Yah!!

I got home today to find the postal carrier had delivered a box of pottery from the soda fire workshop I attended a couple weeks ago with Lori Watts of Fine Mess Pottery.  It was so exciting to see how they all turned out!!!  Here are several photos.

The two dotted mugs have Bauer Orange Flashing slip on them.  Love that color.  Thanks Lori for the great time and gorgeous pots.

In Retrospect...

that enormous sea salt caramel mocha I had earlier this evening while driving from Maine to Boston may have been a mistake.  Even the little bit of caffeine in it is more than I needed just a few hours before heading to bed.  Oh well... it was delicious and will give me a little extra time tonight to visit a bit over a margarita, watch The Good Wife and write this blog post.

I'm heading home tomorrow, but I've had a great time visiting friends and meeting some new friends while joining Lori Watts of Fine Mess Pottery for a firing of her soda kiln.  

 

Besides the fun of working with some new people, it was a great opportunity to try some different slips and glazes in a very different firing environment than I usually work with.  Here are a few of the pieces I'd glazed for this firing.

Late in the day yesterday, we finished loading the kiln and Lori started the fire early today.  

Unfortunately, I'll have to wait a while until I receive the pots back in the mail before I know how they turned out.  


Anybody know why the last photo doesn't post oriented correctly??  The file is the right way, but when inserted into blogger it gets changed.

Pottery Adventure

This weekend I'm having a little pottery adventure. I'm in Augusta Maine to visit fellow potter/blogger Lori Watts of Fine Mess Pottery and joining her for a firing of her soda kiln. 

Now, I know I could find a soda firing to participate in back home, but what could be more fun than meeting someone you've connected with online and satisfy your inner gypsy's need for a little travel. 

Today, I spent doing a little exploration of the area and shopping in a nearby historic village of Hallowell along the Kennebec River.  It was a beautiful, sunny, cool day.

Tomorrow we'll glaze our pieces and they are forecasting a big snow storm here to start later tomorrow night. Bring it on...this Minnesota girl isn't afraid of a snow storm.    

Colleen & Donovan's Kiln Opening

Kevin and I had a great time last night at Colleen Riley and Donovan Palmquist's kiln opening. After a 54 hour firing last weekend, they opened the kiln to unload hundreds of great pieces by several fantastic artists.

There was a lot of ooohhing and aaahhing as still too hot to touch pieces were unloaded, inspected and admired.

In this photo Donovan is admiring a piece he just unloaded from the first chamber of the kiln.

Their kiln has two ware chambers. In the first chamber, the flames passing through the chamber on their way through the kiln deposit wood ash on the pottery creating wonderful patterns, surfaces and toasty colors. The second chamber is a soda chamber where a combination of soda ingredients are placed in the chamber at peak temperature. These ingredients vaporize and interact with the clay and glazes to create gorgeous flashing, blushes and glassy surfaces. Here's a peek at the soda chamber before unloading.

It sounds like Donovan is planning to start construction on my kiln in the near future. I've done some wood firing in the past, but fairly infrequently and on a small scale. I'm looking forward to construction of a wood fired kiln at the farm/studio and creating a body of work that is very different from what I've been doing recently. I'm sure I'll still do plenty of Cone 6 oxidation work yet, but it will be wonderful to have this additional resource for a different earthy feeling pot. So... another opportunity to practice my patience. Yah!!