Goals for 2024

I made an initial list of BIG goals I would like to accomplish regarding my pottery hobby for the coming year. I'm not sure how do-able they are, though. Maybe they should be a "wish list" instead.

• Convert part of the garage into a studio
• Buy a small kiln to salve my impatience
• Convince my son-in-law to "store" the wheel and kiln he doesn't use in my new studio

I'm a little ADD, something I was able to label only recently; I used to think I was just weird. Over the years, I've developed strategies for dealing with this "character trait". A recent strategy is to assign certain tasks to certain days of the week. So now Wednesdays have become clay days. This allows me to make a mess on the breakfast bar and dining room table, then clean it up for the rest of the week. I'd like to stick to that plan, at least until that studio magically appears.

Even though I hand-build my pottery pieces, they seem to accumulate quickly. It's difficult to keep track of what I'm working on, what stage it is at, and where it is. I've created a spreadsheet to assist me, but that is only helpful if I keep it up to date. Ditto this blog.

How many vessels does one person need? Most pottery seems to concentrate on bowls, mugs, plates, pots, etc. It gets a little boring. I'd like to venture further afield and try my hand at other, non-vessel objects. Like koi?

That's three goals that are doable, although not very measurable. We'll see how they work out in 2024

1. Reserve Wednesdays for pottery
2. Document, document, document!
3. Shift focus away from vessels

My granddaughter is on xmas vacation. She came over last Wednesday to play with tissue transfers. I had pictured us working side-by-side, but found that I could not concentrate on any of my projects while also helping her. And that's okay.

The past six or seven years have been tough - politics, the pandemic, wars, climate change, etc. I sense that 2024 is not going to be an improvement, but one can always hope for something good to happen. Happy New Year!

This is not sustainable

Last Wednesday I hit the clay. In no time at all, both the breakfast bar and dining room table were covered with works in progress.

Breakfast bar

I have a list of pros and cons for creating a workshop in the garage - the only con is the expense - and keep adding to the list everyday. Even if I don't continue with pottery, the workshop will be an asset to the house. (Around here, few people actually park their cars in their garages, as the garages are usually full of junk.)

Dining room table

I'll have to discuss with my daughter, as she is the home designer in the family.

Meanwhile, more tools! And glazes!

Wooden forms

Hole makers

Paddle

Glazes

I learned something new this week regarding glazes, or at least some of the glazes I have on hand. Most are for cone 6, but several are for lower cone values. This might explain why some of the pieces they fired at the maker space did not turn out very well, as I was putting them on the mid-range shelf, not the low-range shelf. My pea brain was thinking of how hot I wanted the stoneware clay to get in order to vitrify, not taking into consideration the limitations of the glazes I had chosen. Live and learn!

Deja vu all over again

We stopped at FW Clay this past Thursday afternoon, to drop off my latest bowl and the fluted dish. Alas, the only one of my pieces that had reached the kiln was a pinched pumpkin I made in class a couple of weeks ago. The whole setup needs some organization, and the staff needs some training, as they seemed rather flustered with my requests. Also, they didn't want me adding anything to the to-be-fired shelves, as that is now apparently against the rules?

It's easy for me to get upset about these delays, especially since I was hoping for a better experience than I had at the maker space. As I see it, here are my options:

• Find a new place to fire
• Buy my own kiln
• Chill out

For now, I'm going to chill out. I'm also going to create a spreadsheet so I can keep track of which pieces are at what stage in the process.

As promised, here is a rundown of my latest purchases at FW Clay:

I've already used this trimming tool, and it is the berries. It is also a much better tool for kurinuki.

Trimming tool

Some underglaze transfers:

Elan underglaze transfer - Flamingos

Elan underglaze transfer - cats

More glazes. I am building quite a glaze stash.

Mayco glazes in Stoned Denim and Green Tea

An anvil is used to quickly form small bowls. I'll show you how at a later date.

Anvil - assembled

Anvil - disassembled

Of course, some pottery tools may be made with whatever you have on hand. In this case, I used a paper towel tube and a bamboo skewer to make a tool for marking an even edge on a bowl.

Homemade marking tool

More stuff arrived yesterday from the Ceramic Shop. I'll "unwrap" those items at a later date.

Class six

Our final hand-building class was this past week. The emphasis (for me) was on glazing. The brushes and glazes at the studio were not impressive, so I worked on a couple of pieces, then brought the others home.

Sushi boat

These went on the dipping dish

Dipping dish

Between the store owner's need to fire LOTS of pieces for upcoming shows and all the pending holiday gifts, the to-be-fired shelves were rather packed and some of my stuff did not get fired. But these two platters were done. I'm medium pleased with them.

And then I went shopping in the store which I'll detail later.

On the homefront, I did make some "cookies" for putting under objects with drippy glazes and some stars for ornaments (or whatever). The cookies don't need to be perfect, just flat. The plastic wrap under the star-shaped cookie cutter keeps the metal from sticking to the clay and makes a tidier edge.

I also carved some stamps, one with my initials, the other with a dog paw print. They need some more cleaning up, which isn't easy to do on such small items.

This piece was supposed to be a dog bowl, but the wall wasn't working for me, so now it is a random dish of some sort. After marring the surface with my fingers, I decided to go all the way and added the fluting and impressions to give it some interest and texture. (I don't have a decent banding wheel, so placing a piece on newsprint makes for an easy way to turn it.)

I "slumped" some clay over a bowl. (The nylon keeps the clay from sticking to the bowl as it shrinks.) This will be another popcorn bowl, but slab-built. I'm leaving its surface plain. I think. Until it is bisque-fired, I can change my mind.

Soon it will be a new year, which is the perfect time to make some changes. I think I will alter the format of my pottery posts so that I can show the steps of creating a piece all in one go. A separate document with all the little tips and tricks I pick up along the way might be helpful as well. And by "helpful", I mean helpful to me, so I don't have to search for information in the blog. Stay tuned!