finally, it works!

The glaze firing came out great! The glazed surfaces are smooth and shiny! So I finally have a vitrified clay and glazes that work on it. Ron Roy was right in suspecting that I was overfiring instead of underfiring. The pinholes had us thinking that the clay and/or the glaze was not fired long enough to smooth over the bubbles made by the escaping gasses.

At any rate, I am so glad to have that problem behind me. I'm sure there will be other problems ahead--but I could not move forward until this one was overcome.

Today besides mixing up some glazes and throwing some more test tiles we focused on getting some postcards made to send out to family and friends about the show on the 14th. Until today I was not sure I would be in the show on the 14th. Jim took some pictures of some of my work and Ben put together a card and ordered it on a rush delivery schedule. I would like to get them mailed by Sunday--but it may be a bit later!

teabowls

I am glazing today--and tomorrow--and Sunday. But it is hard! I've spent most of the day setting up for glazing! That is hard--setting up outside to spray glaze--but the really hard part is trying to figure out what glaze or glazes to use and how and so on. So I take a few breaks! One of my favorite pastimes is reading posts on the Clayart listserve. Today there has been a little discussion about teabowls--stimulated by looking at the teabowls of Steve Harrison.

One of my most treasured pottery experiences was a trip to Japan with several other potters. Our little group of beginner potters worked for a week in a studio in Mashiko and at the end of our week we could select a few pieces we had made to have glazed, fired and then shipped back home. It took over a year for the work to arrive. I had forgotten what I had made! There is a 'set' of 6 small 'teabowls' and one slightly larger matching bowl (Lee called it my begging bowl.) They are clearly the work of an inexperienced potter--but I really love them!

OK, I'm back.

That last firing did not produce great results--better but not there yet. Therefore, the silence. I just don't like to talk about the things that aren't going just right. But, in spite of it all, I'm pushing ahead--I am amazed at my determination in the face of much disappointment. But I am certain that somehow I can get over this hump--and by gosh I'm going to do it.

Today I loaded a bisque firing. And tomorrow I will set up outside to glaze, with the spray gun, some pots that are already bisqued. I seem to have had better luck with spraying glazes than I am having now with dipping in the glaze buckets.
Of course, the big challenge is that I want to participate in a craft fair that is scheduled for October 14--and right now I don't have work that I would be willing to put out for sale. When I signed up to participate I had no idea of the troubles that lay ahead.

I bought some ware racks from a friend who is no longer potting. They will be a great boon to my production process. They are in the carport where the kiln is located and where I set up to spray glazes. The racks give me places to put my greenware ware for loading into the kiln and then place for the bisqued ware to await glazing. Loading and unloading the kiln has required innumerable trips in and out of the house--this will cut down on lots of leg work. (Bisqued ware is on the left, greenware is slow drying, underwraps, on the right.)

with fingers crossed

I just started a glaze firing. It is not a full as usual--but I did try to spread everything out equally up and down. After MUCH reflection, consideration and help from some good potters I decided to fire this load slow and LOW. Up until yesterday I expected to fire higher, suspecting gasses from combustibles still in the clay to be the problem. But it was suggested to me yesterday that perhaps it is not pinholes I am suffering but blisters! Blisters from overfiring the clay--not underfiring. That was a big surprise. But as I thought about it and read about blisters vs pinholes I had to agree that I was getting blisters--giving a crusty feel to the affected areas.

I have also given a lot more attention to my glaze application this time. Not because of the pinhole problems but to unattractive patterns on the fired surface from uneven glaze thickness. So I spent 2 days glazing this small load of pots. I am as eager to see the results of this attention to glaze application as to the effect of the firing schedule change.

I have wondered, in the past, if I made a mistake not getting a larger kiln. Boy, am I glad I don't have a big kiln to have to load to run all these 'tests'. These days it feels like I need a smaller kiln!

