Vacation. Heh.

After a luxurious, ah, five days off--counting from when I shipped off the last boxes to Wisconsin--I was back in the studio again on Monday.

Honestly, I'm not sure how I held out that long. I like pottery. And it had been over six weeks since I last sat down at the wheel, considering glazing, firing, and all the Holiday Market in between.


I started out simple, (hah!) with things I was out of, or nearly. Like teapots. Stick butter dishes, batter bowls, casseroles and mixing crocks. I also did some of the orders, while I was fresh. The steamer crock, and replacements for a couple of broken lids. Today I threw squared baking dishes--only two left--and some pasta serving bowls and platter, and put a lot of handles on a lot of covered casseroles. The shelves are already filling up, and I'm only on day four.

I also took an afternoon to get on top of recycling. The drying bat had been filled since early December, and I had six or seven bags of wet throwing scraps as well, so I uncovered the pug mill and fired it up. Wound up with nearly four hundred pounds of lovely clay, a little on the firm side. Since Clay Art Center alwlays ships new clay too wet, it was nice to have some that didn't need to be set out overnight to firm up, then need re-wedging in the morning. The pugs are perfect for small items like mugs or bowls, but a bit of a struggle to center on bigger pieces. After throwing half a dozen six-pound casseroles yesterday, my tendons were definitely sparking.

This morning, I decided to wedge fresh wet clay together with the firmer recycle to make six-pound bakers and pastas, and it was just about perfect, soft enough to center, firm enough to stand up. If I were a more ambitious person, I'd unbag all the clay, too-soft and too-firm, and run it all through the pugmill together.

Nah. That feels too much like work.

Color theory

Remember the guy who bought six dinner plates and six soup bowls? He also came back Christmas Eve to pick out six dessert plates.

Two days after Christmas, I got an email from his wife, asking if she can return them.

*sigh*

Don't get her wrong, she says, she likes the shapes, she likes the drawing. But she's got a specific color scheme in mind for her kitchen, and the "yellowish" color just doesn't match. Can I do them in a white background instead?

Cue hysterical weeping.

Those of you who've been reading this journal for a while have learned that I do sometimes get white pots. By accident, from oxidizing spots in the kiln. Which move around from firing to firing, so I can't really predict which pots will be affected, so I can't take orders for that color scheme.

Some years ago, when I was on Productivity Alchemy, Kevin asked how I dealt with failure. "Cry. Swear. Stomp around... for about a day." And that's what happened here, after which I went out into the shed to inventory pots and separate and count the oxidized dinner plates, desserts, and soup bowls. Turned out I had enough of them to do the full eighteen-piece set with no repeat patterns. I emailed, offering to swap out her gift for colors more to her liking, and she said yes.

They're due her in five minutes. Fingers crossed.