New pots

I have been busily scratching away on some new bowls and tall cups. The Fairview Pottery Sale is looming (Nov 22nd) and I really need to get a move on, so any spare time I can find to get in the studio will be taken full advantage of.

Scritch scritch scritch

I have been scritching and scratching pretty much on anything I can get my hands on these days. So much so that all of my small wire sgrafitto tools have been worn right through. These are some more mugs and yunomis that I have been working on...

In addition to the urn I posted earlier with the "boy and his dog" theme, I was also asked to make a less fat, more slender urn with blue butterflies. The recipient did not want to spend eternity in a "fat" jar :) So, here it is...

In condo news, we threatened the contractors with firing and man, that seems to have lit a fire. There has been work, they are firing some trades and getting new ones to fix the incorrect stuff and move it along faster. We were told that this is a 3 week project now. Once they give us a revised and updated schedule and plan, we will know more. So maybe August 1st? I really have no idea, I can only guess. So far, all of my guesses have been wrong though....

Everything is the same, but different

This was the view from the front of Ceramics Canada on Saturday after the storm passed. One minute all was sunny and warm, the next it was a downpour. The aftermath was quite beautiful though. After work I went over to the studio to glaze a load of pots. They are all sort of the same, but each one is very different.

Wine, dinner, conversation & cleaning up slip cast cups

A friend of mine, who I met through the studio a couple of years ago, is getting married in just under 2 months. She is from Medicine Hat and is having the wedding at the Medalta Historic Clay District. They have a brand new museum and events space that they rent out for just such an occasion. She decided to make all of the cups for her guests that they can take home and she wanted to cast them all out of porcelain. She is braver than me, that's for sure. The learning curve was steep, as she had virtually no knowledge of how to make a plaster mold or how to properly cast etc. But, with many an hour spent watching YouTube videos on the process, and reading everything she could about it, she almost has the 170 cups she needs. The tricky bit was that she only has 2 plaster casts, she works during the day, and just doesn't have the extra time to clean the casts at the right time. So, a few of her friends and I met her at her house last night and started sanding the “almost dry” greenware that she had been making since March. Imagine a cup, left to drain out over a rack on top of a mixing bowl on a kitchen counter for probably longer than recommended. You get a cup with very uneven rims. It was tricky, but we did it. With a little 80 grit sand paper to remove the uneven rims and fine steel wool to sand down the surface to a very smooth finish, we did it. There were some losses, I'm not going to kid you. One wrong move and the cup would be in pieces. Some of them you just had to look at the wrong way and they would crack.

I volunteered to make her 8 small Medaltaesq crock pots for her as she is quickly running outta time. I won't have to fire them, just throw them, trim them and put her “logo” in blue underglaze on them. She will be taking all of her cups and crocks down to Medalta to fire at the Shaw Centre, where they have many many kilns. So she should be able to get them done quite quickly. The only tricky bit will be transporting 170 very fragile green ware cups for the 3 hour drive. There are train tracks and I am sure some speedbumps along the way, so my fingers are crossed for her. She will need to have them all done and down there by Thanks Giving if she wants to get them done in time.

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.

New CCAA show coming up

Check out the Calgary Clay Ars Association website
( www.calgaryclayarts.org ). They are putting on a show at Arts on Atlantic Gallery in Inglewood that will run from November 13-Dec 24(submission deadline is September 13th). It is called Turning the Table, and will primarily feature place settings and other small pieces designed for use at the dinner table (vases, condiment dishes etc...).
All participants must be CCAA members, but it only costs $20 per year for membership. The cost for entry into the show is $20 which allows you to submit one piece or place setting.

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