I can see that all these challenges have a benefit--I am learning a lot. But I am really ready for some happy results! I've got my fingers crossed!

keeping on keeping on

I've learned somethings about myself this past week. I've learned how hard it is to 'blog' when your down! These problems with my clay and my glazes is very discouraging and I really don't want to talk about it. But it is the big thing going right now. I did refire all the pinholed pieces to see if they would smooth out or heal over. I did a very slow firing and fired a little higher--which meant it took lots longer to fire--but there was no improvement. I also put in a couple of pieces that had not been fired and were freshly glazed to see if they would do better with a longer, higher firing. But they also pinholed.
So now I am waiting for the end of a long, slow bisque firing to see if that is where the problems originated. The idea is that perhaps the ^04 bisque firing is not getting all the combustibles fired out and gasses still being released in the glaze firing is causing the pinholes. As soon as this firing ends I'll glaze and fire again to see if that was the source of the pinholes.
I am very discouraged, as can be seen! And it is hard to get up and going under the circumstances. But I've seen that if I am not motivated to get back into my clay work all I have to do is get into the studio and start straightening things up and washing them off. Then like magic I'm back into the swing of things. Sandy Miller had written that having an assistant do the morning mopping for her ruined the whole day. That is when she works out her day's schedule and without that organizational workout she is lost for the day. Funny creatures we are.
I've been playing with some paperclay this week. It has been fun. It is a change from the usual as it is hand-building which I never do--being so addicted to the wheel. I''ve been making sushi plates and have enjoyed stamping decorations onto them. Hope they hold up to the firing!

What an amazing group.

Last night, in the depths of disappointment, I wrote to Clayart (listserve) describing my unhappy experience yesterday and my confusion over how to overcome the current difficulties. Today I have received so many responses--some to the listserve many more to me directly--offering suggestions based on their own experience or practiced wisdom. How many groups are you connected to that are there, on call, to respond to troubled members that they don't know? I feel that I know many of the Clayart folk just from these generous sharings within the group. I have 'friends' in many parts of Texas, Colorado, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Canada, Denmark, England, Belguim--I am sure I am overlooking many 'friends' in other parts of this vast globe. I have said belonging to Clayart is like getting a degree in advanced ceramics. Such a wealth of experience available just for the asking.

Tomorrow I load the kiln and begin again, re-inspired.

What came out goes back in.

Well there was no good news for me today. (Perhaps I should not have scheduled to open the kiln on such a black day in history.) Everything is a mess. With few exceptions--those being test tiles and small test bowls--everything has serious pinholing problems. I have finally found a clay that is vitrified at cone 6--Cinco Blanco by Armadillo. But everything is pinholed. My friend Herb pointed out similar pinholes on bowls he had made with Cinco Blanco. The glazes are ones that I have used successfully on other clays--which, unfortunately, are not vitrified at cone 6. Maybe I am chasing the wrong rabbit--not everyone seems so concerned about using vitrified clay.
I spoke with Armadillo Clay about my experience. It was recommended that I refire and take the firing temperature up a bit higher as the common wisdom says pinholes are the result of underfiring. The conflict is that Armadillo Clay stresses that one must not fire Cinco Blanco above cone 5. I am getting a cone 6 touching in my current firing schedule. So I will reload the kiln and refire.

Where is my palette?

Friday I mixed up a batch of test glazes--still looking for 'my' palette. And today I spent the day glazing. Don’t think I really have a kiln full—but am going to fire it anyway. I really want to see what I have to work with. A couple of pieces I glazed have peeled up like happened in the last round of glazing. I am just going to wash off the glaze and start over on the next round. I think it was the Faux Ash again—and maybe it was on Touchstone again—but I thought I was doing something different. I hope after everything is fired I will be able to see what had the problem—have good notes but no markings on the pots. It was a long day. I have glazed all the test tiles and all the test bowls (minus the ones I will wash off) and all the mugs. Then I threw in a few other pieces—including the steamer and saucer which have bad cracks—but since they are lost anyway I will see what happens in the glaze firing—maybe the glaze will ‘heal’ the cracks!

All fired up...

