Village at night

I picked up some battery operated tea lights and hot glued them into place last night. So here is the completed village all lit up. The lights flicker and it kinda makes it look like all the little houses are on fire inside.

How many pots?

I mentioned previously (twice actually, due to a moment of senility), that after 14 years of potting, I am finally thinking hard about putting on my big girl pottery pants and entering a large craft show next fall. I have spent the intervening time thinking about just how many pots I will need to have for this endeavor and then asking myself just how many do I think I can actually make. Unfortunately, the answer is not coming easily to either of these questions.

Over this past holiday season, I spent quite a bit of time in the studio (8.5 "days" solid - from 9:30 am to 2 or 3 pm). When I say I spent a day in the studio, that seems to average out to about 4 - 6 hours. Some days I need to get other stuff done, like laundry, getting gas, sleeping etc. In this time, I think I managed to make 29 mugs, but then I knocked one off the ware board and I only had 28 to show for it. I made four 5lb casseroles, but then I had to make another lid as I managed to trim right through the first one, so now we are at 3 casseroles until I get the 2nd lid to fit, if at all. I also made some small bowls (17 or so), so the total pots thrown count is at about 47 after taking into account the destruction I wreaked on a few pots. I did fire a bunch of work, but that was made over a period of a month or 2, so I am not counting it as work made during this time. I destroyed a bit of work through negligent handling on my part, like letting the big porcelain bowl dry way too fast and probably not trimming the foot enough (upon inspection it was probably 1/2 an inch thick down there).

The question is, can I actually physically DO it? can I make enough, well enough to get in the show and then will I actually be able to sell it all. That is the other side of the teeter-totter. I could potentially have enough work, but then what if I don't SELL enough? There seems to be a whole lot of uncertainty going on here. I still need to account for the time spent decorating. I do a LOT of detailed sgrafitto on some of my work, but for this show I think I will need to pare it down and really think hard about how much work should be committed to this torture.

I have even taken this question to the level of creating a stock list and estimating how many of each type of pot I could conceivably need to have on hand. I think I got a bit out of control there. The first estimate was in the range of 1800 pots. I revisited the list to see where I should pare my expectations down and it came in at just over 1500. The show that I am really thinking hard about entering takes place over 4 days and each day is approximately 12 hours long, You need enough work to not sell out early, the show organizers probably frown on empty booths, but you don't want to over produce to the point where you are packing up almost as much as you brought with you. I have a feeling my issues will be in making enough, not making too much. I don't think I could actually make that many pots even if I didn't sleep or eat or work at my other jobs. My hands and back can only take so much. I'm only 43, but my right hand is starting to get stiff and achy in the mornings and well, potters know about sore backs, especially if you sit at your wheel instead of standing.

It looks like every moment I have where I am not working elsewhere will be spent at the wheel for the next foreseeable future. I just did the math, and I will need 18.75 hours to make 600 cups. I am by no means a speedy potter, I think that works out to 32 an hour. I have been told that when my instructor was making production pots, he would throw at least a 100 mugs an hour. We can't all be superstars I guess. I can only hope that the pots I DO make are the best pots that I CAN make. 

~~~~~~~THIS JUST IN !~~~~~~~~~~~

I just did a quick guestimate - Starting this week, if I only spend 6 hours in the studio from now until just before the sale, there will be about 282 hours for me to get all this done. I tried to conservatively guess how many of each form I can make in an hour and it looks like I can THROW all that I need in just over 135 hours, leaving 147 hours for everything else. Then I calculated how much time I would need for the carving, knowing that I will need to speed the process up, I guessed at how many pots I could carve in an hour and guess what, I came to 147.17 hours. So, I need to find a couple extra hours a week to fit in trimming, glazing and loading kilns, but it looks like it might just be possible...if my body doesn't fall apart first that is.

