Even more tired

So the kiln never did make temperature; stalled at just past cone 9. I finally shut it down at 10:30 pm. Came back Friday night to unload, to discover a kiln full of brick-red matte-surfaced pots. Something was wrong with the glaze.

I don't know if something was mislabeled in the materials room, or if I just screwed up mixing it, back in October, but every pot I made in the mad scramble following Clayfolk is unsaleable. Cookie jars, teapots, pitchers, bowls, mugs. I could cry. I did cry.

About a third of the kiln was still usable, work held over from the last fire, or glazed from the previous batch of glaze, before I mixed in the new stock. Some of the pieces glazed with a mix of the two seem to benefit from refiring in the electric kiln, so I'm trying to do more of that.

Meanwhile, I've washed off all the leftover pots, left them in a warm kiln room to dry. I'm making more dinner and dessert plates, stew mugs, tall mugs, painted mugs. I'd love to have cookie jars and teapots, but there's no way to get them dry enough to bisque in a couple of days. Because I'm trying to push out another firing, a four-shelf stack instead of the usual six, next week, in time for the last two weekends of Holiday Market. I made up new glaze during the firing, and have tested it in the electric kiln. It seems to be shiny, as it ought to be.

Wish me luck.

Shipping

One fortunate thing about the last kiln disaster: I started my glazing with the special orders, so almost all came out okay. So yesterday, I delivered mugs to Great Harvest, and shipped off six boxes of pots to points from New England to Arizona to Washington state. Today I shipped three more boxes, including 17 tall mugs to California. Still have a platter or three and a pie plate to go out, but I'll need to buy more corn-starch packing peanuts first.

Things I'm not gonna take

It was late last Sunday afternoon when the guy came into my booth, all excited. I talked to [other potter], who said I should skip all the other booths and just come here, he said, And she was right!

(Pause for a moment to set the scene. He's a bearded fellow, my age or a little younger, wearing a Central American woven poncho/hoody top, beaded medicine bag, jeans and stompy boots, carrying a woven basket of mysterious content.)

My partner loves chickens, and this creamer is perfect! It's the cobalt blue-line hen and chicks, one of my oldest patterns. It's $20, one of the cheapest items in my booth (this will be important later). He also wants to know if I have a butter dish to match, but I don't.

Before I buy it, I have to ask: are you willing to trade? Sorry, I'm not, I tell him. Well, let me tell you what I have to trade, and see if any of it interests you! First up, I've got spiced grape jelly, made from our own grapes! I tell him I can my own jams and jellies, and in fact have grape in the pantry right now. Well, I've also got cannabis blossoms, and cannabis edibles! I kinda make a cross with my index fingers, like warding off a vampire, and say no, really, I don't use any of that stuff. Well, I'll be around for a while yet, in case you change your mind, he says as he leaves.

Less than an hour later, he's back. Would you take $15 for it? he asks. No, I wouldn't I don't trade and I don't dicker. I feel my prices are more than reasonable, keep them as low as I can. Well, that bums me out. You won't trade, you won't bargain, it really makes me feel bad.

I tell him I'm not responsible for his emotional state, but he continues to try and guilt me into giving in. I finally say, "It's the end of a long weekend at Market following a particularly difficult week, and I really don't have the spoons for this." At which point he grumpily gets out his third-world import money pouch and counts out four five-dollar bills. I wrap up the pitcher for him, and watch him leave.

So I go back to [potter's] booth and tell her the story. We both laugh uproariously, and she says she wouldn't have sent him to me if she'd known. She plans to use "I'm not responsible for your emotional state" herself some day. We talk a little, then I head back to work.

Some time later, [potter] comes into my booth. You know that guy? she asks. He came back to my booth to tell me you were really grumpy, and I should warn people of that before I send them to your booth. And then reassured me that I was one of the least grumpy people she knew.

sigh.

Briefly famous

After over a month of shadowing me, home studio, Club Mud, even Holiday Market, Bart the journalism school grad student has completed his video project! The preliminary 1-minute piece got him the only "A" in the class. This is the final.

Isn't it cool?