But not really. I loaded a bisque firing today. The pots have been ready for about a week—but I was not! I wasn’t because of all the kiln maintenance I needed to do! Several of my shelves were badly messed up in the last glaze firing. It was not just glaze running down the side of a pot and dripping onto the shelf—though that happened, too. One of the test plates deposited big blogs of glass onto the shelf in several spots under the plate! And a couple of the run-offs from the test bowls were so serious that the foot of the bowl broke off and stuck to the shelf! I’ve cleaned up glaze spills before but those were such that I could tap the glaze off with a chisel and hammer. But this time there was no budging these spills with the chisel. Jim suggested using the Dremel tool to grind the glaze off. And that is what I am doing (notice the present tense after 3 days work.) The glaze burned down into the shelf—through the kiln wash—so it does have to be ground out. In addition to this mess, other shelves were in need of a fresh coat of kiln wash. All in all a dreadful lot of work. But I got enough of it done so that I could start the bisque firing by noon today. I still have 4 shelves to do more work on before I can use them again. Fortunately, I recently bought some extra shelves that were on sale—they are a little smaller than my kiln’s shelves but they work and today made it possible to go ahead with the firing.

I am now more aware of the need to become a better observer. I know that some of my glazes ‘spit’—but I have not tried to figure out which ones are doing the spitting. And now after the bad flows and dumping of glazes I am making a real effort to know which glazes can’t be mixed—which was the cause of the worst problems in the last firing. On the test bowls I had dipped the rims in different washes or ash glazes to see what they would do. Where I let the overlap get too close to the foot I got the most serious runs—sticking the foot to the shelf and melting into the shelf. On the plates I was overlapping glazes to see how they worked together. The biggest mess was putting M&M Clear over Denim and Charcoal! That is the combination that dumped the big piles of glazes on the shelf.

When I unload a glaze firing I am so eager to see the results on the pots that I don’t take note of what has happened to the shelf under each pot. So I want to slow down and try to take it all in. I have gone back and figured out which pieces caused the mess that happened in the last firing. But I still don’t know which glazes are ‘spitting’.

Getting hooked on pottery.

Some potters can connect their love of working in clay to early childhood memories of clay-making with a parent, grandparent or in a youth class. I have no such memories but I do find an early connection to my clay-working addiction. Two, in fact. First, I have always been strongly attracted to ‘hand-made, home-made”—textiles and food, for example. I never feel more elegantly dressed than in some of the wonderful Mexican hand embroidered shirts and dresses that crowd my closet. (That is one in the photo under "About Me".) I love setting my table with the hand-made pottery that we bought in Dolores Hidalgo so many years ago and I love serving the food I make in stoneware cooking vessels. I can’t imagine a more beautiful bedroom than one with a hand-made quilt for the cover of the bed. Second, I am stuck at the two-year old level of wanting to “do it myself”. If I am treating someone to dinner it will be a dinner I have prepared myself! When I see something beautiful in a gift shop I want to figure out how to make it—more than how to have it! So it is no surprise that I love getting to make pottery. The big surprise is that it took me so long to discover that I might do just that! Perhaps I realized that with raising a family and helping to run the Montessori school we started I had not the time or the money to get into such an avocation. That was the surprise waiting for me at my retirement! And what a glorious treat it has been for this end of the journey. The challenges and the successes are constant joys. I consider myself incredibly lucky and fortunate to be doing what I am doing and to have the support of Jim, my husband.

The week in review:

I can’t believe it has been a week since the last entry! Some significant happenings:

I have applied (and been accepted) to exhibit at the Craft and Music Festival at Northwood Presbyterian Church mid-October. Cat is also planning to exhibit and we’ve been promised to be placed next to one another. The festival is just one day and that is more in line with my capacity right now than a whole weekend! I am enthusiastic about it now but know I’ll be pretty nervous starting around the first of October.

Herb Risch loaned me some tapes of the Bill Van Gilder TV show on pottery making. Each episode focuses on a different form of functional pottery. I am really enjoying watching the tapes. For one reason, I am as addicted to watching someone throw as I am to throwing myself! And I pick up some new clue or hint from each viewing—it is very stimulating.

