble” look to it. I was also picking tub surround tile and kitchen backsplash and went with 6x18 subway tile. The bath tile is a high gloss white tile with a raised repeating texture, reminiscent of upholstery tufting. There will be a plain un textured tile running about 5 rows up from the tub all the way around. The kitchen backsplash is also a white gloss with a raised pattern of miniature rectangular tiles.

I am NOT an interior decorator by any stretch of the imagination. I have always lived with 2^nd hand, hand me down, or just plain old cheap/inexpensive furniture and all the choices in fittings and fixtures etc were already made. I have never been in the position to choose my own style. I don’t even know that I have a style. I just call it shabby lazy, not to be confused with shabby chic.

In this picture, the wood floor is the darker brown right in the middle, not the paleer wood to the left of it. 

In Progress

After a couple of hectic weekends of pottery sales, I have not had much time in the studio. I did manage to squeeze a few hours in on Sunday morning before the last sale, but I always feel rushed when I have to be somewhere and never seem to be able to focus. I did however get a few things done. Trimming, throwing and scratching. I cleaned up a new wall piece with a rasp and it is now slowly drying. The sale went reasonably well and I made a few new contacts for possible new craft shows next year too.
Here are a couple pics of my most recent scratchings.

The Second Coming

If you missed the Fairview Studios sale and still need your LOCAL pottery fix, then this Sunday is your chance.
I will be selling my pots at the Moe Shelley Holiday Craft Market on Dec 1st from 1pm to 5pm The address is 1201 1st street SW. And is in the Bamboo Lounge, right beside the Drum and Monkey Pub.

I really hope to see you there. I accept cash, Visa, Master Card and American Express.

Getting Ready for the Fairview Pottery Sale...

The craft sale season is in full swing and the Fairview Studios Pottery Sale is swiftly approaching. I will be there with all of my pots this Saturday (Nov 23^rd) from 9am to Noon. The Christmas sale is, as always, a unique event and a good study in human behavior. The lineup starts to form somewhere around 8am. The well seasoned customers who have been to our little sale before know to bring their own bags, boxes, carry alls etc. and they all rush in to the hall upon opening like demented lemmings rushing to the cliff’s edge. Nobody shoves or pushes (we are Canadian after all), but there is a determinedness in their eyes to get the biggest, the bestest, or most fantabulous pot ever. They grab the first few po

ts that catch their eye and then hem and haw over their selections as they cruise the rest of the tables, setting pots down, picking new fav’s up in their stead, or just going straight to the cash tables without second guessing themselves.

There are also 2 distinct types of people who attend these sales, at least that I have noticed anyway. There is the person who wants something very unique and one of a kind, and then there is the person who brings a ruler and lines up all the mugs in a row to pick out the mugs that are not all the same height. These same people may also bring along paint chips and fabric swatches to ensure that their new purchase matches the paint on their walls, or the fabric on their furniture etc.

But whether you are a matcher or a mixer, we have pretty much everything you could want.

Behind the scenes is just as interesting, albeit unobservable to the non potter. Starting around the 1^st of November, there is a mad rush to get as much work fired as is humanly possible (or is that humanely – Dave would think its inhumane to have him work so hard) Pretty much every day people are asking if there will be another glaze firing, or another bisque, or if we think there will be enough time to throw today and get it done for the sale. I even have this insane urge to try to produce work right up to the last second. Granted I have to bob and weave around student firings. I can’t interfere with those firings by jumping in with my work. So last night (Tuesday), I loaded a bisque. I know there is no possible way that I can get that work glazed and fired before Saturday morning, but I was mulling the possibility over in my mind last night. If I go to the studio and unload really hot bisque, I could do a marathon glaze session on Wednesday night and load a glaze to be unloaded Friday, priced and then packed. Doubtful to say the least. I have heard a story or 2 of flaming pots in the back of cars on the way to sales. Not something I want to experience first hand.The second best scenario is that I spend a bit of time on Sunday to glaze at a leisurely pace and have it ready for the Moe Shelly Craft Sale on December 1^st at the Bamboo Lounge. This is actually the best option. When I rush, I make mistakes, or break stuff. That is always bad.

Here is a non sale related tip: When someone gives you a ginormous tub of Cornish stone, don’t leave it in your car for a week. I opened my hatch the other day to discover that the bucket had tipped over and dumped about 3 pounds of pale blue grey Cornish stone powder all over. I did manage to get most of it back in the bucket, but I will need to vacuum the rest out at some point. I took the Cornish stone because it is the real deal. We can’t get this anymore. The replacement material did almost the same things, but then there was a replacement to the replacement and it does not do the same thing, at all.

A really heavy wall piece

This is some of what I was up to on the weekend. I also scratched up some short goblets and some mugs.

Pig update

Here piggy piggy piggy

Here's a we little piggy getting ready to run all the way home.

