Monday. Back at it.

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I feel like I had a good day back at work in the shop. I finished up some things like getting my tall footed bowls slipped, and cut feet on my 18" dishes and got them slipped too. I also finished up a few tankards that I made on a whim at the end of the day on Friday. Below are the big dishes. I made a board of mugs and a few jars that will get animals. Also some lobed bowls that will have tripod feet. The shapes on the right will be pilgrim bottles. I haven't made these in awhile and realized today I had none in the showroom. I also made two boards of 2 qt. bakers and two sets of owl candle stick holders.
All this stuff will get finished up tomorrow. I do have to help out at the Arts Council at 10 am and then a board meeting at noon. So I'll need to have a productive afternoon or some of this may ride over till Wednesday.
Sarah is out tonight with a friend so I made myself a nice dinner. Tom had send me a pasta sauce recipe so I tried it out. It was really nice. I'll have left overs tomorrow for lunch.
I felt better day than I did over the weekend. I was really aware of all the messages and clatter in my head and what kind of effects it has upon me. I am trying to practice awareness and attention. I appreciate the positive comments and emails some of you send me.
Well now it's time to do the dinner dishes, which is a good time to practice awareness and enjoy all the nice pots I've used today.

Sunday

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Last week was way too busy for me. I am hoping this week will be different, but I haven't looked at my calendar yet. Sorry for the lack of posts. I feel like I ran around from one appointment to the other with a never ending list of things to do on my mind. I don't like operating from this state but sadly it's common. Last week was emotionally draining too, just dealing with my 'junk' and trying to figure it out (which doesn't seem to help).
I did get some pots made and hope to have a productive day in the studio tomorrow. So far today I've done nothing, which is wonderful.
Thanks for checking in. I promise to post more this week.

New Start

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I got a start on my next kiln load this week. Today, being a holiday, I didn't work all day but did finish up some of the pots I made Monday and Tuesday. Below is an 18" bowl, I made two of these today. I had made one last week but lost it today when cutting a foot on it... the walls got too thin. The two I made today are thrown better anyway I think. These three large ovals got handled and slipped today.
Here is a shot of what I made on Tuesday. I am having to keep things covered or shuffled around since I now have my AC window unit blasting cool air. If I'm not careful things will get dry on one side or dry out before I have time to slip them.
This is a fat pitcher I made yesterday. I don't have a set pitcher shape but tend to lean towards the narrow tapered shapes. This one was inspired by Doug. Maybe I'll try a board of these and see where they go.


Weekend

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I've had a really nice weekend. I feel like I did a good job of staying in the moment this weekend and let some of the junk I've had troubling me fall to the side. Friday night I made a great pizza with tomato and basil from the garden and some mozzarella cheese. I need to shop around for a good quatily mozz. Sarah was out with a friend so I just chilled out, journalled, and drew a bit.

On Saturday my dad and I worked on the renovation. Things are pugging along slowly, but we will get there. That evening I talked Sarah into going to see Ratatoullie. I thought it was really wonderful. My 'inner child' and 'inner chef' totally enjoyed it. The digital anamation is awesome. The story was cool, and orginial I thought. I love going to the movie theater, the big screen and great sound system totally beats watching a dvd at home. Afterwords we hit Chens for some lo mein.

Today was pretty laid back too. We cleaned the house and headed over to Sarah's parents for supper. The new kitchen looks awesome. Sarah's mom is really happy with it. It's going to take her awhile to get settled in and find places for all her stuff, but I can tell she loves it.

Tomorrow, Monday, I have a gallery owner coming to buy pots and after that I will be getting back to making things for my next kiln load.

So that's it. Thanks for checking in. I am looking forward to getting back in the studio.

Just a few

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Today I did manage to make a few pots. I have plans to work on the house this weekend so I didn't go crazy in the studio making stuff. I knew I'd probably not get back to any of it until Monday. This morning I did some work on my big homemade kickwheel. This is a wheel that a friend has let me borrow and it works great. The only problem is that it doesn't have any kind of splashpan. I use plenty of water so it was a problem. Kicking a wet flywheel is dangerous and not very productive. So I rigged up a splash pan made by cutting the bottom off of a large trash can and screwed it into place. It works fine, but I'll probably work on it a bit more.
I like to use that wheel to throw larger pots. I made this 18" bowl and also some pitchers. The pitchers aren't that large but I do like to make them on that kickwheel. I like how it slows way down as I get to the top of the pot. Normally I work on a Leach treadle wheel.
Note to Andrew: These pitchers are made from 4, 5 and 6 lbs of clay. Left to right. Here are the dimensions (left to right) Height 25 cm, width 13.5 cm. Height 29 cm, width 14.6 cm. Height 29 cm , width 16 cm. That's the height to the top of the cylinder, not the spout, and the width of the base. So maybe that will be helpful. I'm not the greatest pitcher maker by any means, but these are pretty well balanced. I'll get handles on the later.