I’ve been cranking out the greenware! I’m sure I have more than a kiln load now ready to be bisqued. But I have some awful glaze drips on my kiln shelves that I have to try to remove before I fire again. The last firing with all those tests produced some really bad flows down onto the shelves. I tried clearing them this morning using a chisel and hammer—but have some real stubbon spots. Tomorrow I will try using my Dremmel tool—then I will have to try to grind the shelves clean with a grinder. What a pain!

On a happier note, this evening we celebrated as a family of exhibiting artists! Jim has 4 small canvases hanging at La Tuna downtown near Blue Star and Ben has a piece hanging at Studio B not far away. Jim and I visited the gallery with Ben’s piece then we went to La Tuna to see Jim’s work where Ben joined us for dinner. Very pleasant evening—such a newly shared focus in our lives! Has Jim talking about moving into the downtown area instead of out to the country when/if our home sells. What interesting twists and turns life introduces.

And the results are...

disappointing. There is a lot of good information to be had from this firing--but no treasures! In truth, I only had a very few 'real pieces' in the firing that could have produced 'treasures'--but those few weren't.

My favorite piece is the funky little pitcher from the Jerry Bennett Paper Clay workshop last month. The glazes were painted on with a brush and I had not done that before but they covered well. I painted the underside of the spout with a soft yellow glaze--but it came out so soft that you can't tell it isn't white like the inside of the pitcher.

I had some pin holing on the larger pieces--that I hoped would come out as treasures. I think it may have happened because the glaze was too thick. Seems like there is always something wrong!

On the other hand, the test pieces did tell me a lot. Funny, I did not have any pin holing on the small test bowls or on the plates--just on the much larger pieces. Ron Roy has said that faults do show up more clearly in large pieces. Unfortunately, the test bowls were not on the clay I shall probably be using--so things may change yet. Gives me something to work on!

Yes, glazing and now firing

Later on Wednesday, I decided that I could use the plates that had cracks in the rims or the pop-outs for testing some overlaps of the glazes. I washed them off and waxed the bottoms so they are ready to dip into the glazes Thursday. I should get a lot of good information from these tests—hopefully!

Thursday was a busy day. I did glaze all those test bowls and cracked plates and hope to learn a lot about my glazes. I don’t think I have found ‘my’ palette yet. I also have several pieces that I am going to ‘refire’—mostly Touchstone Red pieces that have crawled spots—also the large salad bowl that is lined with Licorice which has tiny pinholes all over the inside.

I am not a very good observer. I carefully stirred the big tubs of glazes and then dipped my pieces into the tub. Only then did I realize the glaze looked very thick. Then I stuck my thumb into the glaze and could see that it was in deed too thick. Wish I’d get into the habit of checking first! I have several pieces that are crackling and will probably crawl because it was too thick. Touchstone Red is a real challenge—it really cracks and lifts off the other glazes that I put on top—just as it did to the Faux Ash on the mug I am so fond of. I am refiring that to see if it can be saved. Grace’s B Base Green is a maze of cracks as it dries. I don’t remember that it did that before—but then, I’m not a very good observer.

I loaded the kiln Friday morning. I may have made a mistake: I decided to sprinkle some Mt. St. Helen’s ash on the plates to see what would happen, since these are tests I might as well do all the tests I can think of. However, the glaze was already dry and now I am wondering if the loose ash will fly around in the turbulence of the kiln. Well, we’ll see! Maybe everything will show the signs of ‘fly ash’!

Glazeing yet?

Well, I managed to work all day in the studio around glazing without actually doing any glazing at all! It is not just the application that is a challenge—though that is a challenge—but trying figure out combinations and techniques really stymies me. So today I decided to take all the test bowls I made out of Bee Mix 5 and do some experiments. I have 13 test bowls. On 3 of the bowls I put stripes of slip across the inside and onto the outside. I used 3 different slips (all from Tony Clennell) one is black/blue, one is rutile and one is cobalt. I will put clear glaze over these slips—M&M Clear on one half and Glossy Clear Liner on the other half of each of those bowls. This is to see what happens when these slips are applied to bisqued ware instead of to greenware.

