Memories and a Kiln Loading

Talked to my cousin Lili tonight. (Pic: Lili, myself and Juana). She is one of my 6 cousins in Bolivia and she is the first of my family there to visit here. She'll be with my parents for about a month but due to work and distance it looks like I won't be able to see her. Immigration rules have made it difficult for any of my family from Bolivia to visit, plus it's so expensive! Don't get me started at how privileged we are here in the U.S. We can visit 90 or so countries easily and yet we make it so hard and sometimes impossible for others to enter ours? I think we need to be better neighbors.
With all that said, I have fond memories of the short amount of time I've spent with Lili. I vividly remember playing with her and her sister Juana during my trips there as a child. We always found joy in the smallest things. I wish we could see each other more often. Amazing women!

Onto a kiln loading.... here was the beginning. Two of those tumblers and the jar in the back are all mine. These are in the back right of the kiln. Loading was last night. I took a few pictures while two others loaded the kiln. My camera is fading on me.. and now the shutter isn't working.

Once again, the back right of the kiln.

Camera fading... the kiln is getting more full.

Who is that loading the kiln? It was amazing to witness how many pieces were fit into it. One of my teacups is next to that teapot with the long handle on the left side.

Who are these two? Hint: teachers at clayworks and experienced kiln loaders...

One shot before the door was closed. Those two tumblers on the right in the middle are mine. :)

These two are Julie and Greg! Last check before the door was shut. Clyde, the new bird who has decided to recently live at clayworks, saw all of this too. Will make a post about him and the halloween barrel firing soon....

More Cups

It was wonderful to be back at the wheel and make some yunomis. I'm hoping to have some of my pottery at a gallery in Mt. Holly in early December. Most of these have an indentation for the thumb... I kinda like that additional touch. This is still my favorite form.

Here are the same cups from a different angle. The one in the front is my favorite. I'll trim all of these tomorrow, plus maybe add some etching to the jar below.

The picture is crooked and the yunomi on the right is symmetrical.... Tomorrow we're having a Halloween party... actually a barrel-firing party at Clayworks. It will be a long, incredible day in the studio plus an extra hour of sleep. I'm really looking forward to it all.... :)

Wow... So Big!

It was wonderful to be back at class on Tuesday evening. The theme of the class was 'big' as Adrienne (class instruct0r) did a bunch of demos. She first threw this form and then took it off of the wheel and threw another form to add to the top of the first form. Hard to explain; easier to see in person.

Not the best picture, but this shows the height of the first form. She works fast, so one has to take pictures quickly!

This picture shows when she just added the second piece to the first. She used calipers to measure the diameter of the top part of the piece on the bottom. It was all pretty amazing to watch.

Next she smoothed out the part inbetween the two former pieces that are now one.

Then she shaped it into the form she wanted. This is at least 15 pounds in all, I think.

So I decided to start out with 7-8 pounds of clay and I made this jar. It's craggy crunch clay and I had some extra of that which has a bunch of grog, so that made for interesting throwing. Tomorrow I'll put handles on it.

As you can see, Adrienne was busy throughout the class. She made each of these forms in less than 2 1/2 hours.

It's Been Awhile

I've been away from the blogging world for awhile. Have spent some time at the studio, but not nearly enough. These pieces above have some white or brown slip on them after I etched some words or symbols into the clay. This was a longer and harder process than I thought. Will be interesting to see how these turn out.

Here's a close-up of the jar... it will be a gift.

One reason I haven't been blogging is that I've been traveling. Last week I was in Bethesda, MD for a conference and ate some absolutely incredible food!

This is lebanese. Hummus with boiled fava beans is hard to beat! Plus the seasoning on the chicken was incredible.

Also took a short trip to the Washington National Cathedral. I could've spent much longer there. Time went by too fast.

This is my favorite Indian restaurant in Bethesda. Naan plus lentils. Mmmm. This is hard to beat.

When I returned, I made two lids for a jar that I have on the shelf. I'll decide later which one to put on the jar.

Yesterday my shelf was quite full until this evening when I glazed a bunch of my pieces.

Decided to try completely new glazes. Most of these have a base coat of Haney's white and then have accents in Catherine's Oribe and/or Tom's Clear. Most also have accents of soda ash sprinkled somewhere on the piece.

I haven't used any of these glazes before. I was ready for a change. This should be interesting. This was the jar where I had etched some words around it on the outside. Also put a ring of soda ash. I'm really excited to see if the white slip etched words comes through the Tom's Clear glaze.

Here's half of the pieces I glazed. Not sure when they'll be fired.

Here's the other half of the pieces. A few are cereal bowls. The piece on the far right will be a flowerpot.

Here they all are, waiting for the gas kiln to be fired.