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.

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).

random blather

I’m must be gettin old. I missed 5 weeks of my exercise class that I go to on Monday nights. I was teaching at the studio for several weeks, then it was my Dad’s 67^th birthday, and I couldn’t miss that. Then, it got so bleeding cold here, the last thing I wanted to do was slip and slide my way to class to get all sweaty and then go back into the cold and have my sweaty hair freeze. Anyway, I went to class last night and then went to bed early (is 8 hours and 53 minutes of sleep too long?). Today, my back is killing me, my left ankle and foot hurt and I have to go teach a pottery class tonight. Wow, I sound crabby, I’m not, I’m just sayin, getting old sucks! I’m not even that old, but I sure feel every one of my 39.5 years today.

There is a pretty strong Chinook arch today, so the weather should be mild (0 Celsius?)...much better than the -29 Celsius last week (It makes you feel like wearing shorts when the temp rises 30 degrees over night) but the Chinook related headaches are a pain. I never used to get them, but I started getting them last year and now I know what everyone else complains about.

The mountains are very clear today, they are right there, in your face and bright and toothy.

Not sure what I am going to demo tonight. Lately I have been making a mess of my demos instead of inspiring creativity. My bowls have flopped, my facets have ripped open, the elongated platters rip in half as I am “dramatically” stretching them out on the canvas table, and my slip trailer develops a case of gas and barfs slip all over the freshly decorated plate (at the very end of course so that I have to try and scrape it all off or just try to blend the burp into the overall pattern). Maybe I will stick with what I do best (bowls), how boring....I need to replenish my stock of everything, so perhaps it will be casseroles tonight, or pitchers with fancy rims....who knows, I will find out when I get there. I need to buy some clay too, so first thing after work I will be off to CC and pick a box or 2 up.

On a non clay note, my computer should be here in 3 days (Yippee!!!). Can’t wait!!!

I have been reading a few discussions in the blogosphere regarding the pro’s/con’s of selling via Etsy. I posted a while back that I was thinking of starting up an Etsy account, but the master procrastinator that I am, I never got around to it. Now that I will have some enhanced technology, and if I can get around to setting up a mini photography studio in my condo, I might give it a try. I will take all the sage advice that is being offered on this topic and hopefully put it to good use when I get my shop up an runnin. I really need to get some proper shelving in my “store room” at home. Right now it is a disaster zone with pots all over the floor amidst wrapping paper, painting supplies, an easel with an UGLY painting on it, and other sundry crap.

Enough rambling and babbling,

TTFN (What?, Did I just say that?)

Maybe I should say something like:

Make pots purposefully and make purposeful pots.

Nah, how about:

Go get dirty...

I made it out alive...

Dave is finally back! He arrived in town last night and came by the studio to make sure it hadn’t burned to the ground while he was visiting family and friends in Kansas. I guess it was snowing most of the way through (He woke up to the evil white stuff in Billings). As soon as he got to the Canadian border, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

He did mention one funny thing that happened to him. I guess he stayed the night in a hotel in a small town somewhere between Kansas and Montana and when he asked for a room, he was told that the pool was not available as the community used it that night. Turns out, they were baptising local residents. Dave was looking at the goings on in the pool through the observation area and someone told him he was welcome to join them. He told him he had already been baptised but the guy said that everyone could use a “retread”. Too weird.

I am glad he is back. 2 weeks of late nights have taken their toll on me.

Oh, one more funny thing...the other day I was driving down a street in my neighbourhood, and a black squirrel darted out onto the road and I could see it was going to get squished by the car ahead of me. I wish I had been able to capture this on video as it was quite amazing. The squirrel did a hand stand. He stopped but the momentum of his body kept moving his back end up and over his head, and then he twisted to the side to avoid landing under the wheels of the car. I believe he made it to the other side. I didn’t feel a bump as I passed by the spot where he was and I didn’t see a smear on the road behind me.

No Pottery for me tonight. I am going to the movies. Tomorrow is Remembrance Day, so I can take a wee rest.