On the other 10 test bowls I have painted a stripe of cobalt oxide stain and a stripe of red iron oxide stain. Each of these will be dipped in one of the big tubs I have of glazes. Then on the rim of these bowls I will dip 1/3 in Soft Gloss, 1/3 in Behrens Ash (using Marcia Selsor’s Mt. St. Helen’s volcanic ash), and the last 1/3 in Rutile Wash.

(Interesting to me that these bowls with the simple stripes are very appealing to me—and just because of the repetition, I think. Something to think about as I glaze my pots—making ‘families’ of glazed pieces if only for display purposes—even if you are only buying one it is more appealing when seen as part of a series. Also, the stripes being offset to one side is better than being in the center—or more balanced. )

The test bowls have been sitting around a long time and seemed dusty. So I washed each out with a sponge and lots of water before beginning. They are still damp so I will let them dry today and tomorrow will dip the bowls into the glazes. (Are you wondering how many ways I can find to postpone glazing?)

I have a lot more glazes in smaller batches. If these tests prove as informative as I hope, I will repeat the tests with other glazes. What I am lacking in this project is what happens when I overlap glazes—but it seems like too much going on to try to overlap glazes on this go round.

Another day

Another day of avoiding the glazing project! I trimmed and put handles on the two pieces that needed handles from yesterday’s throwing. And then went downtown—got more Cinco Blanco clay and some Custer Feldspar and some G 200. Had a nice visit with Jenny—about my email to her mentioning the under weighing of their materials.

I hope the texturing on the pitcher does not look as much like a grass skirt after it is glazed and fired as it does right now!

I keep thinking that I have given up worrying about pieces being too heavy and have just accepted that I make heavy pieces. But that pitcher sure does feel heavy! So does the vegetable steamer.

Back to the wheel

I did not get into the studio until late in the afternoon today—avoiding that big pile of bisqued ware waiting to be glazed, perhaps! Since it was too late to start on glazing (!) I wedged 3 pieces of Cinco Blanco—one about 2# and the other pieces a little over 3#. Then I threw a batter bowl, a salad bowl and a pitcher. (Yes, Diana, bowls again!) I felt so good about those pieces! Two of them will get handles tomorrow but for now I feel very complete. Maybe I should look into establishing a cooperative where I throw and someone else does the glazing!

A good day...

Well, it was a pretty good day in the studio. Yesterday I threw the body of a ‘steamer’—for preparing and serving steamed vegetables.

Today I trimmed it, put the holes in the base, then threw the lid, made a saucer (that goes under the steamer to take it to the table) and made the handles for the lid and the body. That is a lot of constructing. For some reason I am always intimidated by pieces that have multiple parts, like a teapot with spout, lid and handle or a casserole with a lid and handles. But this went together pretty well and I am pretty satisfied with it. I think it is a little large and think that I will make it again smaller. It might make a nice gift item.

"Real Potters" make tens of pots a day--thirty or forty. Here I am celebrating making ONE pot! Just one of the differences between me and a 'real potter'!

Yesterday, I unloaded the bisque kiln. Now I have a lot of glazing to do. That is something else that really challenges me. In my mind's eye that is the work of an artist—and I don’t know where to begin at being an artist!! But now that I’ve had my day at the wheel I have to get busy with the glazing projects! Wish me luck!

Returning...

I returned on Tuesday from a little holiday with 4 girlfriends whom I’ve known since the 1960s—some even longer. We drove out to Ruidoso, New Mexico and stayed in the ‘summer home’ of Lani Gary. It was a fun, giggly girl time.
As soon as I could get to the wheel I threw 4 pieces (all from Dillo clay): 2 bowls, a vase, and a coffee mug for the car (maybe). Throwing on the wheel is ecstasy! Decorating and glazing is something else all together!
Today I did address decorating the four pieces after I trimmed them and while they were still leather-hard. I applied some colored slip to the pieces—some over paper cut-outs, some over strings, some with sponge application. It will be interesting to see how they come out.

The eyes have it...

