Tag Archives: pottery lessons

Team Lift

Image October 15, 2015 JB-admin

Workday breakfast omelette – green onion and Chinese chive

John Zentner plate – antique tile

Today is the final push of the studio move. Aside from the gas kiln we should have everything packed and moved by tonight. Yesterday we moved the large raku kiln, with the help of a neighbor, and our landscape guy. It’s a giant, one piece, electric kiln that Jeff converted to gas. It’s a bear to move because it doesn’t come apart in rings, like most electric kilns. We finally feel like we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!
The town of Seagrove approved our sign at 505 and tomorrow it’s going up. Our gallery isn’t finished but we will be open for business this weekend. Since we had to dry our tent out from the rainy show last weekend, I decided to set up the booth and use it as our sales venue for the next two weekends. We can’t afford to not be open for another couple of weeks… I can’t survive on Etsy alone. At least not yet.

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Sketchbook

Image October 13, 2015 JB-admin

This morning I was reading Ben Putnam’s blog post about “sketchbook practice”. At the end of the post is a link to a sketchbook practice project that he did some time ago. Ben had approached me about participating and sadly I had to decline. I have been terrible about keeping a sketchbook. I realized when he asked me, that the only time I have regularly kept up with one, was when I have been part of an art journal group. I have a collection of sketchbooks of varying types. Most have lots of blank pages with postcards, letters, and newspaper clippings tucked in between. Right now I can’t even find my favorite one, the one that probably has more sketches in it than any other. I am sure it is tucked in a box in the office, which is a horrid mess right now. Someday it will get unpacked and organized. Someday I will get in the habit of keeping a sketchbook.
But not until this studio move is complete. Until then, there is no creativity happening here.
Just manual labor.

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The end is in sight!

Image October 11, 2015 JB-admin

Remember back in 2010 we bought a school bus and moved south? Well, we still own that bus. It has sat in the yard for five years. We were neglectful school bus owners, and didn’t keep starting it every week. Thankfully, Jeff did take the batteries out of it. Last week we had those batteries charged, and after bleeding the fuel line (we had it replaced shortly after it’s last trip North) the beast started in no time at all!

This news makes us very happy. The bus is loaded with all of our glaze buckets, chemicals, and assorted pieces of equipment. It can now make the one mile trip up the road. Once it’s unloaded we will put it for sale on Craigslist. In the past we contemplated a mobil studio/gallery, but with the maintenance, fuel costs, insurance, it just doesn’t seem like a wise financial endeavor. I would rather sell it and see the money in my bank account!
Today we will unload the trailer from our very wet, outdoor show, and pack it back up with more studio stuff. The rain has stopped, the weather is cooler. A good day for working.

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I am still here!

Image October 9, 2015 JB-admin

Tired and worn out… but still here.

The past two weeks have been a mad rush to move out of 1423. I will be honest. It has been totally overwhelming for us. Not only did we have a September 30th move out deadline to meet, we had to orders to fire and a wedding to go to. Despite hard work and long hours, we didn’t meet our move out deadline. We fired the gas kiln on the 30th, and on October 1st we were on the road to New Hampshire for my niece’s wedding. I wanted to cancel the trip at the last minute. The trip was not only bad timing, but a financial strain as well. Even with lower gas prices, driving 1800+ miles is hard on the pocket book. My sister was so disappointed that I couldn’t let her down. Her disappointment made me realize that this was her first child to marry and she was sort of going it alone. Her husband passed away two years ago, and my Mom last year. Sure she has Dad, but he needs a lot of care and needs someone to care of him.

So we packed our bags and went.

And I am so glad we did. The bride was beautiful, the groom handsome, and my sister was so proud. Look at my Dad standing there without a walker!!! Back in June this moment seemed impossible for him.

My great niece, the brides daughter, loves her Pepere. She spent a good part of the reception sitting with him, when she wasn’t dancing that is.

There was no wedding cake, instead it was wedding pie. Perfect for a fall wedding in chilly New Hampshire.

Our whirlwind trip lasted 6 days. Four days on the road and two days with family. We returned home in the nick of time for the town council meeting on Tuesday night. Jeff took our application to the meeting and came home with our business license.

It’s official, we can now sell pots in the town of Seagrove! We were very relieved that they gave us approval that very evening.
The last two days have been spent packing up the gallery at 1423 and packing for the CCM Fall Pottery Festival in Charlotte. That’s happening on Saturday- detail in the side bar of the blog.
Did I mention that I am exhausted?
Well I am.