I guess I need to bite harder

I have not been very selective with my outside voice lately. I can usually keep the lid on it and the brain to mouth filter firmly in place. Not lately though. So, if you have been in the line of fire, I'm sorry. I will just have to bite my tongue harder next time. Perhaps there is no more room in my head for the things I have not said out loud and then, like a pressure cooker that's blown a gasket, you get verbal stew all over the place.

The good news is that my condo building just got the occupancy permit from the city for the 12 upper units. Now we are just working on getting a contractor in place for the bottom 4 units. Hopefully this will not be too long. I'm pretty sure I can't do this much longer.

There’s A Lot Going On

Well, I guess fall is over. It was a lovely 19 degrees on Saturday, the sun was out, the sky was blue and it was warm. Sunday however was a completely different story. It started out by raining over night on Saturday and by the time I left for the studio at 8:30, it was quickly becoming snow. It then proceeded to snow all day.

But with the snow comes looming sale deadlines, so I managed to finish handling all the mugs I made on Friday, I sgrafittoed 4 mugs in very unique freehand designs, made a couple of glazes, loaded and fired off a bisque and topped my day off by throwing some medium sized bowls.

The 2 glazes I made are very similar; in that they are the same base and that they both contain 4% rutile. One of them however contains 4% tin. I am working with the Plainsman Clays recipe using Alberta slip and Frit 3134. It is the simplest glaze formula, and comes out really, really nice. It feels lovely, it doesn’t craze and it applies beautifully. The only crabby thing about this glaze is that you have to calcine half of the Alberta Slip to drive off excess moisture to reduce the plasticity. Not a difficult job in and of itself, but it just adds another step to the process as well as making you think ahead when deciding to mix glazes. I pop it in the kiln in bisque bowls, fire to 022 and hold for a bit. I do this overnight so I can mix it first thing the next day. It comes out looking like chocolate milk powder. So the one with just the rutile is a lovely purplish lavender colour floating over an amber background. It breaks nicely and is reminiscent of our true Orange Blue Rutile glaze from our cone 10 reduction days. The other great thing is that it plays really, really nicely with our other glazes which can always be an issue when making a glaze that will probably end up being layered with other glazes. This one will hopefully become a studio glaze for all to use.

The second glaze is the same as the first but with the addition of 4% tin. I have not really tested this one, but according to Plainsman, it is a light gloss brown. It isn’t the brown I am after so much, but when a thin wash of Titanium Dioxide is brushed over top, it changes colour to a creamy green and blue variegated glaze that breaks nicely on texture etc. This glaze will not become a studio glaze. The tin is just too expensive for the quantities we would require.

I can foresee that my future for the next couple of weeks will entail more mug carving. I have a few flood mugs I need to finish. I have 19 or so mugs to carve and I will probably do half flood mugs and half whatever comes out of my brain. I will also be glazing and firing as much as I can. There is the Fairview Christmas sale on November 23^rd, and the Moe Shelley Craft Market the following weekend on Sunday December 1^st. I won’t have much, if any, time in between to restock, so I will need to have stock ready for both.

My nose will be on the grindstone (what a weird saying – how does grinding off your nose mean that you are working hard?) for the next while as I try to get ready with my own work in amongst the student firings that always take precedent in the weeks coming up to a studio sale.

Tonight I will be sending out the reminder email about the sale, so If you are anxiously awaiting the info, it is coming. But until then, I will post the info here.

Interview

What is it like to live with family for extended periods of time? Well, the CBC asked me that question on Wednesday night last week. The interview aired Friday morning leading in to the thanks giving weekend.
Here's the link:
http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Local+Shows/Alberta/Calgary+Eyeopener/ID/2411646086/

New Weight Loss Program

I stood on the scale this morning and was shocked to find that I had lost, at minimum, 10 pounds. What is this amazing, fat dissolving diet you ask? I guess it all comes down to water. It has always been said that a person should drink approximately 8 glasses of water a day, but that is not what I did. The water came in the form of a massive flood. So I guess flooding, stress and moving back in with your parents is a way (not a good way) to lose 10 pounds in 3 months.

For those interested, here is an update. My condo is still uninhabitable. In fact, nobody is living in the 16 unit building. The work for the mechanical and electrical has only just begun and my understanding is that they are still waiting on parts for the electrical to arrive. There were delays caused by asbestos removal that was required as well as some issues with the heating system in the first floor units. We were given a very tentative move in date for the upper floors of approximately mid October, just in time for Turkey day (maybe). As for when my first floor neighbors and I can move back, not a clue. Construction can not begin on our units until the heat, water, power, etc are all installed and inspected, and it is almost October, so I am guessing we probably won’t be in until February? Who knows, it could be sooner, but it could be later.
By the time this is all over and I am back in my little home, I may need to re-buy the wardrobe I just had to replace. But instead of losing it all to a flood, I will have lost too much weight. I will say that my Mum eats extremely healthy, so that might also have something to do with it. When I was living solo, I would grocery shop like someone with a split personality. I would try to shop healthy, but would get distracted in the ice cream section, or get sucked into a bag of chips, so that was a problem. If I want a snack at my parent’s house, it usually looks like a bunch of sugar peas, or trail mix.