This week-end was busy and I had no time to be in the studio. Yet it was full of good pottery experiences! I spent some time looking at, feeling, and analyzing the test tiles from Diana Pancioli. These are her tests of cone 6 reduction glazes. There are 22 tiles, each measures about 2X2.5, the glazed part is 2X2 below which is a code for identifying the glaze. She also sent the recipes for the 22 glazes with notes on application and results on different clays.

The other interesting experience
was making colored labels for my
glaze materials containers. This was stimulated by a suggestion of Hank Murrow in Clayart. He suggested
making labels with colors to represent the percentage of fluxes, the stiffeners and the glass formers in each of the materials. It was such an eye opener—I guess I am a visual learner because I have read and studied the composition of these materials but never ‘understood’ it till now. The greens represent the fluxes, the blues represent the stiffeners, the yellow represents the silica.

The downer was loosing my purse on Saturday. I don’t know if I left it somewhere or if someone got into my car and took it—though I am quite certain that I had locked the car. I had my car key and wallet with me. But in the purse were my cell phone, check book, another key chain with car key to the Cressida and to the house, a collection of credit cards I don’t use and who knows what all else! I am still hoping to find it somewhere…

Funky fun

Saturday and Sunday I attended Jerry Bennett’s Paperclay workshop at the Southwest School of Art and Craft. It was an interesting experience for me: new clay; handbuilding; and funky styles! But I enjoyed all of it. The paper clay was so easy to work with and lent itself to lots of fooling around because it is so user friendly. But I don’t know that I will do much with it. It is something of a commitment to mix it up in large quantities and it does not keep well for long periods of time. So it would need to be something I would want to focus a lot time and attention on to make it worth the effort. But it was interesting and fun. I might make up a batch and see if Lauren and Conrad would enjoy working with it. They would have a lot more success with the paperclay for handbuilding--which they enjoy more than working on the working the wheel.

ketchup...

Monday afternoon I loaded the kiln for a bisque firing. The heat has slowed me down. Takes longer to act on decisions these hot days!

Tuesday I picked up some supplies at Clayworld and then dropped in on Diana to pick her brain about an idea I have for an independent study project for this fall. She fixed a lovely lunch for us. She said she plans her menus around color combinations on the plate! Looked beautiful.

Wednesday, Jim unloaded the kiln in the morning before I was even out of bed! He had a few pinch pots in the kiln and was eager to see if they survived—I mistakenly put in some that were not quite dry. After I brought all the pieces into the house I set up in Kitchen to wax the bottoms. Generally, I do this on the fly—when I’m ready to glaze I realize that I have not waxed the bottoms and do it in a rush. I don’t allow time to really dry and I don’t take enough care with the application. As a result, the foot ring looks very sloppy on most of my pieces. So today I took care—to the extent that I can control my application. Still I want to remember to check the foot rings after I apply the glaze to make sure I have a nice line. I took a lot of time doing it but realize that I need to give more time/attention to these parts of the work if I want my finished pieces to be nice.

I also mixed up the last 3 glazes that I could not do last week because I was short on supplies I needed. They now need to be sieved and then they are ‘good to go’.

I want to set aside a big block of time for my glazing, too. I can’t be very creative if I am just allowing a couple hours to get a huge batch of work into the kiln! I’ve been trying to collect ideas for glaze decoration—I am tired of my just dipped or sprayed pieces. I want to do something more interesting. Looking through books I see things that I like and want to try. But when I am with a pot in hand, standing in front of a pot of glaze I never can remember any of those good ideas!

Today Kevin and Cat, two of my glaze buddies, came over for lunch and just to chat about glazes. We had no assignments this time. Kevin showed us her new glaze program, HyperGlaze. Cat had brought samples of her glaze tests to show and talk about with us. I had lots of questions about glaze vocabulary (they are being very patient with my never-satisfied quest!) It was nice meeting in the middle of the day when we were not so tired. And very nice that it was such a small intimate group. We pledged to repeat the pleasant experience soon.

