A New Baby

We have welcomed a new baby into the family. She is big, weighing in at 500 pounds! Meet Bertha, our new Shimpo Cone Art 2827 kiln. She is 10 cubic feet with double wall insulation and a Bartlett controller. She has the amazing quality of heating up fast and cooling down slowly - we love her!

I felt so bad about her space being incomplete that as soon as we reassembled her and took this photo, I decided to finish painting the wall behind her. Now I hate the color and I'm going to get something else. I want something that will look clean and crisp. Maybe a blue or celadon color.


Yesterday we did our first test firing of Bertha. Today, I'll check the cone packs and decide whether or not she needs calibration. I am hoping we will be on steady ground. I will probably run her empty one more time before I put her to work.

I love this groovy unintentional self portrait by Alex.

It just keeps spinning.

The world, that is. Everything is moving so fast and there is no time for anything right now. Not even creating.

Last week we sold our studio and retail space. It was a good thing - I was feeling overwhelmed and getting further from my dreams. Having retail hours made me feel trapped. We have been unable to to shows or travel. We have not been away for a weekend in a long, long time.

So, we decided to sell and it was so much work! But finally, we made it to closing and kissed our kiln goodbye. We went to buy a new kiln and GASP!! It takes 4-6 weeks to arrive! Now we are fixing up our home studio space and waiting.

In the mean time, we have entered the Etsy Mud Team's Salt Shaker Challenge. As with all EMT challenges, it was pretty open ended and the entries came in the form of salt cellars and salt pigs, stopperless salt shakers, and traditional salt and pepper shaker sets. Our entry is above. It is a stopperless shaker that was thrown on the wheel by me, carved by Alex, and then glazed by me. I love it! Below are all the entries.

To vote, click on the picture to be taken to the voting page. Your vote will automatically enter you in a drawing for free pottery. If you do not have an Etsy user name, just put NONE in the field for Etsy ID. Good luck! To all of us!

Fresh From The Kiln

Every kiln load brings about great pleasure, and usually sadness, too. There is always something that didn't turn out right or whose glaze isn't what you expected. It is the nature of pottery, but it can be harsh. These are all from the same kiln load and all bringers of pleasure. I won't too often show the disappointments here, at least not until I've lived with them a while. I don't know if other mediums are such harsh masters. Do other artists frequently have to trash their work? I suppose if I stopped experimenting I would not have theses disappointments, but I am not willing to give up the joy of an experiment that wields something amazing.

Wiring Harnesses and Relays

That title sounds scary! But what it means is, we replaced the wiring harnesses and relays in the kiln this weekend and test fired a batch of tiles. I am anxious to see the bisque fired tiles, but I know the true test will be an excellent glaze firing.

We are beginning to collect what we need to build our kiln at home. Alex has been drawing and redrawing kiln plans for 2 years and we believe we have what we want now. Thanks to some frineds on the building industry, we may be able to build our gas/wood kiln for LESS than we would pay for another large electric kiln.