I'm still alive...

I priced and packed all my pots on Saturday afternoon/evening for the Calgary Clay Arts Association sale. I awoke bright and early on Sunday and made my way over to the sale. We got ourselves set up (there were 3 of us that did not participate on the Saturday). I think that for a fledgling association that is just beginning to get itself out there, we didn’t do too badly. We had a pretty steady flow of customers after lunch. The sale ran from 10-4 and I am not used to full day sales. The studio sale that is put on twice a year is only from 9-12 and we do probably 80% of our sales by 10:30.

Anyway, I wanted to cut my feet off by the end of the day, but I still had to make my way over to the studio and lock it up for the day. When I got home, I collapsed into my large leather chair in front of the tube, but by 9:30 I couldn’t even keep my eyes open so I stumbled my way to bed and that is all I remember until I woke up at 6:30 this morning. Now that this sale is over, I am all prepped for next the Big sale on Saturday. This Sale has been going on for at least 25 years and the following is large.

I only have 2 more teaching nights and then I am done with that and will be back on my regular Tuesday night schedule and maybe I can have a life again. It has been crazy the last couple of weeks and I am still not quite sure how I have been able to do it and work a regular day job to boot.

I managed to refire all of my lustred work for the “Turning the Table” show that opens this Saturday as well. I picked the lustre up on Friday, got everything redone and loaded that night, and when I got back to the studio on Saturday afternoon, I was very happy. Everything came out just fine. I fired it to cone 016 this time and everything worked perfect. I had fired everything to 018 before, and I just don’t think that the underlying glaze softened enough to allow for a good bond between the lustre and the glaze. Anyway, I got it all priced, inventoried and packed. I had to deliver it to one of my CCAA cohorts so that they could deliver it to the gallery this week. I am quite pleased with the overall outcome and am looking forward to the opening on Saturday afternoon.

round and round I go...

3 more classes to go! I only have to teach tonight, and then Monday and Tuesday next week. Every day at lunch I drive over to the studio and make sure that the studio is open, or that there is at least a key in the mailbox if no one is there. Walter (our resident perfectionist/potter/carver) is usually there, but you never know. Then today, I went over to Ceramics Canada (after I drove by the studio) to pick up some clay, and to see if the Green Barn order had arrived with my lustre. The answer to that is no. It should have arrived yesterday, but Trudy (da boss lady) thought it would be here tomorrow at the latest. My fingers are crossed so tight, I can’t stand it. This means that I will be pulling a very late night on Friday trying to finish those stupid place settings. I feel like I am in a race, but I can’t see the finish line, I don’t know who I am racing against, and I’m not even sure I am on the race track. So, if you see me looking a little harried and out of sorts, these are the reasons why: Not enough time and not enough energy. I can’t even sleep in on the weekend. I have to work on Saturday, pray that my lustre firing worked (if the stupid stuff even arrived for me to apply and fire it), and then I need to price and pack for the sale that starts at 10am on Sunday.

In hindsight, I should have backed off from teaching so much for Dave, but he was in a bit of a bind and needed someone to teach for him and I was the only option. The next time he gets a bee in his bonnet to go to Kansas, he shouldn’t plan to go right before the studio sale...just a thought.

3 down, 7 more to go

I have 7 more teaching nights to go now. I don’t get home before 10 pm most nights, and that is starting to be a bit of a drag. I had one new student last night; she seemed very thoughtful in how she approached the clay. I helped her make her first bowl, but her second one (without my help) was pretty successful. It may have taken her half an hour to make it, and the walls were a bit on the thick side, but relatively even, and her bottom was not paper thin. She didn’t manage to get anything else thrown, but she also did not struggle with the centering process as much as others do, so that was a bonus.

