Tag Archives: pottery lessons

Meet Kate

Kate is my friend Candace’s little sister. Candace and I were teachers with neighboring classrooms in a community based early learning program in Nashua, NH. Kate joined our close knit family of co-workers as a teaching assistant. The kids loved her and she loved them. She was barely out of high school back then, and was finding her way in the world. Eventually, she left the child care program for a better job. Much later, I moved on to sell real estate. I have always stayed in touch with both Candace and Kate. Now that I am 800 miles away, facebook has helped keep us connected.
I knew that Kate has had some struggles in her life, but I never knew the details. Her family isn’t one to air their troubles on social media. Yesterday, her sister, in desperation, reached out to all her friends because Kate needs help. She has been battling an opiate addiction.
Heroin. 
Her family is desperate to save her. Kate has gone through detox and is now at an intensive 28 day treatment program, but her insurance deductible is huge. The program will only keep her if she can find a way to pay the deductible. Her family has already been stretched thin with helping to cover the costs of getting her through treatment. Candace has started a “go fund me” campaign to raise the money. 
Heroin addiction affects families of all socioeconomic backgrounds. Addiction knows no boundaries.
Please considering donating. No amount is too small. If you can’t afford to donate, please share.

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Third Times a Charm!

We unloaded firing #3 over the weekend and we are happy to report great results! The shinos are a nice toasty orange and the celadons, perfect.
Jeff plans to back off the reduction just a little on firing #4. You can see that some of the greens have a some red/brown blush, which happens when it gets a lot of reduction. Luckily, I think it works on these ginkgo leaf pots.
The BEST part of this firing is that there was NO pin holing on the nuka white glaze!!! That was our biggest concern, because we use it a lot and it has typically been so reliable. We were totally worried that something had changed in the clay that was causing a bad fit.
I am finally catching up on back ordered salt pigs that had been pin hole victims, and I now actually have a couple in stock and ready to ship. The other cool news is that some pots with pin holes that we re-fired also came out great. That means some of the sad looking pigs on the shelves, may get a new life with second go around. 
Jeff and I are breathing a huge sigh of relief. I think we are now finally back in our groove.

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Second Look

We unloaded firing #2 the day before my family arrived. Jeff and I sanded and packed all of the pots that needed to be out the door right away. I had a quick look at some of the pots, before moving on to being the hostess.

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.

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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…

My very own baby ginkgo tree! As soon as it has grown a little more, Jeff and I will find the perfect place for it our yard.

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Firing #2

Firing #2 of the new kiln was a mixed bag. The mugs in the photo above came out great, exactly what the customer wanted. They also ordered watercolor mugs and the glaze pin holed on some of them. We will give them a re-fire to see if it settles them down.

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!

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Family

I did the bare minimum of work for six days, but I had a really great excuse…
I had family visiting from New Hampshire! It was Spring break in the north country. My sister flew south with Dad and her grand daughter Arianna. I don’t think they were at our home for more than 5 minutes when we found Arianna on top of the giant tire swing in the backyard.

 There was a couple of evenings of pottery lessons…

and a day trip to the North Carolina Zoo.
My sister and I convinced Dad that a renting a wheelchair was the way to go. The zoo is very hilly and she and I got a great workout pushing him around. A motorized scooter would have been a better option, but then again his driving skills aren’t the best, and we may have had pedestrian casualties.
 Snoozing polar bear

 Carousel ride
The harbor seal and sea lions are always fun. I think it was the most I had seen my Dad smile and laugh in the two years since my mother died.

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.

My favorite photo, Dad and Arianna. Taken just before the trip back to the airport. I never thought that my father would be able to make the trip to visit us in Seagrove. We created some wonderful memories that we will always treasure.

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New Technology

Jeff has a new toy, I mean tool! During the first glaze firing of the new gas kiln, one of the burners shut off during reduction. We have baso valves on the burners, so when the flame cut out, the gas shut off. Jeff wasn’t sure how long it was out before he found it, but it couldn’t have been too long because we didn’t lose too much temperature. The next day he was searching online for a webcam. He thought it was a good idea to have one, since our kiln isn’t quite as close to the house as the last one. Now no matter where we are – in the studio, house, or yard, we can monitor the kiln via our laptops or smartphones. Wouldn’t you know, we had a burner go out on firing #2 as well. Thanks to Jeff’s webcam, he caught it right away. Now we are researching what’s going on with this burner. I hope we get it solved by firing #3.

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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.

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Pick Yourself Up…

and dust yourself off. That’s about all you can do after a very disappointing studio tour. Jeff and I spent half of Thursday and all day Friday, cleaning and rearranging our studio and gallery space. We didn’t finish until 11:00pm, which is when we started to cook dinner.

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.

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 8th Annual Celebration of Spring Studio Tour & Kiln Opening
Seagrove, NC
It’s a gorgeous Spring day in Seagrove, perfect for touring the potteries. Jeff and I worked hard to get the studio and gallery all spiffy, and we are ready for company. I have pots slipped and ready to carve. If you like watching grass grow, stop in and see the process. I am sure that while you are here you’ll find the perfect piece of pottery to take home with you.
Michèle Hastings & Jeff Brown Pottery
505 E. Main St.
Seagrove, NC 27341
Saturday April 16, 10:00 – 5:00
Sunday April 17, 10:00 – 5:00

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