Catching up

Gonna be a glut of updates that shoulda gone up over the past two weeks, but honestly, when I'm in heavy production--making pots, bisquing pots, glazing pots--I'm so exhausted by the end of the day that editing and uploading photos is just too much work. So I'm a little behind.

Judging a book

Several weeks back, Denise and I hosted the first session of a two-part workshop for our Emerald Book and Paper Arts group: We're teaching everyone how to make ceramic-covered books.

The first session was mine, of course. I rolled out a bunch of thin slabs of clay, got out every texture tool and stamp I could think of, and made up templates so everyone could cut and drill covers of consistent size. Over a dozen people showed up, gathered around a long sawhorse table in my carport, and went to work on making an impression, stamping, rolling, pressing in seed heads and cedar sprigs and ferns. It was tremendous great fun, so much so that nobody actually thought to take a picture.

How's that for engagement?

Once everyone was finished, I took over responsibility for firing. I got everything in the bisque, then afterward, stained all the covers with red iron oxide. It's a messy process, brushing it on and sponging off, but the result highlights textures beautifully.



But it does leave you red-handed.

We loaded up the glaze kiln today, and all those little tiles fit beautifully under the curve of the soup bowls. They'll be ready by the end of the week, and come August, Denise will teach us how to stitch in book pages.

Ajar

Ceramics Monthly hosts a monthly column for tips and tricks, going back to the beginnings of the magazine. I even got one published, once, explaining how to create a shrinkage ruler by back-calculating shrinkage and photo-enlarging a regular ruler that can be used to measure wet work and tell you how much smaller it will be after firing. (Laminate the enlargement for best results.)

Most of the tips are either obvious, or so specialized that there's no way I can use them in my studio situation. This one, though, I had to try.

Most of my pots are small enough that I can glaze them in a single dip with glazing tongs. With big bowls and bakers, I might use two sets of tongs, one in each hand. Cookie jars, though, are a problem.

They're too big to handle with tongs--a 12-inch jar full of glaze will not come out of the bucket. And if I pour the inside, then dip the outside, I wind up with finger marks either on the rim or the foot, and over-dipping that end leaves glaze overlaps that show up after firing. It was frustrating.

Then I saw this suggestion: Buy a high-powered suction cup, the kind body shops use to pull dents out of cars. Stick it to the bottom of the pot. And dip.

I didn't think it would work, but Harbor Freight had a 2.5" cup for under ten bucks, so I figured What the heck?

First try didn't stick, because I'd used liquid wax resist on the foot, and it wasn't smooth enough to hold a seal. Dipping in hot paraffin fixed the problem, and by moistening the suction cup before applying it, I can dunk the whole outside of the jar in one step. No fingerprints or overlaps, and it even helps reduce glaze drips.

Broke it out again this last week and glazed a bunch of nice cookie jars for the firing.

The things I do for friendship

The potter friend who ordered the bowl with all the bugs, last firing, decided she wanted an actual nesting set of bowls. So I made her a medium and small server to go with the large one. Her choice of patterns?

For the small bowl, she wanted all different wildflowers, with lots of honeybees.

For the medium? Fairies and boggles and a mushroom house... I blame Faerieworlds.