I loaded a glaze last night as well, and I will load another tonight. I will then hopefully be able to fire a load of lustre on the weekend. I need to get all my pieces ready for the Turning the Tables show, and it is creeping up pretty quick. The gallery is only allowing work to be dropped off on Nov 10^th at 10am. A bit a bit inflexible, but that’s ok, I will get the CCAA president to deliver it for me, but that means I can’t fool around, I will need to get it to her by the 7^th at the latest. Maybe after the CCAA Christmas sale on the 7^th...2 birds, one stone...

Tonight should be a cake walk. Thursday night is pretty much a class of very independent potters that have been coming for quite a while, and most of them leave really early. Last night I didn’t get to leave until 10pm as there were people still there madly attaching handles and glazing. Speaking of cakes, I also going to unload the very first cake stand that I have ever made. I don’t make a lot of cakes, and if I do, I usually eat them before they would ever make it onto a stand :). I was inspired by Kristen Kieffer’s cake stands (kiefferceramics.com). I WILL take pics tonight If I can get a peek into the kiln, it will be too hot to unload tonight, and let you know how it turned out.

I also have 3 pieces loaded that are not mine, but belong to the 2 people that I taught a private pottery class to for their anniversary. It was a one off class, and they really wanted to keep what they made, so I offered to fire and glaze them, I hope they turned out alright.

And now it begins...

I will be teaching every night now for the next 2 weeks and two days. The only days I won’t be teaching are Friday nights, as that is my own time in the studio and there are no classes that day, and the weekends. I will be dropping the key to the studio off during my lunch hour on weekdays, as that is way easier than getting up early to drop it off in the morning. I will also drop the key off on Saturday morning before I go to work at Ceramics Canada. Of course, I will be bringing the key home every night as well. I have a feeling that I will be very tired by the time Dave gets back from Kansas. However, this will allow me to get things fired. I usually only fire on the weekends so that I don’t interfere with Dave’s firing of student work.

Firstly, I will be firing a load of my dinner ware set that needs to be complete soon for the turning the table show on November 13. As soon as I get it glaze fired, I will turn right around and lustre fire it. Then, I need to get the work that will be going into the two pottery sales I have coming up. I never know what I have ready until the last second it seems. I need to provide an inventory sheet for the CCAA sale on Nov 7^th so perhaps this will make me more organized. The Fairview sale is never that demanding. So long as my pots are priced and packed by the night before, I am in good shape.

I keep saying that I will post pictures of what I am up to, and every time I go to the studio, I leave at the end of the day without having taken a single shot. Perhaps I will manage to take some pictures while I am glazing etc...

I had booked a few days off from my day job near the end of November so that I could go to Medicine Hat and fire in the Medalta salt kiln, but as I mentioned before, that is on hold. I was considering not taking those days off, but now, I think I might just need them after all this. Maybe I will book a massage for that weekend.....

 

This is why I make pottery, and other ramblings...

I stopped by the studio yesterday after work. I was on my way out with a few friends, but I needed to kill a few minutes, and I needed to let the air get to a few pieces that I had sitting under plastic. Anyway, as I was coming in the door, one of my new students was coming out and she had a huge grin on her face. She had just popped in to pick up her very first pieces to come out of the kiln. She was soooo pleased with them and with herself. I am pretty sure that if she had just popped into Walmart to pick up some bowls, she wouldn’t be as happy!

The act of making something yourself is very fulfilling, and helping people learn to make their own is also quite enjoyable. I like to know that the pieces I make are going to be used and enjoyed and not stuck in a cabinet behind glass, only to be admired from afar. I am a self diagnosed pot fondler, and there is no cure. I need to use the pots I make and the pots I buy from others. One of the things I look for in a pot (esp mugs and cups) is not just how it looks, but how it feels in my hand. What does the glaze feel like on my skin, and is the shape conducive to snuggling up in an afghan while reading a book? I like cups that fit the shape of my hand so that I don’t have to use the handle if I don’t want to, and I want the surface to be soft but somewhat textural to provide a pleasant tactile experience.

Teaching people to throw pottery can be frustrating. It is not that I get frustrated with the students, I get frustrated with the fact that the English language was not designed to verbalize what is a very tactile process, and the fact that there isn’t just one way to do it.  That said, I really enjoy teaching and witnessing that “AHA/eureka!” moment that students have when the planets align just so and everything clicks into place and they just get it.

i think i pulled something...

