Up Next: Art Horizons Show

If you are in Calgary on Saturday, October 14th, you should consider coming to this show.

Just a Peek

Last weekend was the May long weekend. As many silly people trekked out on the first camping weekend of the summer, I was ensconced in the studio mixing glazes and loading kilns. It turns out that I was the wisest one. It rained all weekend in town and snowed several feet in the mountains. These are just a couple quick shots of the bisque kiln all loaded up and ready to fire and the resulting glaze kiln that I loaded on Monday. It was still at 650 F so I was only able to take a quick peek in to take the photo.

Condo Status and Other More Interesting Stuff

Firstly, for all of you out there that are wondering if I will be home for Christmas, the answer is NO. The engineer report regarding the source / solution to the water that mysteriously showed up in my unit on October 17th just came in and they don't have a clue where it came from. We have theories, but nothing concrete. The next step is to recreate the water testing that occured several days prior to the water appearing in my unit. The plumber was in running water in the 3 units above me to find out why there were drastic temperature changes. It is my understanding that they had all taps open and running, toilets were being flushed etc. In the end, they found out why the temp was changing, but it is my belief, but then again I'm not a plumber so what do I know, that this led to the water leaking into my unit on the main floor. This may or may not reveal a cause, but the solution to prevent any future water issues in my unit is to dig a trench in my floor that leads to the sump pump in the mechanical room, probably several feet down, lay down a perforated drain (aka weeping tile), cover with gravel and then patch the floor and then fix my unit. This should take any excess water that collects and divert it to the sump. When? How much $$? Who knows. I just know that it wont be complete before the end of the year, so my guess is that it will take until at least February. But again, just a guess.

In other non stressful areas of my life, seeing as how I don't have a home to call my own that I can actually go to every day, I have been putting my mental energy into ruminating about the possibility of entering a large craft show for next year's Christmas shopping season. I thought about a spring show, but the deadlines are already coming up for those. I know this will be a lot of work, but I won't know if this is a good fit for me unless I at least give it a shot. So, with that in mind, I am getting a jump on it before the registration deadlines come and go. My biggest concern is that I don't have a real display for my work, I have only ever really done the Fairview pottery show and it is such a crazy show that we could probably get away with just putting it all on the floor in the middle of the room and let the customers dig through it like a discount bin in a big department store (we never would, but you get the picture). So, the hunt is on for an inexpensive and portable display solution and I think I may have found it. I located some basic pine boxes made from 1x2s with solid end panels with routered out handles. As they are unfinished, I need to find a way to fancy them up so they look presentable. Milk paint was my first thought. The big hardware stores don't carry that stuff though. There are some specialty wood working and ECO stores in town that do, but I don't want to buy the quantity they sell it in. I just found a Canadian manufacturer that sells test size amounts that would in fact cover a couple of these boxes, so with the thought that I would be getting at least 6 pine boxes (I picked up 2 last night) I bought 6 different colours in the test quantity and they should arrive in about 5 days. I will use bees wax to help distress and then use a couple of colours on each box to give a weathered / antique appearance. I will then use the crates to create a shelving system of sorts by just stacking them like bricks in various combinations of height and spacing. Now I just need to make, make, make and hope I get accepted into one of these shows so I don't get stuck with too much inventory.

Now for the pictures, I always like a post with pictures. These are some of the things I have been working on over the last week.

This little diorama is a riff on the black and white sgraffito pots with the houses and trees. I plan to incise some detail into this super translucent porcelain in the hopes that I can figure out a way to illuminate the houses from inside (small battery operated tea lights maybe?) I also might add a little bridge and it needs some bushes etc...

I am also playing around with some bottles that would appeal to the scotch, bourbon, whiskey connoisseur, again thinking about possible show stock for next year. Good grief, we have not even had Christmas this year and I am already looking forward 12 months.

New ideas brewing...

I recently purchased a product from EZScreenprint that will allow anyone, and I mean anyone (even a monkey like me), to create a silk screen of any black and white image to transfer onto pretty much any surface. All you need is a nice sunny day to develop your stencil.

They are marketed mostly to fabric people who want to print on their fabric creations, but they can apparently be used on POTTERY.

I splurged and bought the starter kit, but as shipping costs were ridiculous, I got an additional pack of 3 sheets to make the shipping cost worth it.

Anyway, I have been scrounging the internet for good designs, patterns images as well as drawing my own. I think I have come up with some really good ideas, but needed to know how much detail would be captured, how bold the lines need to be etc so I used the test piece provided in the kit and one of my own little drawings and this is what I got. Now I need to see if it actually works with the underglazes I have and will give it a shot tonight.

