Keeping order

I've been glazing the last week or so, for an end-of-January firing. This should be the time I'm rebuilding my stock from holiday sales; in practice, more than half the kiln load will be special orders. On the list so far:

1. 200 soup bowls for St. Vincent de Paul (actually, only 100 have been made for this firing. The rest will carry over 'til next time).

2. A set of oversized coffee mugs, 8 total. Also two little juice glasses.

3. Large oval platter, with a photo of the client's black lab.

4. A very wonky olive oil cruet.

5. A baby squirrel pattern dessert plate.

6. A ginormous serving bowl for making bread. Tiger pattern. I made two, 9 lbs. of clay each.

7. Ceramic canning funnels, three, decorated with cat, hummingbird and pelican, respectively.

8. Black cat-handled mug.

9. Dragonfly french butter dish.

10. Hummingbird pie plate.

11. Two City of Eugene 5-year employee appreciation mugs.

12. Large batter bowl with quail, pie plate with cat, cat bank (which I have in stock, fortunately). Also a large batter bowl with Chickadee.

13. Seven soup bowls, horses pattern, using the client's four horses as models.

Everything on the list is glazed as of this post except for number 13. They'll join a dozen desserts and the same number of toddler bowls on tomorrow's docket. And then it's loading and firing.

With a little help

Today's studio plan: glaze seventeen animal banks, eight incense dragons, and one hundred St. Vincent de Paul bowls.

Thank goodness I had help.

This is my wife, Denise. She's a microbiologist by training, a papermaker and bookbinder by choice. Which means that, while she can't glaze and decorate my painted production pots, she's really good at jobs requiring care and precision. So she can glaze and wax eyes on dinosaur banks. Wax the cut edges and eyes of incense dragons. Clean up the glaze drips as I dip and drain the banks.

As for the bowls, we set up a production line. I waxed feet, poured the insides and dipped rims in my white glaze. As soon as they were dry enough to handle, she carefully dipped the outside in one of six different colored glazes, wiped the bottom across a sponge, and moved them to a stack of ware boards. Periodically, I'd bring out more bowls to glaze, change out the colored glaze tub, and set up another board on the stack.

It took us two hours to glaze the banks and dragons. Barely two more to glaze all the SVdP bowls.