Of course, somewhere during this time I will be moving back to my condo, so I will lose some time, but there is the 2 months in the summer where I don't work on Saturdays, so I gain a bunch of hours too...

I have a feeling this is just a bunch of whishful thinking....

My muscles hurt

I began the 2nd day of the new year with the notion that if I cleaned up my shelves at the studio, I would have lots of room to put all my pots in progress. During this moment of purging insanity, I found all kinds of dried up clay, bags of trimmings and slop. What to do? Pug it I guess. We had a small Shimpo pug mill donated to the studio a while ago (donated because they lost the key and couldn't make it go, but we got it fixed to run on a switch instead). Anyway, I pugged all my stoneware scraps and lumps up and it turns out I had over 60lbs of clay just wasting space on my shelves, but now it is fairly usable. Still quite wet, so I will need to age it a bit. I also reclaimed about 25 kilos of the polar ice clay by hand, the pug mill would have ruined it. Needless to say, my arms and abs (such as they are) are a bit sore with all the wedging and pugging. That little pug mill is on a table that is a bit too tall so you can't use your body mass to push down on the plunger, you need to hang off the handle a bit like a monkey, so ya, my arms are sore. Now I can see what I am working on, I can see where I have been and maybe a little of where I need to go.

New porcelain and glaze

Last night I opened up the glaze kiln that I fired off on Sunday. It was pretty much full of tests, so I was nervous to say the least. There was a wack of mugs in the new re formulated polar ice body. I had also tested the new Plainsman stoneware clear base glaze. I made a 1000g batch of the clear using 4% Mason Turquoise stain and then a 1500g batch of just straight clear. After all these years of putting it off, I finally got around to mixing up some of Stephen Hill's cone 6 Strontium Crystal Magic (cool version). I sprayed it on all of the mugs and dipped it on most of the rest of everything else. It is more of an enhancer than a good glaze by itself, so I sprayed and dipped a variety of our studio glazes over top of it. I knew that it would make things runny, but wondered just how runny, as the ~5% lithium carb would act to make things a bit matte. I also sprayed the plainsman clear on about 75 or so Christmas tree decorations/gift tags that I made out of the non plastic polar ice version. I am thinking of next year, as I realize that they are a bit late for 2014. Everything came out great. I think a mug kissed the spout of a teapot, so a little grinding and re firing will be required, but other than that, it was all more than I could hope for. I had visions of lakes of glaze coating my brand new kiln shelf, but no, it was all perfect. This is a picture of one of the mugs glazed in the Plainsman clear base on the inside and the bottom 1/3rd on the outside with the Crystal Magic sprayed on the top half and then a blue hare's fur glaze applied on the top 2/3rds. The second image is just a close up of the handle showing how much it can indeed run. Although you cant tell in these images, this porcelain is still very translucent, even with the darker glaze on the outside.