And it wasn’t a handle. Everything aches from the base of my skull to the tip of my tail bone. I was at my Jazzercise class last night, and I must not have stretched well enough. Oh well, I took a couple vitamin I’s (Ibuprophin), and that should work the kinks out. I am teaching tonight, so the kinks better be gone. I think I will demo bottles tonight. Someone at the studio has given an assignment to himself, and it is to make a tall, very bulbous narrow necked bottle (almost closed in). So, thought I would see if I could impart any gems for him tonight to set him on the right path. I think, and this is just my personal opinion, but I think the bottle is the toughest shape to make.

I worked on some bottles over the weekend to get me warmed up, as I never make them very often (not big sellers) and I needed to refresh my muscle memory. I will see if I can remember to take some pics tonight.

Next week I will be teaching every night (Mon-Thurs) for 2 weeks. Dave is driving down to Kansas to visit him family etc and I will be holding down the fort for him. I have done this before, but usually only a week at a time. Two weeks might just kill me. I have offered to fire the kilns for him while he is gone. He didn't want me to have to do this, as he doesn't pay me to do that, but really, I am going to be there anyway, so I may as well do it, especially since there is a student sale coming up on November 13th, and I know that most people will want to get some last minute stuff finished. I will also have some pots to fire, so I may as well load the other students work as well

When worlds collide....you get messy hair

I am going to get a haircut tonight. I also got a phone call from Dave this morning asking if I could teach tonight. So I will be in the salon at 5pm, and then I will be off to the studio with my new coif. I am sure I will get clay in it. Kinda like when you wear white to the office, you just know that you will spill coffee on it right away so that you have to go the whole day looking like you can’t feed yourself.

Oh my aching back!

I was teaching again last night, and all of the newbies came back (good sign). I ended up demonstrating how to throw several different forms off the hump, like mugs, bowls, bud vases, little closed in orbs that could be turned into lidded jars etc. Wouldn’t you know it, the first piece that I cut off went flying off the mound. I must have been distracted as the wheel was definitely going way too fast for safe removal :)

I ended up spending quite a lot of time with a couple of them, working on coning up, getting the feel for when it is centred, and just generally trouble shooting their problems. It seems to be mostly hand position, and not utilizing the geometry of your body to assist you instead of working against you. Essentially just small adjustments here and there and they were on their way. I am sure it will click sometime next week, or if they manage to get into the studio for practice time on the weekend. After all this crouching down my back is a wee bit touchy this morning, but I will work the kinks out I am sure.

Here are a few filler pics of some of the stuff I am working on

 

The weekend

I was able to get into the studio for my Me Time on Friday. It was just me, Lorraine (another self directed student on Friday nights), and another student named Dave who does quite well on his own, and doesn’t ask too many questions unless he is stumped.

I was able to get my dinner plates, side plates, and salad bowls thrown, but not much else. I always go to the studio full of ideas, but I seem to always lose steam at about 7:30. Not surprising as I get up at 7am and work a full 8 hours in the office.

I did my usual 5 hours on Saturday at Ceramics Canada. I was actually kinda productive there, in that I was able to resurrect a painting of mine from near death. Amazing what you can do when you slap another coat of thick modeling paste on and obliterate the nastiness from previous attempts at artfulness...I left it to dry there, so still not sure what it looks like, but It looked 1000 times better than before. I should say that I have absolutely no painting skills, so I create according to my abilities. My paintings are purely abstract, and I work primarily in goo. That is, I use a lot (I do mean a lot) of modeling pastes, acrylic gels etc to build up texture. Then, I use the squirt method. I use acrylic inks and they come in little glass bottles with eye droppers and I just squirt away. I do use a brush, but that is used mostly to move the ink around and add water to help it flow. We (the potters that work at CC) formed a little painting group that meets the 1^st Sunday of every month, so my work this Saturday was in preparation for next weekend.

