All carved up

Now that I have committed myself financially to the festival of crafts in the fall, I need to commit mentally and physically. I began my weekend on Friday afternoon by throwing a few mugs, trimming what needed trimming and carving a few mugs. I worked one of the last few Saturdays left before the summer at Ceramics Canada so I was only able to finish off the last few mugs that were to be carved that afternoon. Sunday however was the day to throw and carve en mass. I made mugs and casseroles, and carved a ton of ramekins. OK, only 7 ramekins, but they take about 20 minutes each to carve, not counting the time to slip them up with black terra sig. It is amazing how much does NOT get done in the studio though, even when I have a list of TO DO's. I usually arrive at 9am on Sundays and am generally there until at least 2pm, although this Sunday I was there until 4:30 ish. I only managed to throw 7 mugs and 2 casseroles, I think I will need to step up the production rate if I am going to have enough to fill my shelves. This will mean less talking I think. The sale may be over 5 months away, but I will need to get the majority of my stock made and glazed this summer so I don't run into any snags getting things fired in the fall. The student sale takes priority at the studio, so my firings will need to be worked in and around the student work.
This image is just a sampling of what I have been working on. I have changed my mug shape a wee bit, and the handles are way more substantial. The designs are different, yet similar to the ones in the past. I have to find a good pattern or 2 that is simple to lay out and carve, yet still engaging to the eye. The time it takes to carve some of them is way too long, especially if I actually want to make a profit or even break even on this. I should note that these are all free hand, no actual pattern is used, it all comes out of my brain. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not. The top right hand mug for instance is not really working for me in terms of the pattern, I do like the bottom 2 though. 

I will finally be able to spend more time in the studio as of July 4th. Ceramics Canada does not open on the weekends during the summer, so I should be able to put some long hours in over those 9 hot, sweaty weeks.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Studio Time

The first long weekend of the summer is now over (sigh). I did manage to get 3.5 full & uninterrupted days in the studio, so that is a bonus. I did a lot of black and white sgrafitto, I threw some mugs, and I may have lost my mind a bit, as I threw 1 20 lb canister, 1 10 lb canister, 1 5 lb canister and then topped it off with a 10 lb pitcher. I know full well that I will probably not sell these. Nobody in this town buys jars, let alone massive ones with no actual purpose other than to look pretty.

 This is the 20 lb canister

 Pretty jars all in a row(I know, the handles/lugs suck)


 I was asked to come up with a "chicken" teapot for a student that collects chickens, so this is what I came up with first:

and then just in case it wasn't that obvious, I made this one:

I filled in the time spent waiting for things to dry with these:

Getting Ready for Salt

I have been throwing cone 10 clay almost exclusively since the end of December in preparation for my upcoming trip to Medalta in April to fire off their salt and soda kilns. I have made a lot of stuff in that time, but I am in that place right now where I don't know if I have made enough, or if I have made too much. Each kiln is 20cu feet and I am splitting the firing with my friend Susan (aka Sooooozin). So I have a full 20cu feet to fill, plus all the extras like on bag walls, the space under the bottom shelves etc. The end of my last bag of clay was actually where I started to make really good pots (I hope – I still need to trim them). They are gnarly and full of texture just waiting for the salt to juice them up and soften all that craggy goodness. It would be ok if the kilns were here, but alas, they are 3 hours away and I need to transport them down there, and if I have left overs, I really can't do anything with them except wait for another high fire opportunity. I think I may just go for broke and make as much as possible. If I have way too much, then so be it, at least I will have lots to choose from. I got a bit stuck on the sgrafitto, so there is a LOT of it, but everything from now on is plain old clay that will get flashing slips or shinos.

Other than that, a few students and myself are going to put together an open house sometime in early to mid June to help boost the enrolment at the studio. It is located in an industrial area in the city's south east and the feeling is that some people are put off by the location. It is not in a trendy area with lots of cafes and boutiques. It is not in a residential area either. It is in a light industrial/business park area and because of this, we think that some people are nervous about it. It is not a bad area, it just isn't very busy at night, and it can feel a little isolated. The building is a Quonset, and that may not give it a very homey feel either. But you take what you can get in this town. Rents can be a bit steep for small business owners, let a lone a pottery studio owner. If we have an open house in June on a nice sunny day, when the birds are chirping, then we can open up the very large overhead door to let as much light in and make it look inviting. We can have demonstrations going on throughout the day with perhaps a stinky raku demo to attract the pyromaniacs and give away small raku bowls to the attendees. I really hate doing raku firings, but it does have that WOW factor as well as immediate gratification. I always go home feeling like I have been camping and sitting around wet smokey fire pits, but without the added bonus of smores. I usually also look like a bit bedraggled, my face is all red, my hair usually gets a bit fried from looking into the kiln to check glaze melt, and some article of clothing always gets a burn mark or two. Ya, raku and me are not friends. So, if we blitz our FB friends, our twitter followers (of which don't have), our personal e-mail lists etc, as well as advertise in all the free weekly magazines we can, then hopefully we will have a good day. If nobody shows, then it will just be a regular day at the studio. More on this to follow.

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.

Sgraffito

The pictures suck, but they were taken with the old iphone under fluorescent lighting on my desk at work.

This is an example of what I was up to on the weekend. The previous weekend I had thrown a few "Christmas" bells as well with the idea that I would carve holly leaves into them. So I did. There were many many bells, and they took me 3 days to finish, including the mugs. I also managed to wear my pin tool and a small kemper triangle ribbon tool down to wee little nubs. They came out of the kiln on Tuesday and I wrapped them up to take home. I did manage to "ring" one bell before I got out the door. I tested it against the concrete floor. Not recommended.

After sgraffitoing 4 mugs and 16 bells I was beginning to get a weird tingling shooting pain running up my forearm. I might have found a way to speed up the progression of carpal tunnel syndrome. I was also doing a pretty good impression of Quasimodo by the end of the day.
On another note, I am going to be learing the art of wood turning. Maybe tonight even. I am leaving it at that though, I don't want to give away my Christmas gift ideas to the possible recipients of said gifts.