Mugs all trimmed and handled

Yikes, it was over a week ago that I was to have had these mugs trimmed. I did get them done last Tuesday, I just neglected to tie up the loose ends of the last post. Anyway, I did get the handles on, as you can see. I also trimmed all the other pots that I threw out of the 2 boxes of Polar Ice porcelain that I managed to get my hands on. Amazingly, Ceramics Canada is all sold out of that clay now. No more until the new year I guess. No biggy, I should probably get a handle on the glazing of this body before I commit more time and money to it. In addition to the pots I have posted from this new clay, I got a couple of teapots out of it, as well as a few smaller serving bowls. I am finding that it requires an insane amount of trimming and I have a full bag of trimmings already that I will hopefully be able to make useable again. The few extra days off from my real job(s) that the holidays create will be spent in the studio loading bisque kilns, mixing test glazes, glazing, loading glaze kilns and crossing fingers. I will try to get into the studio on the 24th, but there are people in my life that don't seem to share the same enthusiasm I have for clay and will probably complain. I won't go on the 25th, I think that would be pushing it a bit, but boxing day is a given, as is the weekend. I will have a whole 4.5 uninterrupted days over the New Year as well. I never do anything on New Years Eve that would require any recovery from the next day, so I am hoping for a lot of productivity. I never make New Year's resolutions, but I think I might cave just this once. I am going to resolve to enter a large craft show next year. I am in no position to think spring, but I should be able to pump enough clay through my hands to be able to have enough stock for a Christmas show. I know, I know, but If I don't start thinking about it now, it will never happen. The show I think I should enter makes their entry info and forms available in February and I think the deadline is in April. Between now and then I need to come up with a booth design, have enough representative ware to fill that booth to take photos of so they can assess the booth, as well as have pictures of individual pieces for the jury process. If all goes well and I get accepted, I will be a very busy beaver over the next 11 months. I think I have the booth mostly nailed down. A friend and fellow potter has a display system that is very portable and she has offered it to me for the sale. I also have some ideas for some wooden crates. My idea is to paint them in milk paint and distress them. The colours will be very pale and muted so as not to distract from the pottery, but they will be stackable which will allow me to create a nice table top display without too much hassle as well as act as carrying totes. So that's it for now, I will be up to my elbows in clay for the next couple of weeks. I will have one glass of nog (maybe, i really don't like that stuff), but other than that, I will be busy busy busy. I have a pile of podcasts downloaded that I need to catch up on/start and the studio is the perfect place to do that. There is also the added bonus of the studio actually being closed on the 26th and the 1st, but I have a key, so it should be JUST ME in there with nobody to else to take up table space. There might be one or 2 other key holders in there, but they don't really count, as they are probably just looking for some peace and quiet too. If I don't post before then, have a Merry Christmas, and a wonderful New Year and we'll see you in 2015. I will probably be putting pics up on Instagram (see link above), but mostly just throwing, glazing and firing. Cheers!

New Translucent Porcelain

Plainsman Clay's new translucent cone 6 porcelain has finally arrived. I picked up a couple of boxes on Saturday and tested it out that afternoon. The previous batch that they had made was not plastic enough and was really only suitable for hand building. It was the body I used to create that little village diorama. Plainsman revisited the formula and doubled the amount of v-gum and now it throws really well. You can get amazing height and it holds its shape really well and doesn't sit back down on the wheel. I probably pushed it a bit by trimming the pots I made on Sunday, but so far so good. These pictures are some examples of what I was able to create with it. The bottle was 2.5 kg, the mugs were 600g each and the large bowl is a whopping 10lbs. It stays on centre without too much effort, but it is really sensitive to touch, so the pressure you apply when shaping should be gentle and done with care. I also managed to throw another 8 large mugs yesterday and then 8 more 400g mugs. I will begin the trimming and handling on Tuesday.

Step away

I know, I know, the scale of that bridge is a little off, but then everything about this is a bit off in terms of scale. I mean, those doors are giant in comparison to the houses, but I am not removing it. I am stepping away from the diorama. Every time I touch it, I end up spackling and patching, so this is it, all done. Now it dries and awaits the kiln.

Almost done

This little "village" started on a whim and was inspired by these:

In turn, these pots with the houses were inspired by Dr. Seuss and his Who's. So I guess this is my interpretation of Whoville. The only thing left to do, if I can engineer it of course, is to build a little bridge and stick it in the middle so that it joins both sides of the river valley. This whole piece was created out of Plainsman Clay's new cone 6 translucent porcelain body called Polar Ice. As it is going to have a high degree of translucency, I bored holes under each house so that I can insert some little electric tea lights to illuminate them from within. my fingers are crossed that this doesn't just crack all over in the bisque, or that the trees don't topple over in the glaze...

Diorama detail carving begins

I have begun to carve in the details on the houses and trees for the little landscape I am building. These 2 pictures show the front and back side of one of the "Who Houses" as well as one of the trees. My plan for this is to build a little bridge that joins both sides over the ravine or river that runs through the middle of the assemblage. I have also made some pillowy clouds that will hang from high temp wire that will be inserted into the tops of either the trees or houses, but this plan is still in my head, translating that into real life might be a challenge.