After my 5 hours at CC I went to the studio and put in some more time there, approx. 4 hours. I trimmed, and finished off some of my boat forms. I will try to take some pics tomorrow night. I do like the form, so I picked up some ^10 Bmix to make some for the salt kiln.

I went back to the studio first thing on Sunday morning and worked from about 9am-2:30. I managed to get a few things done in that time. I made some dinner plates for the salt kiln out of Plainsman P700 porcelain (I may do some carving on them, not sure), as well as 9 or so tall drinking vessels (haven’t decided if I will handle them or not). I am slowly trying to get enough high temp stuff made for this salt firing, and I am, my problem is that it is taking up all my shelf space for my other works that I have on the go, like the turning the table show, the Fairview sale, and now this CCAA Christmas sale.

Tomorrow, I will be teaching, and I have 4 newbies to think about, but now that I have done 1 basic bowl demo for them, I will jump back to more complex forms. I may introduce the boat shape. It is pretty simple to make, but requires patience. You have to let it get to the right state of leather hard before you start using the clay shredder to pare away the extra clay and smooth over the seam on the bottom, or I might do a covered jar for them. It requires patience as well, as I use the clay shredder to true up the corners and straighten out any unwanted curves. I’m trying to keep the demos interesting for everyone every week, so they don’t get bored. I did see 2 of the newbies on Sunday, it is always good to see them coming in to the open studio time right off the bat.

Oh, and my tea service was delivered in one piece and they apparently really liked it, so I can stop sweating over it.

I will be sweating enough tonight anyway, as it is my Jazzercise night. I only get one a week now, as the other class available to me is on Friday nights, and as we all know, mistress clay is a task master and I am chained to a potters wheel every Friday night. When I say chained, I really mean a daisy chain of puppy dogs and rainbows :)

This is a picture of one of my paintings taken last winter. It is a bit dim, but you can see the painting on the wall behind my television and all my plants.

On newbies

I had 4 new students in class last night. I always find it challenging to teach 4 newbies at the same time. It is hard on the mind and body, and you are always keeping an eye on 3 of them while you spend your time with the 4^th. Essentially, I made 3 bowls with them (for them) so they could have them to trim next week.  There is always at least one that sort of gives up half way through the class. You can see it in their eyes. They want to excel right away and think that they just can’t do it. I reassure them that this is normal, and that they will not be making casseroles and teapots the first night, or the next....more like cat dishes.  They always ask the same question too, “what is the trick to centering?”. My answer to that is “practice”. They don’t always like that answer. The problem with pottery is that it just looks so darn easy, but it is so difficult to verbalize how to do it.

I teach the “Dave Settles Method” (If you can call it a method). Essentially, I start the newbies off with a run down on wedging, let them work on that for a bit, and then I do my demo. I usually keep it simple for them on the first night and throw a bowl or two. Here is where the Settles method comes in. I set them loose on the wheel with what they wedged up earlier and I walk away. I leave the room. I don’t even look to see what they are doing for about 10 minutes. Then I come back and see what they have done. Usually I come back to a lump of shmeered clay all over the wheel, or a tortured looking object that could have been a bowl, but it looks like it went through a wood chipper.

I tell them to start again, but this time I will be there to walk them through it. It is kind of like the laying on of hands at a holy roller tent revival, except I am not “curing” the sick and infirm or casting out demons, I am trying to show them what the proper pressure feels like, what it means when I say this is or is not centred, etc. And so on down the line until they all have at least 1 pot made.

So today my back aches, and I slept in and was 15 minutes late for my non clay job (oops).

