Summer Camp is over. Schools are starting. My blog will be back, for real, next week.I hope you all can enjoy this weekend. :-)
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Last weekend, I did a fundraising sale for Worcester Pride. I did well. It was a really good time, because my friends from Tenacious Lilly and SparkleJ Designs were with me, along with my family. It was held on a lovely property in Douglas, MA, called Stonewall Farm. It is owned by a very successful businessman who has a whole lot of birds. So we sat out, on a very nice day, and were serenaded by peacocks, guinea fowl, and turkeys while we sold art. It is a good life.
It has been over a month since my last post. I started working on a really great post before camp got started, but I never finished it. Perhaps it will see the light if day at some point.I have been working hard, teaching this Summer. Camp five days per week and two night classes for adults. I have a sale upcoming, this Sunday. you can check out my Facebook page for details on that.In the meantime, I hurt myself again. :-(
I fainted after donating blood. Cut my chin really well and chipped some molars. I had my first ambulance ride and stitches in my life. I guess I'm just catching up for all of the lucky breaks I've always had. However, this makes me have to make that dentist appointment I have been putting off. Hopefully two restful days will see me able to get back to work. I have three long days of work in a row, followed by three more easier days, and then my daughter's birthday party. I cannot believe she is going to be 5!I stopped by the studio today to pick up all of my work that was fired back in June. Some wonderful person wrapped it all up for me, and put it in a box with my name on it. Thank you, whoever you are!Well, that brings us up to date. I will try to write again before the end of the Summer. I hurt myself pretty badly last night. Let's just say I lost my bare knuckle boxing match against a tin can. In other words, I pulled a real stupid! (gross-ish details follow) Now, I am the first to admit that I have a fear, a phobia, even, of loss of body parts. So when I cut my fingers last night, and kind of deeply, I immediately went into panic mode. I thought I would pass out. And I am usually the go-to person for keeping calm and doing the first aid. Apparently, seeing the inside of my finger is more than I can bear. (end of gross) So, today was a glazing day. It was a bit difficult not to use my injured fingers while glazing. If anyone says that any part of pottery is not a full body activity, they don't know what they are talking about. I was able to glaze everything that was bisqued. It was about 30 pieces: mugs, tumblers, bud vases, a casserole, a teapot, a jar, and bowls. It helps that I stuck, mostly, to Senora glaze. I am also grateful that I was only glazing. Putting on a latex glove over my bandaged hand made it possible, but I would not have been able to throw today. And I definitely could not wedge. So, in closing: Artists and artisans, keep yourselves healthy and whole. This is a full contact sport. It takes all of yourself to create; heart, body, and mind. I had to write about my work with glazes and kilns for a job application, today. I wrote way more than the space allowed for, but I thought it looked so good, that I wanted to share the original essay here. During my BFA in Ceramics from UMASS Dartmouth, I learned many things about kilns, clays, and glazes. I learned how to build, fire, and repair both gas and electric kilns form the amazing Chris Gustin. I have fired both manual and computerized kilns, electric, gas, and wood kilns over the years. I am knowledgeable in both reduction and oxidation firings and have fired to many temperatures from ultra low fire (for decal and gilt work), through low fire and midfire, up to high fire in both dry and atmospheric kilns. I have helped to build several gas kilns in Massachusetts and Illinois. I have also repaired and rebuilt electric kilns while working at North Middlesex Regional High School. I hope that this may give you an insight into what I do.
Today is the last day of my week. Another blog post is due tomorrow. So, right now, I am making this post happen.I have never been very comfortable with writing. Although I am solely responsible for making myself write these posts, it is a struggle.The thing I really wanted write about here, is how I would rather be in the studio. I read somewhere that you are in the right job when you get a day off and would rather be at work. This past Monday was Memorial Day. The studio was closed. I had a day off from making pottery. I got to spend the day with family and friends, and I had a really good time. But, the whole time, I wished I could have gotten into the studio that morning.The summer is fast approaching, and I will have much less time to make my own pottery. I will be teaching at camp with air-dry clay and teaching nights in July, adult pottery. I am looking forward to my first chance, in a long time, to teach adults, but this all means less time for my pottery. I, also, need to focus on sales. I will be selling in New Bedford this summer.All of these things float through my head when I would much rather just be in the studio.
What do you do when you seem to have made everything you can make? Make more! I am trying to stock up for the summer. I will have much less time and access to be able to work in clay over this summer, as I will be teaching summer camp.So, I have made a whole bunch of mugs. Mugs are always popular. I still have all sorts of stuff to sell. As I'm making things, I have to wonder if there is something else that I should be working on.This is when I need to develop new products. My daughter, like all little kids, loves to pick dandelions, and other little wildflowers, and make bouquets for us. Where do you put these little treasures? they are too small for a traditional vase. So, I made tiny, little, dandelion vases.
I was inspired by a fellow potter's jar and made a casserole dish. I also made drinking tumblers, for a cool drink on a hot day. The thing to keep in mind is to always keep creating! 
Today I did something new. I wanted a little break from mugs for the week. I had the thought of making something lidded.
I saw a really nice jar come out of the kiln the other day. It had a wide knob handle, and a high gallery around the lid. I thought it looked like a good lid for a casserole. So, that is what I threw; a casserole. The biggest tip I can give on lidded forms, is to always throw the lid first. Traditionally, potters throw the vessel, then throw a lid to fit. The problem is that it is very difficult to trim the lid to the right size. You either wind up with a super chunky lid, or an oversized, thin lid. If you throw the lid exactly as you want it, first, it us quite easy to create a mouth of your vessel to match the outer diameter of that lid. Do, you throw a flattish form with a handle on it for the lid, me assure your outside diameter, then throw your vessel with a flange in the top. The flange is where the lid rests. Don't forget a gallery; this is what goes around the lid. Since the lid just sits on the flange, and is flat on the bottom, the gallery will keep the lid from sliding off of the vessel. When they are both leather hard, you trim. There is very little trimming to do when you throw like this. Since I don't really care to sit and trim all day, this us a big advantage. if you, somehow messed up your measurements, you can still trim your lid to fit, at this point. Here I am, on a Monday night; thinking back to my morning in the studio. I threw more mugs today. I will put handles on them on Wednesday. The last batch came out of the kiln, and I glazed them today. I am particularly enamored with one mug. More specifically, I am enamored with the bottom end of the handle. I have been putting "countersunk screws" in my handles for some time now, but their formation alters as time goes by. I have moved from two screws at the bottom, to only one. This has allowed me to change the shape of the bottom. The current incarnation resembles an old fashioned metal hinge. This works well for Squirrel Forge, it speaks of my time as a blacksmith. I really like it!  I am back again on Wednesday. I spent today working on my handles, trying to enhance the idea of metal door handles. I still prefer the flip of a traditional mug handle, but I am toying with other forms. Pictured below are the two forms I am talking about. I also worked to clean up the underside of my handle, near the top. When I push the handle on, and make the two spot for my screws, I have been getting some… I’ll call it “flab.” That is not a technical term, and I don’t really like the word, but I can’t think of anything better to call it. So, today, I focused on making sure the transition from fat of the handle to connection point is smooth. I will illustrate this in my next update.  This will continue to be the “Sexy Handles” blog for now. Next topic will get a new header.
I have decided that most of my ideas come to me while at the studio, on Mondays. So I am going to move my blog postings to Mondays. See you then.
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