No Pots

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I have no pottery news today as I haven't gotten to make any this week. It looks like today will be split between a visit back to the kitchen job for a couple hours and two trips to the Arts Council for meetings there. I am the vice chair of the board this year (I will be the chair next year), so I will be even more active there than I have been, (which has been quite a lot).

Anyhow if you need a little pottery eye candy you can visit Akar and see what's up there. Harlan House's $300 french fry platters are nice. I was going to order a couple but Sarah reminded me I'm supposed to be cutting back on the fried foods.

Have a good day. I promise I'm still a potter and there will be pots back on this blog soon!

Vicki Gill

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My friend Vicki Gill has started blogging. I am not sure how Vicki and I met, it was either through the Claymatters Pottery Guild or at the Treasures of the Earth Show. I guess that was about 8 or more years ago. Vicki is an excellent potter and lives about 25 miles east of here in Gastonia. There she maintains a studio and gallery named Bluegill Pottery. It's a very nice space with a gallery up front and room for classes in the back. Vicki is known for her textured and carved pots. We both love many of the same potters and both enjoy attending the NC Potter's Conference every year in Asheboro. Be sure to visit her website too.

Day 3

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I am going back to finish helping with the kitchen today. This will probably be my last day as things are winding down to the finish work. It looks really nice, the oak cabinets are beautiful. I am anxious to get back to making pots, I should be able to get a few things done before the weekend.

Work. Not Pots

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Yesterday I was over at Sarah's parent's house all day to start on the kitchen renovation. Sarah's dad and brother are doing it along with my help. We tore out the old cabinets and a small section of the floor and started hanging the new cabinetry. It was a good day of work. I got home rather late just before a big thunder storm.
I am heading back over there now.
So no potting today. I am hoping to get back in the shop tommorrow or Thursday. I also hope to get some work done on my house this weekend. Thanks for checking in.

Tomato

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I went down this morning and picked the first red tomato from my garden. For breakfast I toasted up some bread that a friend brought me over the weekend. I fried an egg and added a chiffanade of basil , also from the garden, to the slices of tomato and had a nice breakfast sandwich. A mouthful of summer.
Karma and I also had a few blackberries on our walk this morning.
As Tom would say, "Food...eat some today."

Weekend

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My Summer Sale was a great success. I had a lot of folks drive in from out of town as well as many of my locals who came by. There were some new faces and a few who have known about me but have never made it out here until now. Thanks to you all for your support and patronage. Many good pots left the showroom over the weekend and I hope they are being put to use or enjoyed in some way in their new enviroments. Now I can get busy making more and working on some new ideas. My next Home Sale is in September and then the Holiday Sale in Nov/Dec.

Today I am helping Sarah's dad and brother install some new kitchen cabinets. I'll be working on our renovation this week too. I'd like to get this drywall job wrapped up soon. Things take forever around here.

Anyhow I hope you are off to a good start on this Monday.

Summer Sale

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My Summer Sale is this weekend. I am all ready to go, I got the showroom set up yesterday and there are some really nice pots here. I have over 300 pots in stock! If you need directions you can mapquest my address 757 Wallace Grove Rd. Shelby, NC 28150 or give me a call 704.480.6046
Saturday June 23 10 am till 5 pm
Sunday June 24 Noon till 4 pm
I had a couple early birds show up yesterday morning so I am off to a good start. Hope to see you here.

More Pots

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Here are a couple more teapots.Altered vase.These bake and serves got a new shape. I got on this lobe kick while making pots for this load. I had several bakers and a few sets of bowls that were lobed. I will probably stick with it.
Here are some small lobed bowls with yellow dots. These pots are covered in a new bisque slip that I am trying, it has quite a bit of feldspar in it. I'll try and get a close up of it later, it sort of reminds me of a shino glaze in that it pinholes in a really nice way.
I made four of these tall foot bird bowls. I sold out of them at the ClayMatters sale back in May. Maybe I'll sell a few this weekend.


New Pots

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I had a great firing. I was really surprised not to have more orange peel texture since I added 4 more pounds of salt than I did last time. Still, I had some very nicely flashed pots with lots of atmospheric variation. Here are some pics and I'll add more later.
I really liked this faceted teapot, it was my favorite out of the six or so that were in this kiln.