A few mugs from Medalta

I have not had a lot of time to take any pictures of the latest pots to come out of the salt and soda kilns in Medicine Hat. Half of them have been loaded right into Centennial Gallery and the rest are going to a sale this weekend. I have saved a few for myself, but I also have a few mugs put aside for a potential customer looking for a mug. These are the mugs I am holding until I hear which one she wants. They are all thrown from Babu Porcelain and are very translucent.

Now I need to get ready for the fall sales in November. It is still hard to believe how fast this summer has gone. I guess major disasters will eat up the time. It just feels like yesterday that I was watching my condo go under water in the news.

How to lose 5lbs in 1 day

I went to Medicine Hat last Wednesday to fire the Salt and Soda Kilns at the Shaw Centre at Medalta.

I left right after work on Wednesday afternoon and arrived at our motel at 7:30. Kathy and I got up early and went to glaze and load the kilns on Thursday and turned the kilns on low and slow overnight to preheat. There were various issues with this round of firing. The cone packs in the soda kiln blew up during the preheat, so we were flying a bit blind. Aaron found us an optical thermographer called the Cyclops. He was not sure how to use it, so had one of the train kiln operators from the old IXL brick factory to come over and trouble shoot it with us. As this was our only guide for temperature, we used it as well as colour in the kiln. By the time a witness cone bent in the salt kiln we had finished adding the soda, so that was pretty much a shot in the dark. We took a reading when cone 7 bent, and it looked like the “cyclops” was out by a hundred degrees or so. I think we were slightly underfired in the soda, but got some decent results. The salt was much better, although it could have used a bit more salt. In total, we added about 6 pounds of soda ash, and 14 pounds of salt. I did not take many pictures during the firing as it is too hard to do that when there are only 2 of us. If I could find a way to grow a 3^rd arm, that would help. I would look weird though.

As to the weight loss, it was all sweat. The temp in Medicine Hat on the day of the firing was about 31 degrees Celsius (87.8 F). Without the kilns it was pretty darned hot out. The kilns themselves were at about 2385 F or so at top temp. We were a little limp with the heat by the end of the day. While we were waiting for the salt kiln to reach salting temp (it took until 9 pm or so), we ordered a pizza, around the time the pizza was to arrive, a torrential downpour sprang up. So we had heat, lightning, thunder, rain and pizza.

All in all I think the firings were OK. The soda was a bit dry in spots, but the salt was relatively juicy. There were some really nice glazes in this firing. I had some excellent carbon trapping in a Malcolm Davis shino, some good colour development in the yellow salt glaze, and some really lovely pink halos and blushing on the insides of some of my rice bowls where I used the Andrew Wong Lustre glaze. That glaze can come out quite boring and white if not reduced enough (?), but this time, I think we had good reduction. Not too much, just enough. 

Oh ya, I also saw the Medalta International Cup Show. The labels had not been put up yet, but I was able to recognize quite a few potters. There were several of Jim Gottuso's yunomis and beer glasses, a couple of cups from Zygote, a wall piece from Mindy Andrews and a ton of others that I just can't recall the makers of off the top of my head. There was stoneware, porcelain, low fire, high fire, salt, soda, functional and not so functional, etc etc...Very good show. Great job Carol for picking all of these amazing cups.

My Camera is in Newfoundland, but I am not...

I loaned my camera to my sister and her husband for their belated honeymoon trip to Newfoundland so they would have 2 cameras instead of just 1. Therefore, no pics for a bit until they get back. I am currently house/fish/plant sitting for them and am apparently also in charge of feeding and bathing all of the neighborhood sparrows. I put out water and seed for them the first day , I was not sure how much to put in the feeder, so I filled it up. I came home in the afternoon and it was gone, all of it. They are little flying pigs, and are now on a one scoop diet.
This is the Heritage Day long weekend, so I will naturally be spending it at the studio. Dave is working at the Canmore Folk Festival as Instrument Security, so I am going to be opening and closing for open studio time,  as well as teaching on Monday night.  I also need to bisque the last of my pots for the salt/soda firing and pack them up. I am also teaching a couple of hand building classes on large(ish) soft slab vases next week, so I need to get all the slabs rolled out so they are suitably stiff for construction, as well as a few examples of finished pieces just in case. Nothing like trying to build a large vase when you slab is all floppy. It is kind of weird about this hand building class. I don't normally hand build. I am not sure why I said I would demo this. I have no patience for hand building. Too much waiting for things to dry in my opinion. But, throwing is a skill learned over a long time and if you are a new student it can be frustrating when all you can seem to make are lumpy dog bowls. Hopefully this will get them thinking tall and make them feel like they are accomplishing something. I may include some basic "printing" techniques with underglazes and how to incorporate texture with found objects and bisque stamps etc. This is definitely stretching my envelope.