Frustration builds

I was hoping to report some good news today, but the kilns are STILL not working. In fact, the one that last worked has its controller guts exposed. It does not look hopeful. The plan is to visit another maker space later this week, to see what we can see.

Last week I glazed another slip mold figurine, this one a goat. Today I brushed clear glaze onto some test tiles that I had coated with lumpy slip that had been colored with mason stains.

I'm almost done with the mason stained stoneware "river rocks" that will serve as test pieces before being stacked on a skewer for my viewing pleasure.The workspace in my garage is an ongoing project. I've been packing up stuff to bring home, so it needs some serious reorganizing.

One of the pottery groups I follow on FB is Hand Built B*tches, if you are interested. Someone I follow on IG is Dowidat Ceramics - I've purchased some of her pots. Everyone is such an inspiration.

More glazing of slip molds

The kilns are still not functioning at the maker space, although they hope they will be by next week. They are offering pottery classes but have had to cancel them, which is not a good business practice. We may jump ship and take our clay to another maker space in town. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I continue to glaze the slip mold figurines that someone else made. There is still one goat and a Buddha to glaze. I bought some glaze just for the latter, but the test tile for it has yet to be fired. *sigh*

Meanwhile, on the home front, I started working up the mason stained clay, making wonky little dishes which I am extremely dissatisfied with. One artist I admire is Louise Bourgeois. Among other sculptures, she created stacks of shapes that I've wanted to imitate with clay. So now I plan to shape the mason stained clay into stackable shapes, probably like river rocks.

Turtles

I attend pottery workshops when I can. The most recent one was taught by Joe Pelka, a local potter who is adicted to caffeine and talking and fun. The workshop was not really for learning pottery techniques, but we definitely had fun making these turtles.

We each made two, and embellished them as we saw fit. The bodies were rather thick, so thick I was a bit surprised they didn't explode in the kiln. But Joe pierced them multiple times on the underside to prevent that. No turtles were lost in the bisqueing process.

I could not help but be pleased when Joe targeted my "dinosaur" turtle as his favorite class turtle of all time. He even made that comment in front of the whole class. *blush* Those words of praise really boosted my creative confidence.

For session two, we glazed our creations. Joe had mixed up about ten different glazes and created test tiles for each so we could see what they would look like. The primary glaze I chose was less glossy, which I later found out was due to his mixing underglaze with glaze.

Joe gave me some words of wisdom. When I showed him my glazing and commented that I frequently go too far, he said, "Then stop." I keep that in mind with more than just pottery.

I named these two guys Michelangelo and Leonardo (yes, after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). They have a place of pride on my coffee table, keeping the handspun, handwoven runner from sliding around.

Long time, no see

Hello there.

This blog basically fell to the wayside, probably because trying to maintain more than two blogs was a bit much. There is the garden blog (woodchuckacres) to keep track of the yard and the fiber blog (bittenbyknittin) to keep track of my adventures in fiber arts, and now I want to keep track of my pottery journey. I thought of starting a brand new blog, but that takes a lot of work. So I'm going to usurp this blog and use it for clay.

I am very new to clay, definitely an amateur who sometimes gets caught up in experimenting instead of creating. And that's okay. One experiement that is going on right now is mixing mason stains with stoneware. My motivation for this is my lousy glazing skills. I figure this way I'll have a base color that I can embellish, then cover with a clear glaze. We'll see how that works out.

1%, 5%, 10% stain samples

Today I poured some plaster batts. I've been skulking around the thrift shops, in search of plastic bowls and such, to mold the plaster of paris goop. There is a round one that will be just a batt, and the other three will be slump molds of various shapes and sizes. I already have a large rectagular batt that I use as a building surface.

I've been following a few pottery groups on FB which have been inspirational. One potter showed pics of leaf-shaped pieces she had made. So, of course, I had to try this myself. Using a leaf from the coleus on the front porch, I made two things, one an an impression of the leaf, the other an outline of the same leaf.

I don't have a kiln... yet. Instead, I joined a "maker space" where someone else does the firing. This is both good and bad. The worst is the kilns keep breaking down. That is why I'm tempted to get a kiln of my own, but even the small ones are expensive. Plus I would need an electrician to upgrade the power.

Besides the above, I've been glazing some slip molds that someone else made. These are not yet fired, but I think I did a decent job. We'll see what they look like when they come out of the kiln.

My SO and I have been renting space at the maker space, but he has been cleaning out his basement and I have set up a workbench in my garage, so we plan to shift to working at our homes while retaining our membership at the maker space so we still have access to the kiln and glazes.

And that's where things stand right now. Future posts (assuming I stick with this) will move both forward and backward in time, so we can see where I have been and maybe where I am going as well.