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offcntrThe city of Eugene gives its employees commemorative mugs on their 5-year anniversary. I've been making them ten years or more, putting a low-relief City of Eugene seal on one side, and painting the name of the employee and "5 years" on the other. The city seal is a sprig, a thin clay piece pressed in a mold and scored and slipped onto the mug right before I add the handle, leather hard.
I try to make a bunch in advance, keep them as bisque, so I can get them into my next firing. I also try to fire them far enough ahead that, if something happens in the kiln, I have time to re-do any blurred names or such. Occasionally, I don't have that option, so I do two of every name to be sure I have one to deliver. I invariably set the extras aside against the chance that the next batch of names will have a duplicate that I can just take off the shelf. In umpteen years, it's never happened.
Well, I guess I can clear off the shelves. The city of Eugene has updated its logo, and all those mugs are now officially obsolete.
That crashing you hear may be mugs going into the dumpster. Or it maybe my heart, breaking.
I try to make a bunch in advance, keep them as bisque, so I can get them into my next firing. I also try to fire them far enough ahead that, if something happens in the kiln, I have time to re-do any blurred names or such. Occasionally, I don't have that option, so I do two of every name to be sure I have one to deliver. I invariably set the extras aside against the chance that the next batch of names will have a duplicate that I can just take off the shelf. In umpteen years, it's never happened.
Well, I guess I can clear off the shelves. The city of Eugene has updated its logo, and all those mugs are now officially obsolete.
That crashing you hear may be mugs going into the dumpster. Or it maybe my heart, breaking.