 

One time only please

I taught a beginners throwing class on Saturday evening. “Saturday evening?” you say. “But the studio doesn’t offer weekend classes, let alone evening weekend classes!” you exclaim. Well, I got an e-mail from Dave (studio owner), asking if I would like to teach a beginners class for 2, and if I wanted to, to contact the lady herself and work out the details etc... Not being one to turn down a possible money making venture, I said yes. Well, about a month goes by between my initial e-mail to her, and our finally managing to work a date out that worked for all of us.
Turns out that it was something she wanted to do with her husband for their wedding anniversary. I guess the traditional gift you give for a 9th wedding anniversary is pottery. Both she and her husband thought up this idea independently and searched out where to do pottery classes (neither knew what the other was doing I guess). They actually both called Dave asking about one time only classes. It seems they ran the gamut of places that they thought would offer classes, called everyone they could think of looking for this type of thing, as it turns out one or both of them even called Ceramics Canada, who in turn (I think) referred them to Fairview Studios. Personally, I would have bought a mug and called it a day.
Anyway, I guess the point to all this verbage is this. Why would you torture yourself and your mate with learning how to throw pottery, to commemorate what was supposed to have been the “happiest day of your life”? Don’t get me wrong, I love throwing on the wheel. It is quite soothing and meditative. However, the soothing and the meditative doesn’t come the first time you sit down to a lump of clay on the wheel. I could see the frustration building with the husband. He was good natured about it all, but he just wasn’t getting it. The wife on the other hand had done this before (albeit a long time ago), and so already had a bit of a feel for it. They did manage to get 3 or 4 small pots off the wheel (with some help from me), and I offered to finish them up and let them know when they were ready. We usually don’t do that for a one off type class, it is just a make it and trash it kind of class to get the feel of what wheel throwing is like without committing to a full 4 weeks of classes. When they left, they were still smiling, so I guess this didn’t break up the marriage (would have made for a more interesting story if there had been a potential divorce), so I guess all’s well that ends well.
Tonight I teach my regular class, and hopefully I will come up with something more inspiring than a bowl to throw.
I will be waxing (not poetically or lyrically) feet tonight, when not instructing, as my tea set is waiting for glazing and the clients are getting anxious. I too am anxious, I may have thrown the mugs “too well”. They are very light and thin walled, so I hope the glaze sticks. Sometimes I have crawling issues with things that are too thin as the glaze does not dry properly and can sometimes start to slide/fold over on itself down the pot. It’s that darn Bmix, it is so good, you can throw things super thin and before you know it you have thrown it tooooo thin.

Yikes!!

I was just thinking about everything that I have coming up deadline wise. I might be making a mountain out of this molehill, but given that I cannot dedicate every waking moment to the kiln and clay gods, I think I might be biting off more than I can stuff into my mouth and chew.

First – Must get all the dinnerware fired for the “Turning the Tables” show. Think this is now complete, as I just fired it last night...Now I must fire the lustre. I need to have it completed this weekend coming up (Thank goodness it is a long weekend) so that I can take some good pics and get my submission in for the show/sale. The deadline for this is looming...September 13^th me thinks. I should probably check, just in case I have it wrong, wouldn’t it suck if I missed the deadline by a day.

Second – I really need to get the tea set that was ordered done. The teapot has been glaze fired, but the cups, saucers, creamer and sugar are all in various stages of incompleteness (either just thrown, green and untrimmed, or trimmed and handled but not dry yet.) I am crossing my fingers for the teapot, I am worried about the spout, as lately I have had nothing but glaze crawls just inside my spout openings (glaze too thick?, spout too thin?) This set needs to be completed by the middle of September, as I need to get it shipped out in time for a Sept 25^th wedding.

Third – I have 3, count ‘em Three, winter sales this year, and not a whole lot of anything really nice. The first show is November 7^th, and I don’t know what to expect. It is at Mount Royal Station (??) and is being put on by the CCAA.

The next 2 shows are on the same date, November 13^th. The Fairview Studios Pottery sale is in the morning from 9-12, and then the Turning the Tables show (if I get selected via the jury) will be opening that day as well. I have most of everything needed for this, except for most of the dinner plates and cups. I have enough for the photo shoot, but not enough for sale if I actually get selected.

The studio sale is a bit different, I will probably put most of my “seconds” in, and by second, I mean the stuff I don’t especially like that much, not stuff with defects. The defects go in the circular file.

