Christmas Come Early

Have been gathering at Clayworks these past days celebrating Christmas. Here are some amazing friends! I am thankful.

From L-R, clockwise:

me, John, Minke, Becky, and Elaine. Time with them was Christmas come early in a sense. We laughed and laughed... and ate and laughed. Everything from sushi to christmas cookies. Actually, had quite a spread of food! (see the table). Gosh, it's been quite a year. They've helped me see it through...

Some of them have blogs. Check them out on the right of this blog page. I'm too tired to create the links for them on this post. :(

Fun times! Tonight was round 2 with some of them... with the incredible pie... I'll post that pic tomorrow. Off to rest. I'm exhausted from running.

Christmas Trees and Christmas Cups

Today I purchased my first live Christmas tree. I don't like the cut live trees as I once visited a Christmas Tree farm in the western NC mountains and met several workers there... that were being treated as slaves, living in substandard housing, isolated, etc... it was horrible. That experience made me promise to not have a live cut tree--- so I purchased this one and will give it to friends when Christmas is over.
It was a bargain! I think it's absolutely gorgeous. It has lights which are hard to see in the pic. Oh well...

Most of the ornaments are gifts from my parents over the years. Some are labeled with my name and the year on them; a few are made by me when I was a child. It's a beautiful tradition.

This is my smaller tree. It looks great surrounded by pottery. With that said, the pottery is for sale. Don't have time to put it on my etsy store, but if you are interested in a piece, let me know in the comment section. I'll ship the piece(s) with red and green tissue paper if you'd like.

A closeup of the pottery from the most recent firing. All are not for sale; some I'm not ready to say goodbye to.

Four on the left... and-

Four on the right. I also have a bunch more teacups in the kiln as I write; they will emerge from the kiln on Sunday afternoon. :)

Christmas is coming! I'm grateful.

Some Pics...

Some recent pics. It was cold last Saturday but that didn't stop Becky, Elaine, John, and Susan from having a sale outside at John's house. This pic is evidence that it really was cold.... :)

Not sure how sales went.... good pots were available, for sure!

Some of John's pottery.

Sunday I glazed several cups and a jar in the afternoon. All have spotted shino glaze and a bit of catherine's oribe with soda ash.

Put some glass on the top of this lid for a jar.

Put some wax resist on the outside of some cups. That changes the color of the shino a bit.

The cups, the jar, and the supplies used to glaze...

A few different surface designs. I really like the form of the one in the middle. The darker big dot is the wax resist.

Some more yunomi cups. The next gas kiln will be loaded on Thursday. Maybe some or all of these will make it into the kiln this round.

Today I trimmed a tall vase (forgot to take a pic) and made there bowls. I was tired and it's hard to throw when one's tired. Still good time in the studio. More soon...

The Pottery World

Life in the pottery world is simply wonderful. Here are some not so good pictures of some incredible pots! Amazing colors.... Three chalices.

Four cups. All have spotted shino for a base glaze and then catherine's oribe on top, along with some soda ash sprinkled...

The variation in the color is in part, due to the amount of reduction in different areas of the kiln.
When the amount of oxygen is reduced in the kiln, the flame pulls oxygen molecules out of the clay bodies and glazes, changing their character.

Sometimes the catherine's oribe turns out blue; at other times purple. The silver crystallized area is from the soda ash sprinkled on top of catherine's oribe glaze.

These pics were taken at the studio.... on a somewhat wet table. I think I'll stick with these same glazes for awhile at least.

Two of my favorites; actually, these all are keepers for now.

That purple and green on the right cup is the same glaze. :) If only there were more hours for time in the studio. My next goal is to save $ for a new digital camera. The cups are still ping-pinging (is that a word?) which is simply a beautiful sound.