Back at the wheel

It has been hard to find time to work in my studio. But today I was back in my favorite place--sitting at the wheel. I trimmed a bowl I had thrown on Tuesday--amazed that it was still trimable. But in fact, it was in perfect condition for trmming--just shows what a good job a little plastic cover can do. And I got to make some test tiles and two colanders from a new clay, Dillo. I am still searching for my perfect clay!
This weekend I will fire a bisque load. And hope to get to do a glaze firing by the end of next week. I am looking forward to taking a workshop next weekend at the craft center. It will be working with paper clay--which I am interested in knowing a little more about. And I am looking forward to working with a group again. I've missed my weekly trip to the craft center this semester.

A day in the studio

A quiet day in the studio—with breaks to sip on a cup of coffee and chat with Jim. I trimmed the mugs I threw yesterday (no foot rings) and put handles on them early in the day. Then I threw a bowl from a scrap of clay left from the handle-making project. It will make a nice “empty bowl” contribution. Then, with another piece of left-over clay, I threw a largish salad bowl that will be a thank you to Steve for his part in my new shelves, if it turns out well after all the next steps!

Then, just to add some excitement to the day, as I was moving the largish salad bowl very carefully to a safe place for drying I kicked over a bucket of slop—lots of water and lots of soft clay scraps all over the floor! What a mess! I had been ‘intending’ to map the floor because there were some clay drips in that area around the wheel—so I got to do it today! Lots more water and the mop to float the clay up and the shop vac to suck it up with the water. Because the floor is that pebbly concrete it is very hard to clean, the clay just settles in between the little stones and does not come up easily. I made two attempts at watering it down, rubbing it loose with the mop and vacuuming it with the shop vac and letting it dry between. You can still see a haze of clay where the slop bucket went over. But I think that is a good as I can get it.

small steps

I unloaded the kiln this morning. Not as successful as I had hoped—but some interesting pieces and some good information on the new glazes and combinations of glazes. I had tried to duplicate the error I had made that produced such a nice dark forest green with lots of texture in it (the Burgundy from June Perry) but got a much lighter color—almost a light turquoise but also with nice variation in it (mug on extreme right). Perhaps the most curious bit of information was the mug I fired with Paul Northway’s ‘Burgundy’. When I had mixed up his recipe and fired on a test tile it came out very purple—very close to the eggplant purple I have—when I showed it to Paul he was convinced I had not mixed it properly. So he gave me a tub of his glaze to test. I put it on a mug (mug on extreme left) and it came out the same purple I had on the test tile! So it is something to do with the firing. Paul showed me a piece he had fired with the glaze and it was very burgundy—almost pink burgundy. Interesting. I guess that the most successful bit were the mugs. I am happy with them—the shape, the handle. I like the ones made with 1 pound of clay best—the 3/4 pound were too small.

a bit dispirited

The glaze making project ran much longer than I expected and my ‘arrangements’ for it were inadequate. My back problems slowed me down a lot and there were other responsibilities/commitments that also slowed me down. So it seemed an inordinately long drawn-out project. Now I have a kiln load of glaze firings—with lots of tests of the new glazes and tests of combinations—and I have my fingers crossed for some good outcomes. But it has been a long haul and past outcomes have not been very positive. Today, with the kiln loaded and firing, I finally got back to the wheel. That is what I love. That is where my enjoyment of pottery is rooted. I threw 4 small plates, a larger plate, a large salad bowl and an smaller altered bowl. So I am a bit up-lifted today. But there is the opening of the kiln ahead of me. I do very much hope to be encouraged by the outcome of this firing.

In the meantime, we have adopted a baby raccoon. We did not know its vulnerability when we took it in. It seem to be in need of help so Jim rescued it and made a temporary home for it in the fireplace. Then Jim brought in our ‘dog cage’ and made a home for him with wood blocks, newspaper, towels—all the comforts of home. He very compassionately feed him, cleaned its pen, and provided water. That was on Sunday and since then the baby has deteriorated. He seems now not to be able use his hind legs—he pulls himself around the pen with his front legs. He was able to get around but seemed to be 'wobbley'. We took the cage out on the porch mid-day today and left the door open. But he has made no attempt to move in or from the pen. Perhaps he was kicked out of the ‘family’ because of some congenital defect. But he is not improving based on our loving attention.