Fourthly – I need to get cracking on my cone 10 stuff so that I can have a nice selection to take down to Medicine Hat for the salt firing on November 18, just a few short days after the Studio Sale. I think that by the time Christmas hits, I will be exhausted, and looking forward to a little break.

On top of all this, I will probably be teaching for 2 weeks straight sometime in the next month, as Dave is driving down to Kansas to take care of some family stuff (He just hasn’t said when). I will surely be dragging my butt by the time he gets back.

Update

A little while ago I had mentioned that I was going to be teaching 12 newbies this past Friday night in a one off pottery class for Dave at Fairview. Well, I got an e-mail on Thursday from Dave telling me I was off the hook for teaching that night, as the class had been scheduled for 9:30 AM on Friday, and he just either forgot, or didn’t pay attention to the time when setting up the class. That’s Dave for you, just a little scattered. So no, I did not teach the newbies, I had the night off to do as I pleased. However, I am teaching tonight, and will be again tomorrow night. So, a busy week ahead, I am going to work on my place setting for the “Turning the Tables” show coming up in September. I know what I am going to do, my vision is clear, but my execution might take some tweaking. I am trying to make a place setting consisting of a charger, dinner plate, salad plate, soup/dessert bowl, coffee cup and saucer, and a drinking cup. I am attempting to design this setting after my blue and white “Mountain Bowls”(see “New Pots” April 14), and everything will have a wavy rim, and be blue and white. I have wanted to incorporate lustres with this design for a while, and this is the perfect opportunity. I just want to highlight the rims of the wavy bowls and plates with palladium lustre, so I am bringing some in at Ceramics Canada, and will need to experiment, as I have never used it before. Anyway, the chargers will be my demo tonight, and the dinner plates tomorrow. I am not a production potter by any means, so this will be a bit of a challenge for me. Not the place setting by itself, but the fact that we have to have multiple sets available for the show to sell during the show and to fill orders that might be placed. I just hope I am not stuck with 16 place settings at the end. I would also not be garuanteed to get in the show either, but I would want to have the extras ready just in case. It might seem a bit early to be getting ready for a show that doesn't start until November, but the deadline is September and I am a HUGE procrastinator.

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.

just stuff

So my grandparents are in the hospital (see www.bebopher.blogspot.com for the gory details). Needless to say, I am a little torn as to whether I should go out there or not. I live in Calgary, and they live in Port Coquitlam BC (ie: the greater Vancouver area). I love driving to the coast, but it is too long to do if it is just one person, and I grew up learning the fine art of long haul driving from my Dad. Get in the car and drive, don’t stop unless you are on fumes and might run out of gas before you can coast to the pump. “Pee break? I don’t need no stinking pee break.” You say that now, but have you ever been on the Trans Canada coming in to Hope and you know you gotta go, but you know that there is a rest stop on your side of the highway somewhere around Langley. But then there is a delay on the highway, there was a land slide and it’s taking a really long time, and now you really gotta go. Then there is the fact that you lose at least 2 days traveling, and if I went out for the weekend, I would only really be there for 1 day if I left on a Friday. Anyway, I could fly, but my job situation is such that I only get paid for the time that I am there, and it is not cheap to fly, and then you have to get someone to pick you up, but they are all at the hospital. So, you rent a car, and the last time I did that It cost me a fair chunk of change, but now that I think about it, that was for a week, and this would only be for a Friday afternoon to a Sunday afternoon, so 2 days.

Aside from the time and money aspect, ‘cause that is a cold way to think about this, there is the fact that 1) they are pretty out of it, and may not even know that it is me there. 2) I watched my other Grandmother die in the hospital 2 years ago, and that is not something you really want to watch again. If I didn’t like hospitals then, I really don’t like them now. The staff are great, it is just the setting, don’t get me wrong, but It’s full of sick people. 3) I saw my grandparents not too long ago when we were all out there for a family reunion last year, and they were both upright, and doing “ok”.