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Onward…

Image September 22, 2015 JB-admin

Jeff and I are done making pots at the log cabin. We will fire the gas kiln once more before the end of the month. This weekend I started to pack the studio. I am taking time to wash my tools and tool containers. It will be good to get a clean start in the new space.

When I left my studio in New Hampshire it was very emotional. Yes it was exciting to start a new life in a new state, but I was leaving so much behind. I don’t have an emotional attachment to this studio. I am happy to have had the opportunity to work here, it has been a great place to get established in Seagrove… but it’s definitely time to move on to our own space.
…and to make it our own..

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Each day brings us something new

Image September 19, 2015 JB-admin

Yesterday we became the new owners of an 8 foot drainage pipe and 2 yards of gravel… how is that for excitement?! The drainage pipe at the end of our driveway is completely plugged up. The DOT is doing drainage work in the area and they are going to clean it out. Since the end of our drive is quite narrow, they agreed to extend the pipe and cover it with gravel, if we bought the materials. We had to jump on this opportunity quickly and our new lawn guy delivered everything in time for the work to be completed. Of course the DOT let us know yesterday that they were coming on Monday… it was a scramble to organize it all while trying to finish loading the gas kiln. In the end we held off firing until today so that it wouldn’t be an all nighter.

What is really exciting is that our lawn guy bush hogged behind the house and we now have a sweet spot cleared for a nice big garden. Our plan is to clear a few more trees and brush, which will give us a nice view of the neighboring pasture. We’ve also discovered that we have quite a few pecan trees and more blackberry bushes!

And now for something completely different…
Last week we were a little disappointed that we would not be able to watch Steven Colbert host the late show. None of the streaming services that we have were going to carry it. There was no way we were going to pay for another service to watch one show. So what was our low tech solution?

We bought an old fashioned antenna! It was cheap ($40) and arrived yesterday. Last night Jeff took it out of the box, placed it on top of our empty CD rack (still haven’t unpacked those) and, VOILA! Crystal clear picture and lots of channels. Imagine how much better it will be when it’s on the roof.
Our home sits on top of a small hill, overlooking Seagrove. We figured we were in a good spot for an antenna…
Now if DISH network and Time Warner would stop sending me junk mail, every other day, with all those fabulous “deals”.

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Leaving the wheel alone

Image September 16, 2015 JB-admin

It’s been a weird week for me. I haven’t been feeling the groove with wheel work so I decided to get out my hump molds and do some hand building.

The square bowl has little feet to lift it up

Today I will add little feet to the bottom of this hexagonal plate. Yesterday it was too soft to support the feet. You may remember that I have had trouble in the past with this mold and a larger one. I have either had cracks, or they fired too flat and humped up in the middle. I wish that the mold was a little deeper. I think that would help eliminate the slumping.

Hand building is slow, maybe more so for me than others. If I had a slab roller it would speed up the process. I have to make slabs with a combination of throwing on the table and the old fashioned rolling pin. When I think of the time I put into just these two pieces, they should be priced at $100! I know I won’t get that much for them, but I will be back at it today, knocking out a couple more of the square bowls.

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Shaking things up

Image September 13, 2015 JB-admin

I have been making animal rattles this week. Most started out as small orbs that were then transformed into pigs, sheep, and one cat. The larger pig started out as a little, wheel thrown jug. All of them are small and will fit in the palm of your hand. I will probably finish them in a variety of ways, incorporating some of the techniques gleaned from the workshop I went to at the end of August. The rattling animals were filler work while waiting for pig bodies to firm up for assembling. These little guys will make great kiln fillers as well. They can tuck in underneath all those vessel sinks that Jeff has been making.

Today we awoke to cool, dry, air… it’s only 61 degrees here at 9 am. It feels so good to have windows open with fresh air and sunshine streaming in. Not sure how long it will last, but I will enjoy it while it’s here.

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Put on your hard hat

Image September 10, 2015 JB-admin

No studio work yesterday. Our day off was spent doing construction work.
Remember the ugly louvers…

Half of them are gone now.

While Jeff and John did the hammering and nailing, I primed the bottom edges of the siding. To get this project finished and within our budget, we are using T 1-11 siding. Once we have some extra dough, we will cover it with cedar shingles.