Images

Snow and Ice!

Image Leave a comment

The winter storm has descended upon us. The forecast for snow accumulation has been downgraded, but we are still expecting plenty of ice. If I had to choose between the two, I would choose snow.
Jeff and I are taking it slow today. The gallery is closed (obviously) and the only clay work I will get to will be some handles on mugs. It’s probably a good day to get my last quarter sales tax return completed. The deadline is looming.

No morning coffee on the patio today.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1OCtJrD

Be Prepared

Image Leave a comment
Photo Credit: Joe Zentner
Winter storm Jonas is on his way. Here in Seagrove we are expecting a mix of snow and ice. Here at 505 E Main we are about as prepared as we can be. Groceries were bought, battery supply looks good, and there are always lots of candles around here. The plus side of this house: town water. If we lose power (and the pipes don’t freeze) our toilets will still flush. Downside: we have a heat pump, no power = cold. There is a fireplace here, but we haven’t had it inspected and won’t use it until that happens. I would rather not burn the house down. On the plus side, we do have a kerosene heater that we can turn on in the studio to keep clay from freezing. Worse comes to worse we can go in there to warm up! It’s good to be prepared, and perhaps the storm pattern will change and it won’t be as bad as predicted.
The photo is from the 2008 ice storm in New Hampshire. Now that was a colossal storm and you may remember, from past posts, it also occurred the week that John died. I was so out of touch with the outside world that I wasn’t prepared at all. Danielle came just before the storm to stay with us. We lost power in the early evening. There were oxygen tanks in the house, so candles were out of the question. We conserved our flashlight batteries as best we could. 24 hours later, and still without power, John left this earth. The roads were barely passable, and hospice was unable to come and be with us. It was two more days before the power was back in my apartment. Some of my neighbors weren’t so lucky and still had no power two weeks later. I walked through the neighborhood on the warm Christmas eve and could still hear the constant hum of generators. 
Forecasts of impending ice storms bring the memories of that time back to the surface. But this time I am prepared and I know that we will weather the storm.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1nbIs3t

Hibernation

Image Leave a comment
Winter has finally arrived in Seagrove, NC. The last few days have been cold. Sunday, I awoke to snow flurries. This morning… temperatures in the 20’s. Compared to my winters in New Hampshire, this is minor… but I have definitely acclimated to the south. It has been a strain for me to get out to the studio and make pots. I have managed to complete orders, and that one board of sponge holders, but that’s about it.
I have gone into hibernation mode.
My preferred place to be is curled up on the sofa with my arsenal of books, pencils, and sketchbook. It usually takes me months to finish a book and I have nearly finished two in the past week. By evening I am ready to move towards the kitchen and cook something warm and soothing for the two of us… rice and beans, a pot of soup, baked macaroni and cheese.
Comfort food.
Evenings have been spent curled up in front of the television, Jeff by my side, cat in my lap, streaming “Nurse Jackie” on the television. We have had a couple of marathon nights when we suddenly realized it was 2:00 am and we had better head off to bed.
I realized last week that I do this every January. It’s my response to the end of the holiday season and my way of coping with the worry of “how will we pay the bills?” during the slow season.
Today I will be more productive. I have pots to glaze and orders to ship. Once my to-do list is checked off, my book will be waiting.
…and so will Nurse Jackie.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1KpaSMK

Need Dentures?

Image Leave a comment
Jeff might be able to help…
Photo Credit: Jeff Brown

Jeff has this awesome commission to sculpt a set of skull mugs with a matching pitcher. He has done skull commissions in the past, but it’s been a long time. I am absolutely amazed at how realistic the teeth are going to be!

Photo Credit: Jeff Brown
Jeff has been working on these at night, in between making sinks. He loves to throw pots… any pots, but he first got into pottery through sculpture and I know he is enjoying this opportunity. Some of you may have seen these photos on facebook, I swiped them from his page. I will post again when they are completed.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1JcNvLF

Cheap Eats

Image Leave a comment

Jeff and I are pretty frugal. After a not so hot show season, coupled with big relocation expenses, we are being even more frugal. The fact that we both like to cook helps a lot.  I look for marked down meats whenever I am shopping. This week I scored in-store made, bulk sausage at the local market for half price… I saw dirty rice in my future! I simmered a big pot of pinto beans, cooked cowboy style, to go along with the rice. It was spicy deliciousness served with a chunk of cornbread. I enjoyed mine in my favorite bowl by Seagrove potter, Tom Gray. Not the best color choice for serving this rather yellow meal, but absolutely the perfect shape. We ate dinner while streaming a television show, and this bowl feels so good cradled in your hands, filled with warm food.

I think this meal might have cost $8 to make, the biggest expense being the slab bacon that went into the beans, but we have enough leftovers to eat another meal and probably lunch too. It also felt like a treat. This isn’t a meal that is in our “regular” rotation, especially since it’s bacon and sausage on one plate! You gotta splurge once in awhile, and when you do… why not bacon?

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1SUi4Yo

Throwing Money

Image Leave a comment

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.

The nuka white glaze with the carved design has been the biggest seller for the past six months, with aqua shino running a close second. These little items are certainly no amazing works of art, but people love them and they help pay the bills. I have finally gotten over the shame of being a sponge holder maker 🙂

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1UV3FKa

Not Piggy Banks

Image Leave a comment

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.

Since this is porcelain, and no slip, I will glaze them in celadon. I like it when I have pots planned from start to finish. It makes glazing less of a chore.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1N8pFva

Oops!

Image Leave a comment

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.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1N4UYa4

New Year, New Ideas

Image Leave a comment

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!

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1PXJUSP

Today was the day!

Image Leave a comment
We have been watching the weather for weeks to get this kiln pad poured. When it was warm, it was raining. When it was sunny, it was too cold. Today we had a small window of opportunity to get the job done. It will be above freezing for a few days. The rain was light, more like a heavy mist. The temperature hovered around 50 degrees.

Jeff’s brother came to assist. Which meant that my job was to take photos and provide a hot, warm lunch when the job was done.

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.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/1Rq6y86