New jug

Not much to report today, just a picture of a very different style of handle for this very large pitcher.Each section is actually made of 2 pulled handles. The pulled handles were made with a very deep channel so the profile of each pulled section was "U" shaped. They were then laid edge to edge to create a hollow handle, shaped into "doughnuts" and cut to fit. This pitcher is definitely not truly functional, as it is way too large and the handle(s) will probably not be very ergonomic. But it will make a great vase...

Mugs, mugs and more mugs

These mugs and an assortment of bowls, plates and vases that were done in the same black and white sgraffito decoration were bisque fired on Sunday. I will be glazing them tonight. There are a couple in there that were done with a deep red terra sig slip and I have no idea how it will come out, so I will have my fingers crossed for those. I tried layering the red and black on one mug as well. I am really liking some of my designs, some not so much. One in particular is sort of an accidental homage to Dr. Seuss. It ended up looking like the houses the Who's live in. You can see the "Who" mug in the last picture front and centre.

I wish...

That there was a way to make money from procrastination. If there was, I would be soooo rich.
I have put off the inevitable, and now I am down to 1 night (the night before I go away) to clean my house (do all my dishes, throw out all the crud that has accumulated over the last little while, do laundry etc and pack for my trip. I can't do it tonight as I am teaching...so tomorrow it is. At least my flight does not leave until Noon, that should give my laundry time to fully dry before I pack it. Did I mention that my dryer is still toast? Yes, It died a while ago and as the subject of this post may suggest, I have put off getting it fixed. I seem to be doing ok without it though, less energy waste anyway.

I got around to updating my musical selections for the trip, but in the process, I managed to delete almost my entire iTunes library and had to redo it all. So while doing that, I got rid of all my duplicate songs and there seemed to be a lot of them for some reason. While I was at it, I updated my ipad software as well (that was long overdue, iOS6 has been out for a while). I was up a little bit past my bed time, that's for sure. I never really took a look at how much music I really have and was amazed, especially considering that I only listen to a fraction of it. Next, I need to update my phone and get that all sorted out. Other than that, I am ready to go (HA). I'm not sure where I got my procrastination genes from (probably my Dad, it sure wasn't from either set of Grandparents. The moss never grew under their feet, that's for sure.  My mum is one of those people that is ready to go at least a week or two before leaving, so I can't blame her either. I am an always on time and somewhat annoyingly early person (I don't do fashionably late), but I'm never really ready to go until the last minute.

Anyway, tonight I will be teaching, and at least I know what I am demonstrating well in advance of the class (not normal). I will make one of those altered serving dishes I posted about yesterday. I will scale it down so that it is not so overwhelming for the students. It can be tricky to manoeuvre the bottomless walls onto the slab bottom for both the marking and attaching phases, so we will start small (small for me that is).

My weekend results

Here are some of the things I was up to on the weekend. I made 3 of these altered serving dishes and a couple of these slipped spherical pots.

These altered forms are a pain in the butt to make, but I do like the finished result. I just hate hand building. I guess I just need to practice. I did notice that by the 3rd one I was getting more confident in my decisions and actions. Ooh I just had a thought. They would look good with a big pulled handle running from end to end. Maybe tomorrow....

I love the freshness of the wet slip on these round pots. If only I could keep the feel of that look right through to the fired piece. 

All the little plates

These are all the little square plates I have been making and experimenting with the shellac resist and terra sig. There were a few fuggly ones in there, but a few really nice ones too.

Here are 6 that I really like:

Has a Tim Burton vibe I think

Love it

Love it

The octopus plate was sold pretty much the second it came out of the kiln, so this is probably the only pic I will have of it. I will have to do more mollusks....

Here are a few other things that I have had on the go for a while and are now ready for the bisque:

I was going a bit dotty by the end of this one

same with this one...

I was working on this bowl while listening to a CBC show that was talking about Glen Gould. While I was shellacking the pattern, they were playing one of his quicker pieces and I think I was flying along with Gould at the same time. The person doing the show said he thought that Gould had "left the stratosphere".

getting stuff done

I managed to get a few things done this weekend, despite the heat. It managed to get up to at least 29 degrees with no breeze or a cloud in the sky. I started the day on Saturday at 9:30 by going to the mall (I know, I know, I hate the mall too). I needed to go see a man about a power cord for my macbook. Lately the cord has been kinda flaky and not charging properly. I took it in, saw a “genius” and got a new cord. Works like a charm. The mall is on the way to the studio, and after the apple visit, I toddled on over there, but splurged on a venti caramel latte before I left. My theory was to try to get to the studio as early as I could to beat the heat, but it was pretty toasty inside anyway, there was a kiln that had recently finished firing and was doing a good job at heating up the joint. When I pulled into the parking lot, there were hundreds of cars parked in every conceivable space in every lot, along the road (except ours thank goodness). There is a motor cross track at the end of the road and normally all you can hear is the annoying whine of dirt bikes flying around the track. Not so on Saturday. There was a Spartan race going on, and if you don't know what that is, and neither did I, it is an obstacle course that involves crawling under barbed wire in the mud, running up hill, running down hill, etc. I saw a lot of very muddy racers walking to their cars when they were done.


