That’s the what I think when I finish filling a ware board with sponge holders. They are easy to throw and make good kiln fillers. They can be placed around bowls and vessel sinks, as well as sit on the bag wall during the firing. I call it throwing money because every single one of them sells in no time at all. I am trying to get in the habit of throwing at least one board full a week. That way I won’t get bored throwing a whole bunch at a time… because yes, they do get boring.

Last year I nudged the price up from $15 to $20. When I was pricing them at $15 and they were selling like crazy, I felt like I was doing a lot of work for very little money. At $20, they are worth the effort.

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After a the holiday craziness, I have been given a very short reprieve from making pigs. Along with the dinnerware order I made some porcelain bowls and this shallow bowl/plate. It felt good to get back to carving those ginkgo leaves.

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I do some of my best thinking (and worrying) between 4 am and 6 am. Yesterday was no different. I woke up and suddenly realized that the stoneware plates that I made for an order were supposed to have little slip trailed dots and I had forgotten them! Luckily they hadn’t been bisque fired. They were sitting on the ware rack, bone dry.
Typically I slip trail when the pots are leather hard. I learned a lot of slip trailing techniques from a decorator who workded at Salmon Falls Stoneware in Dover, NH. At Salmon Falls, all the decorating is done on bone dry clay, so I knew it wouldn’t be a problem to add the dots at this stage. One of the benefits of working on bone dry is that if you screw up, it’s easier to scrape off the slip, let it dry completely, then sand the area to remove any color that is left behind. I have had better luck working on leather hard pots. Occasionally, on the dry wares, the slip has broken off. It always seems to happen when your loading the bisque and it’s a pain to get out the slip trailer and start doing fixes. These little dots should be fine. If any fall off it’s a minor fix.

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When we moved into our house, this 80’s style “Hollywood” light fixture, was on the CEILING over the bar in our kitchen! It looked quite silly and out of place. Since our renovations are being done on a shoestring, I had Jeff move the fixture to the main bath. It had a fluorescent light strip that was no longer working. It’s not a light I would pick out, it will have to do for now.

In the kitchen, he hung track lighting that we had bought for the kitchen in the log cabin. It was a big improvement.

Of course one thing always leads to another. Once the track light was up, we started talking about pendant lights. Jeff knew right away he could make shades from porcelain.

Here is his first prototype:

On the next round he plans to have the carving consistently thinner, so that it is more translucent from top to bottom. This style pendant can hang from our track. We will just remove the small spot lights, and hang three pendants. Ideally, I would like them hard wired individually, but this works for us right now, and it’s affordable.
These would look great glazed in celadon, but that might clash with our aqua wall. I think we might stick with the white.

Jeff’s plan is to add these shades to his line of work and be ready to offer them at the League of NH Craftsmen’s Fair in August. It won’t be long before we will be doing the home show circuit with vessel sinks and lighting, and foregoing the craft shows!

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The truck driver was great, and also lent a hand.

The kiln shed comes next. The building of the kiln should go quickly after that. I don’t even want to add up the cost of just the prep work and shed. It’s a good thing we have all the bricks we need for the rebuild. I can’t even imagine what the cost is today to build a brand new gas kiln.

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I have an order for some porcelain plates and bowls. Today I had to clean up my act to get ready to throw that pristine white stuff. It makes me feel like a doctor getting ready for surgery. As I was cleaning, I chose the tools that I would most likely need to throw these pots. Out of the myriad of ribs, wooden knives, needle tools, and sponges that I own, in reality these are the ones I use most.
…and probably the only ones I really ever need. But I do like looking at my collection of “stuff”, and I would find it hard to give them up.

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Jeff spent the last week taking down our gas kiln at the log cabin. He did it almost entirely by himself, while I kept the gallery open at home. Brick by brick, it was unstacked, packed in boxes, and placed on pallets. Today we hired someone to come out with a forklift, load the pallets on a truck, and drive them a mile and half up the road, to their new home.

One of these days it will stop raining long enough for our form to dry out so that we can pour some concrete.

The moving took less than two hours, well worth hiring someone. It would have taken Jeff and I all day to move brick in our trailer. Never mind how our backs would feel at the end of the day!

Jeff got out his power washer and helped Mother Nature wash the mud off of the driveway. Our parking area is clean ready for pottery shoppers!

We can’t wait to have our kiln up and running again. When we rebuild, it will be bigger and better! Getting through the holiday season, without our kiln, has been a real struggle. I am looking forward to the day I can sleep through the night without worrying.

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