Quack

The next phase in the transformation is webbed feet. The rain is ridiculous outside. I know June is the wettest month for Calgary, but come on, this is stupid. The news on the radio this morning was reporting that you can't take the Trans Canada Hwy to the west, as the RCMP have closed it east of Canmore due to flooding and began evacuating residents in the Canmore area in the middle of the night. My neighborhood is, thankfully, still above water. My little street dead ends on the Elbow river downstream from the Glenmore reservoir. The City tries to control the water levels with the dam, but it is a power generating dam and not meant for flood control so if the water levels rise too much, there is not much they can do about it. I think the mosquitoes are going to be fierce this summer.

70km/hr bath

On my way home from dinner with the parents last night, I saw this:

It has been raining all day and this person still thought it would be a good day for a ride on the bike. BRRR.
Calgary has had a slow start to spring, so I guess if the roads are not icy, it is considered good weather for riding. 

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.

Spring Blizzard = Good Pottery Sales

I was participating in the Fairview Studios Pottery Sale this past Saturday. When I left my house at 7:00 it was sprinkling lightly, but not very cold out, so I decided against a jacket and wore runners without socks. By the time I got to the hall where the sale was being held (7:30), it had started to snow and was beginning to accumulate. I parked my car, got out, opened the hatch and immediately stepped into an ice cold puddle of melty slush (BTW, runners with mesh tops are not water proof). There were not many customers waiting for the sale to start, maybe 10 or 12, but by 9:30 it was packed and people were shopping. For a spring sale, I did reasonably well. My gross sales were on par with a slow Christmas sale. I ended up having to re-sticker all my pots as the ones I had used were not coming off very well. As I was standing at my table madly redoing everything, there were a couple of women looking at some of my stuff. The words coming out of their mouth sounded like “this is just beautiful, I love it”, and then they put it back and walked away. Perhaps I misunderstood them? Maybe they were looking for the same thing, but in blue? Actually, I think they were looking for the same thing, but in “Cheaper”. I do tend to price myself out of sales, but my thoughts are that why should someone else get it for $20, when it cost a minimum of $30 in materials and time to make it. I would rather wait a little longer to make the sale than give it up for a quick buck now.
I have the Mad Potters sale in 3 weeks on May 26th, and it will be curious to see how this one goes. I have been involved with them only for 2 previous sales and so far my earnings from them have been about half of what I can do at the Fairview sale, but then I am spoiled. The Fairview Sale, which has been running for over 30 years, has all the kinks ironed out and it practically runs itself. The Fairview customers are extremely loyal and it always amazes me how much money they spend. I will give this sale one more shot, and if the numbers remain the same, I will have to reconsider if I participate in it next year or not. You never know, this could be the year that everyone wants cone 6 electric instead of cone 10 reduction. At least I am not competing with salt/soda or wood fired work


I should note that the snow did not stick around. It stopped snowing around noon, continued to sprinkle on and off for the rest of the day, and then on Sunday the temperature was ~12 degrees celcius, and today, it is forecasted to be a beautiful 19 degree day, and tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer at 23 degrees. In saying this, I am looking at the weather forecast right now, and I see snow and rain on Thursday…oh well, that is what you get for living nestled up against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Southern Alberta. No two days are ever quite the same and you can always count on a snowstorm in May.

oh the horror

Well, I was teaching on Tuesday, and I promised I would take pictures of what I have been working on lately, but as it turns out...I forgot, but It wouldn't have mattered anyway, 'cause I would have taken the pictures with my phone, and I guess that when I was getting in my car to go home, I dropped my phone in the parking lot, drove away, and didn't realize I didn't have my phone until I got home and wanted to use it about an hour later. So, I search everywhere, look in the car, but it isn't there, so I drive back to the studio (this is all at 11:30 at night), check the studio, not there. Phone the phone and run outside to see if I can hear it in the car, but before I even get there, I hear/see it ringing and glowing in the dark on the pavement where I was parked earlier. This would have all been ok, except that it has been raining pretty steady for the last couple hours. So I dry the phone off and decide to attempt to dehydrate my phone in a container of dry rice. Worked for my dad's BlackBerry, why not my iphone? Well, it still is not working, and it has been almost 2 days. I went to the nearest Rogers Wireless store last night, got a loaner flip phone. Good grief Charlie Brown, I have to text/e-mail the old school way, so I don't. Anyway, long and the short of it is I get to upgrade to a new iphone 3GS, but it is going to seriously damage my bank account. They should really make water proof phone cases. If the rice method does manage to fix the phone, I will sell it to someone I know would like it. He has a 1st gen iphone from the states that is not nearly as good as the newer models, and his screen is cracked.
I will be teaching a full class of 12 newbies on Friday, but if I get a moment, I will take some pics with my camera and post them.

Starting to get webbed feet...

If it continues to rain much more, I will start to get webbed feet, and my condo will become a house boat...
At this rate, we wont have fire bans this summer, and the studio can raku with reckless abandon...
Just when you think the rain has stopped, the clouds open up and another downpour is underway.
It was hailing last night on my way home from work, and I heard that it was snowing in some part of the foothills this morning (it's June for crying out loud!) I guess we should never be amazed at the constantly ever changing variety of weather we get here in Calgary, but we always are.

On another note...
I was working at Ceramics Canada on Saturday, and I met two very eager potters. A husband and wife who just recently moved here from Portland Oregon were in the shop pricing out materials, and wheels etc... They seemed to be very eager to get going with their studio, and getting involved with the clay community here (such as it is). I told them about the CCAA, and they were all excited about the new group. I hope that in time they will become members, once we get ourselves sorted out and are able to offer something other than an e-mail list :)