Front door                                               Back door

The final piece, but again this is still in my head, will have little lights pushed up inside the houses to illuminate from within.

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.

Weekend

The Fairview pottery sale went reasonably well on Saturday. We had a smaller number of participants (10) this year, so the fact that we seem to be attracting fewer customers every year did not hurt us too bad on an individual basis. I can't really put a finger on any one factor that is causing this "depression" of sorts, but I can think of a few things that may be dragging our numbers down. It could be anything from the location and an over saturation of that community with pottery, or it could be that people don't have an appreciation of hand made pottery, or even that there are just too many craft shows all happening at once. It never seems to fail that we tend to have our sale the same weekend as the Telus Art Market, or the Spruce Meadows Show, or the Bragg Creek market, etc etc. We DO have a dedicated core list of followers, but many are moving away, or just don't need/want any more pots. That just seems strange to me, you can't have too many pots in my humble opinion. After the sale I fell into the typical post sale coma. but woke up refreshed on Sunday and was back at it in the studio. I only took this one picture of my efforts, but there is another one of these bowls with a much different design in the works too, it just isn't finished yet. These large bowls (8lb wet) take a while to carve as they get really fragile when all that wet Terra Sig is applied. Rims can just "pop" and then they crumble. So these are carved for the most part on the banding wheel. I only pick them up once they return to a slightly less fragile bone dry state. These photos show a 360 view of the bowl I completed, although I am contemplating changing up the stripes on the top and bottom. Perhaps widening the white lines, or not, we'll see how I feel about that tomorrow. As for what those shapes are supposed to be, I'm not sure about that either. I have a degree in biology, so to me, they look a bit like unicellular organisms, but they could also be seed pods or something like that, or just plain abstract. You choose.

Fairview Studios Christmas 2014 Pottery Sale

The Fairview Pottery Sale is swiftly approaching, here are the details...

I'm In London (Ontario)

Well, I am not actually in London, Ontario, but my mugs are...

I sent these off on Tuesday this week and they just arrived this morning. All in one piece too. They are at the Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery for "The Great Mug Spectacular" that runs from December 11th to the 31st. They put out an open invitation to all Canadian potters from coast to coast to send them 24 mugs each, so I did.
I have only been to this gallery once, but man, was I glad I did. They have a huge collection of some of the best in Canadian ceramic art. I managed to pick up a little wood fired tea bowl that managed to survive the flood last year, so I have something to remember my visit by.  I hope the show goes well and that all my mugs sell. It would be depressing to have to pay for return shipping...

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.

Mystery water - AKA the ongoing saga of my condo restoration

As you have all probably read here before, I was flooded last June and my condo is still under construction. However, there has been a development that will further delay the completion. I went to my site meeting on Tuesday this week and guess what I saw. Water bubbling up between the hardwood floor boards when I stepped on them. They have apparently ripped up a lot of floor and some wall in the kitchen. This is a picture of the first day of exploration. They can't find the source....where does that leave me? not sure, I am in limbo right now...it is becoming rather comical, in the hysterical I'm going crazy kind of way.

I feel like a LIAR

My last post indicated that I would be moving back into my condo that was destroyed by the flood of 2013 last June.

Well, I guess I lied. In fact, I was lied to, which is worse. The really horrible part is that the condo is so close to being done. The even more horrible part is that the contractor pretty much ruined the hardwood floor and it now appears that there are too many damaged boards and the whole floor will probably need to be ripped out and a new one installed. I met with the flooring trade and the contractor to inspect the floor and he pretty much said it is no good. The floor needs a really good cleaning so that they can see the floor and not all the dust and construction grime to get a better idea of the extent of the damage, but I'm convinced it will need to be ripped out and replaced.