Three small ovals. These were all in the front of the kiln and got some nice salt action.
I have about 8 of these mugs. My friend Greg Scott mentioned to me a while back about trying some dots on top of my slip pours. So here they are and I think it works great, it gives the pours a new dimension. I'll be doing more of that on other forms in the future.
 Those two bottles in the middle were on the bagwall and I expected them to get blasted with salt. These are all nice, I have plans to make more of these faceted bottles in different sizes and shapes for the next load. I want to make some that are more flared out.
Two more teapots. I like that dry slip on the left one.
Like I said, I was really happy with these pots. My kiln is firing so much better than it was back in the winter. I am reducing longer and soaking at the end. I think these two things have helped remedy the problems I was having. I sure don't any complaints about this firing. More to come.

Getting Ready. Doing Nothing.

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I spent this morning cleaning up the showroom and dusting the pots in there. I was expecting my Rotary summer campers at 8 am and they never showed up, turns out I got my days mixed up and they are coming tomorrow. Oh well, I'll be ready then.

Things are sort of on hold until I unload the kiln tomorrow around lunchtime. Then I'll have to sand, dust, price and bring all of that work in and set up a couple of displays in the workshop. So for now I'm doing nothing and feeling just a bit guilty since it's 3:30 in the afternoon. I pretty much have supper worked out. There is a basket of clothes here that need folding so I'll probably do that next. Then maybe I'll just read awhile or do some drawing, or maybe I'll just draw the laundry. I guess I can allow myself a few hours to just veg out.

Onda Pottery

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The Pucker Gallery in Boston has an exhibition of Onda pottery on view. I got the catalogue in the mail the other day but you can view it online here. The intro to the catologue by Andrew L. Maske is very informative. Onda ware production was begun in Oita prefecture in 1705. Methods of production and decoration were limited to certain techinques that continue until this day. Unlike other pottery villages in Japan the region has been able to retain most of the aspects of it's ceramic heritage. Only one son per potting household is allowed to carry on the tradition and no potters are allowed to move in from anywhere else.

I really love the shapes and decorative techiniques of Onda ware. The somewhat haphazard splashing of glaze is very nice. At first it seems a little off and sloppy, but after seeing it over and over on the pots I can see it must take skill and technique to apply in that manner. The application of white slip that is often finger wiped, combed or chattered is also wonderful. This, combined with the splashed glaze is a great contrast. I can see influence of this work in some contempory potters work, many of them coming from the Michael Cardew lineage. Bernard Leach had an impression on Onda ware, when he visited in 1954 he showed his method of pullling handles on pitchers. This is evident in the images of pitchers in the catalogue.

At Last

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The kiln is going. I just put it into body reduction a few minutes ago. I expect I'll finish up around 4 today.

The weekend was nice. On Saturday I had a meeting with the Circle of Eight. We are planning our next show and ironing out details on an exhibit in Greenwood SC we have in a month. I'll put up details on the opening soon. We had a big discussion over our name, 'Circle of Eight'. There is sort of a glitch since we had one member leave in Feb. So now we are really Seven, but we like our name and everyone has started using it and we have gotten press with it so we have all decided to just keep it. I am the one who raised a fuss over it. I'm sort of geeky and possibly OCD over things like this, numbers, inconsistencies, things not as they should be. Ha. It's ridiculous, anyhow, if anyone asks I'll just say the 'eight' is a metaphor. Whatever that means.

Sarah and I had a good night out on Saturday, we went out and bought me a much needed new pair of glasses and then to dinner at our favorite Italian resturant in Gastonia. I am sick of having glasses and am considering having laser surgery. Anyone have any experience with this? I need to check it out. Sunday we had breakfast with Sarah's folks and later that evening a cookout with my family. So we ate well all weekend.

I have a group of teens coming tomorrow from a Rotory Club summer camp. This will be the third year of their visit. I look forward to talking and demoing for them. I need to go start cleaning up the studio for that and for my upcoming sale.

Pictures of new pots will be posted here on Wednesday. Have a great Monday!

Firing

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The propane truck came on Friday. So I will be lighting the kiln tonight and firing on Monday. Pots should come out on Wednesday. The kiln has been loaded for a couple of days which is weird, every time I look down there I think I need to go unload, but it's not even been fired yet. I'm really ready to fire and have some new pots. Stay tuned.

Loaded...waiting

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I have the kiln all loaded. It went well and I got in all the pots I had wanted for my sale weekend. Of course I have plenty already in the showroom, so this will add to that. I am not stacking so close to the arch nowdays. I seem to get better results with that space above the pots. My next kiln may be a little shorter, more of a cube.
I am now waiting on the propane truck. I hope he comes today so I can fire tonight and tomorrow. If not I'll have to wait until Monday as I have things do on Saturday and Sunday. Either way I'll be fine.
Here are my two onlookers. Perry the lab, and Kharma the studio dog. Sweet, old Perry looks like Eeyore, forlorn and tired. Kharma has kept him busy today. I'll get a shot of him smiling later, when Kharm is worn out.