Tag Archives: pottery lessons
Third Times a Charm!
Second Look
This little pig came out of the kiln, and my first thought was, “Damn, the shino isn’t coppery-orange”.
He was an Etsy order, and I thought I would just fire another, since I had some time and have piggy banks already made. He was set aside, and left on his own for the remainder of the week.
Last night I decided to take photographs of him. After spending time with him, I realized that although it was different from the listing photos, he was really a handsome pig.
The aqua is really bright, and I like the contrast of it against the black/gray overlap of the two glazes. I sent photos to the buyer and she loves him too. Today he is off to his new home.
Many times when I am disappointed with pots that don’t turn out as I expected, I have found that photographing them, lets me see them in a new light. I think that translates to lots of situations in life.
Glazing Ginkgo Leaf Pots
When I am glazing pots with the ginkgo leaf design, I often wonder why someone who doesn’t really care for glazing, chooses a time consuming method of applying it?
As anyone who works with shino glazes knows, shino is applied first. It typically doesn’t like to be on top of another glaze. If it is, cruddy things usually occur. After the pots get a dip or a roll in the shino, I wipe it back, or away, from areas that I don’t want it to be. Once the glaze dries, I cold wax rims or handles, that I either want to keep shino, or avoid drips when pouring in the gloss green glaze. Can you tell I am confident that firing #3 will be reduced beautifully? Why else would I commit to so many shino pots?!
Speaking of ginkgo leaves, last week a potter in town, gifted me something very special…
Firing #2
The wide mouth piggy bank was a special order. If you didn’t know how the dots usually turn out you would think it was wonderful. In reality they are usually more subtle, like the dot on the ear.
Our shino glaze looked a little under reduced as well as my Temple white glaze. Jeff wants to start firing #3 later, so that we can be in reduction at night. That will allow him to better see what’s happening in the kiln. Our kiln is located in a sunny spot, and there was a lot glare on firing day.
It takes time to work out a new kiln, along with patience, and getting over disappointment quickly.
Onward!
Family
There was a couple of evenings of pottery lessons…
On the last day, Jeff made a small bottle that Arianna turned into her own little pig. She did a great job and is very excited about getting it back, glazed in purple, when we return to New Hampshire in the summer.
New Technology
SOLD!
Monday started on a high note when we sold this vase to a lovely lady who saw it on Facebook.
We will deliver it to her when we head to New Hampshire in August. In the meantime, we will get to enjoy looking at it a little longer. I am glad we don’t have to ship it… it’s 25″ tall. A good sale took the sting off of the disappointing weekend.
Meanwhile, it’s little sister is still available…
22″ tall, ash glaze on the exterior, interior is tenmoku (black/brown glaze). $400 + shipping if needed.
Pick Yourself Up…
I filled cache pots and vases with flowers and put our special event signs out by the road.
Our three “open” flags were flying outside at 9:45 in the morning. It was after 11:00 am before we saw people. It wasn’t until noon that we had our first sale… $20.00.
Halfway through the day we were worried that we weren’t even going to recover the fee we paid to be part of the tour. By 5:00 pm we had 7 small sales. All we could do was hope for a better Sunday.
But it didn’t happen. We had a small amount of visitors, and three sales.
I can’t even express how disappointed, and worried we are about how the weekend went. We were prepared for extra traffic, since we are now “in town”. In the past this has been a REALLY good event for us. It has provided us with a boost in revenue, after the long slow winter. We are scrambling to find a way to recover.
Some say it’s a new location and it will take time to re-establish. Perhaps, but ours sales were four times better during our first Spring studio tour, when hardly anyone knew who we were. One of the biggest drawbacks for us right now, is that we are in the wrong location on the Seagrove potters map. The new map was printed a few months before we moved. The studio tour map had us in the right location, but the map was extremely small this year and you needed a magnifying glass to read it. Most of our visitors said they weren’t using the tour map, just the list of participants on one side and were cross referencing them on the big map… which has us in the wrong location.
Our best sale of the weekend came at 5:00 on Sunday, when a young couple came hurrying in and said,”We finally found you!”. They drove by the log cabin and we weren’t there. Eventually they landed at Creations, a gallery in town, who then told them where to find us. A big thank you to the fine folks who run the gallery!
photo credit: Lee Love |
Jeff said next year we should get one of these “pottery head” costumes. One of us can wear it and dance around at the end of the driveway to draw attention to us.
If we are desperate, we just might.