Anyway, I mixed 3 glaze tests, fingers crossed, glazed a billion pieces, and loaded a kiln. Ok, probably not a billion, but there was a lot of stuff to glaze, and not knowing exactly what will fit in the kiln, I try to make sure I have enough glazed to be able to pack it as efficiently as possible. I managed to get the custom “fire” bowl in, about 24 mugs, some tall stuff, a large platter and 4 smaller square plates, a couple of casseroles, and teapots, as well as all the test pieces. As I had mixed 3 tests, I had the 3 test cups in there, plus one where I poured all 3 in an overlapping manner around the outside, and then for giggles, I dumped all 3 tests together and tried that out on a couple of small cups. The base glaze was identical, but the oxides were different in all 3. One had just copper carb, another had copper carb and iron, and the 3rd had cobalt oxide and iron. I am hoping for a mottled green/brown, a pale mottled green, and a dark mottled greenish blue and all will hopefully have a lovely satin feel to them.

I am hoping to get the crystal firing loaded this coming friday night and then program it so that I can be there during the critical cooling and holding phase to ensure that the temp. drops as fast as possible by opening up all peeps and running a fan across them to draw as much heat out as fast as possible until the hold temp is reached.

When I was unloading the student glaze load yesterday, I became quite aware of how little people actually pay attention to anything. I sent out instructions about what to do when glazing with the crystal glazes and where to put them when finished to avoid confusion with regular ware etc. But in spite of that, I pulled out a spectacularly horrible pot yesterday that had a dry and ugly surface on it (glaze not thick enough), but where it was thick, little spiky, poorly formed crystals were evident. So, not only did they not read or follow the instructions, or ask for advice on how to glaze their work, they then put it with the standard cone 6 work. Thank goodness we limited it to the inside of bowls only or there could have been a huge mess.

Here's a pictoral rundown of my Saturday and sunday

This is some of the bisque I had to glaze


Here is a close up of a couple square plates


The ware cart starts to fill and then move into the kiln. This is the 1st shelf.

Then the second, third, and a half. My fingers are crossed right now. I'm hoping for some good tests.

2 new pots up on Etsy

I have listed another shellac resisted teabowl and a coffee mug on Etsy. For some reason, when I send the pictures to my blog via my iphone, they are not showing up in my post list, so you will have to look to your right, and you will see all of my Etsy pots for sale. I will have to load the pictures when I am sitting down with my actual computer tonight.

The last few days

I have actually been a bit more productive lately. I guess with the heat starting to become more bearable and less humidity in the air I have more energy. I was able to load a bisque on Friday night, in anticipation of being able to fire a glaze load this week, but the last element in the kiln that had not been replaced yet, finally shuffled off it's mortal coil (pun intended) last week, the element is on order, but did not arrive on Friday, so hopefully tomorrow (fingers crossed). I also threw a bunch of the square plates, and trimmed them up. They have all had the slip/shellac treatment and are now drying under wraps. There were a couple squared off teapots. They are actually quite round, but the bottom comes out quite square and then I cut out feet at each corner. I should record the process and post it one of these days. I also took a few pictures, and will take more, of finished work and posted to Etsy (see last post). I updated my facebook account finally. I think I was the last person in the FB universe to update the new (to me) settings. It seems I am an antisocial networker.

I glazed the fire bowl and am again, just waiting for the element so that I can fire it. My fingers are really crossed with this one as there are a few things that could go wrong, and as it is a custom piece, it is marked for death by that fact alone. I just have to take deep breaths and pray to the kiln gods. I should have made 2 to be on the safe side, but I did not.

Here are a few pics of some of the pots that went into the bisque, including some of the square shellacked plates with various designs. I am especially fond of the leaf pattern and have begun working more along that line. It takes way less time to do than the trees, as the spirals take a really steady hand and a lot of patience. I also like the 1 big spirally thing with the stripes running behind it. It kind of reminds me of a seedling just poking it's head out of the ground. Apparently I am thinking of all things natural and organic when I am doing these. I don't really start with anything particular in mind, but I always seem to end up with these kinds of designs.

And another one before bed...

I must be crazy...

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...