This means I don't really know when I will be moving home. If I owned the construction company, I would put as many people as possible on to this to get it done. By not doing so, only increases the chances that the owners and the condo corporation will get litigious. In my estimation, it should not take them more than a day to rip out the damaged floor and then another day, maybe 2, to install the new one. But that would be if I was running the crew. It took them all weekend for a painter to run through and do the remaining touch ups that were to be done, so I can tell that getting this floor redone is going to be like pulling teeth. They did install the closet shelves, because that was apparently soooo important, but they did not clean the floor as far as I can see.

It should be a fairly interesting meeting tomorrow morning. I am curious to hear what convoluted story they will have to tell.

My sister and brother in law are going through a similar hassle. Their condo is getting stucco and new windows for all units. They are also expecting a baby any day now. The new windows for their master bedroom are apparently going to be installed pretty much around the time she has the baby so they will not be able to stay there until they are done, but with the lack of speed on the trades side, who knows when that will happen. They were going to spend a day or 2 at my place, but with that up in the air, my guess is they will be at my parents house.

On the pottery front, the Fairview Pottery Sale will be held at the Canyon Meadows Community Centre on Saturday, November 22nd this year, so if you are in the area and you are looking for unique, hand made gifts, this would be an excellent event to check out.

I might be jinxing this by posting about it, but what the heck

I have been told that my condo will be done and ready for me to walk through with the contractor on FRIDAY. This Friday, not some random Friday in a month or 2 or next year. If everything goes well, I can start moving this weekend. To say that I am ready to move is an understatement. I will get to live in the condo I have been paying mortgage payments and condo fees on for the last year, 3 months and 5 days.

This whole thing has been stressful to say the least, but I would not have gotten through it without the support of my family. I was able to stay with my parent's rent free during this time, so that took a huge load off of my shoulders. My friends and even people I don't even know were super helpful and supportive and helpful during this time from the mucking out of my apartment and all the other units in my building to just listening to me moan about the delays and issues with the rebuild.

Once I can get my head wrapped around my new home and get everything just the way I want it, there WILL be a PARTY. 

Catching up on the pottery

Pottery has been taking a bit of a back seat on this blog for a while, what with the condo rebuild and getting to possibly, maybe getting to move in sometime soon. But I have been making pots. Here are a few pictures of what I have been up to. These are just a few shots of the different patterns I have been scratching away on in the form of mugs and bowls

Because no post would be truly complete without a little update on Lucy the flying dog, here she is leaping across the deck just after a freak late summer snow fall...

So close - like 48 hours close

So this is where the condo stands. A few minor fixes here and there, a few last little things to finish, but for the most part, it is done! I need confirmation on occupancy and when I will be allowed to move in, but I have been told that it would not be unreasonable to expect it to be all complete in 48 hours
This is the living room with the furniture that arrived last Friday.

This is the view into the master bedroom from the living room with move of the furniture that arrived on Friday.
 

This is the kitchen with all the tile up, the last bit of paint. An electrical cover needs to be installed, but other than that, done!
 

And finally the bathroom sink and toilet...
 

Getting there

There seems to have been more condo related stuff on this pottery blog than actual pottery. Well, this will soon come to an end. Apparently my condo will be finished on Friday this week (September 5th). I have arranged for all of my furniture to arrive that day as well as the guys to come and stack and hook up my washer and dryer. I have a friend helping me move one piece of furniture from my Sister's house to mine as she will have no room for it once the baby arrives and I have a spare room that needs some furniture. I took this picture on Tuesday morning. There was still a lot of stuff to get done, but they have made progress. I still need a microwave hood fan installed, the closet organizers need to go in. There is still some work to do on the radiant baseboards as well as window coverings, plumbing fixtures, bathroom sink/toilet and some paint touch ups and a little bit of tile in the kitchen...then they need to flip the switch and get power to the units.