So, now that I hashed it all out here on the internet, I think I am leaning closer to going out by plane and then renting a car when I get there. The only thing that would get in the way of this plan would be accommodations. I am not sure if my relatives have the room for me out there if all the Kazakoff's (or most of them) are going out right now (These are my cousins), and my mum and aunt are there as well.  So if I decide to go, I will have to put some money on the ‘ol Master Card so they don’t decline me when I book the flight and the car. Still not sure, but we’ll see. I am just waiting for updates from my Mum as she is out there right now, and has the most sense to think of posting updates on her blog. Now that I have said all this, I have checked my e-mail, and my mum doesn't think I should come out, as both my Grandparents are out of it now, and it looks like they are both going down at the same time. This makes it harder

Now for something pottery related. I will be teaching tomorrow night for Dave again. I guess he had to create a new musical group in order for a musician friend from Ireland to be able to play at the Water Valley Folk Festival, and now they need to rehearse. So, I taught for him last Thursday, and the request was tall sectional pots. I have not thrown these in a while, so I kept it to a 2 section pot. Didn’t do a bad job for being a little bit rusty. Last night, someone wanted the same demo, as they saw the result from Thursdays demo and wanted to know how the heck I got it so big (not really big, but bigger than he had thrown so far). So I kicked it up a notch and made it a 3 section long necked urn/bottle/vase (pictures to follow. I never think of them until I start writing about the pictures I didn’t take). So tomorrow night I teach again, and I am not sure I have anything as “exciting” as a 2 or 3 part sectional pot. I need to consider kiln size when throwing these things. The gas kiln was easy as it was a 40cu ft kiln, and could pretty much take whatever we threw at it (no pun intended), but these electric kilns are only 10 cu ft and so require a bit of restraint when throwing large pieces. Maybe I will do some stretched out platters that are thrown as a thick disk, and then peeled off the bat and thrown down on the table to stretch them into an oblong shape.  Who knows, I have a day to decide.

 

random

Ok, so I have not finished the teapots with infusers yet, or the chicken cooker, or the cups, or the mugs etc.... They are sitting waiting to be glazed. I will be teaching a lot this week with not much hope of getting them done during those classes either. I taught on Tuesday night, and it was a busy night, very full of questions and "can you show me?", not that I mind, I am not there to work on my own stuff anyway. I will be teaching again on Thursday night and It might be busy, but it is full of long time students, so they usually don't require as much hands on attention, just the demo. It looks like I will also be teaching on Saturday night. This is not normal, as the studio is usually only open until 5:30 on Saturday nights and then it is only open studio time. This will be a bachelorette party for somewhere between 6-8 people. Not sure if they have ever done this before, or if this will be their first kick at the can. They will not be taking anything home, and nothing will be fired, so I guess it is just a night to get muddy for them. I have not been to many bachelorette parties, but I thought it always involved making idiots of yourselves at a dance club, or bar. Anyway, I will be the one teaching, and Dave will be there to "help".
On another note, I asked Dave if it would be alright if I started firing lustres. I was actually prepared for him to come up with every reason why I couldn't, and would then just take the work over to Ceramics Canada to fire there. But, he said, along with the suggestion that I should probably start firing my own kiln loads. So, I am going to get a section of shelving that will house my work that is waiting to fire, and then I will fire it myself. I imagine it will be loading Fridays, firing over night, and unloading on Sundays.I am looking forward to the lustres. I don't want a gold, lustre, I am looking for a silver or palladium lustre to just run around the rims of some of the white and blue bowls and cups to enhance the undulations. In order to not screw them up, I will be buying a book on how to use them as well. Just to make my life a little more frustrating though, I thought I would try a lithography method in order to transfer prints onto clay. I saw the technique on Ceramic Arts Daily, and it looks very simple (ya right, I am sure it just looks that way). I read up a bit on true lithography to better understand why the process works, and we will see what happens. I might even try to incorporate the lithography AND the lustres....sooo many ideas, not enough time...