It's not all fun and games, ya know.

There's plenty of grunt work to do in the pottery studio. As you can imagine, it's a big job keeping things clean. I also recycle, re-use, and...rewind?? Uh...what is the 3rd "R?"

Well, I do recycle my clay. You know all that slurry that flies off the wheel when one makes pottery on it? And all those dried up pieces of clay that are created when you're handbuilding? Not to mention projects gone horribly wrong. Clay can be recycled.

I collect scrap clay in buckets and when the bucket is nearly full, I get out the paint stirring doo-hickey, put it on the electric drill and whizz up the clay until smooth. I then pour it and dry it on a plaster slab.

The bucket of scrap clay just before mixing. Into the bucket goes all scraps, the slurry water from the splash pan and the water from my little bucket I use when at the potter's wheel. Nothing goes down the drain! Note the clumps of clay just under the water line.


It's messy, but necessary. I can't imagine throwing out clay that can this easily be recycled. I recycle about 200 lbs of clay each year!


After a few minutes the clay is smooth like chocolate cake batter and ready to pour, but this is one mixer I will NOT be licking clean.


This is the plaster slab I use for drying the clay. The clay is not completely dried, however. The plaster draws the moisture out of clay. I remove the clay from the plaster when it's a good consistency for wedging (kneading), cut it into smaller pieces and bag it.

I use a jug or a ladel to scoop the clay out of the bucket and onto the plaster slab.

I smooth out the clay and make it a consistent thickness on the plaster slab. Once bagged the clay sits for a year or so to "age." Clay I recycled in the spring of 2007 is now being used in the studio.

Aah, the 3rd "R" is reduce! Not only do I recycle my clay, but I have also reduced the amount of water I use in the process by emptying my slurry and throwing water into my scrap clay bucket. I've also effectively reduced the amount of fuel used to transport the clay to my home because I'm transporting nothing. It's all happening right here! As a result of the recycling I order clay only once a year. I also re-use the plastic bags that the clay comes in from the manufacturer - a Canadian company - Plainsman clays.

Making it Right

Pitcher with leaf spout - 26.5 cm x 19 cm. Wheel thrown and hand built. Brown gloss glaze is a local clay I call "creek mud."

I've been leafing through pottery magazines for a few years now and when I come across something eye catching, I get out the exacto knife and carefully remove the picture from the page and glue it into a scrap book. I have some old issues of Ceramics Monthly - 1977 - 1981 - that were given to me by Dennis Cape when he sold his kiln to me. Dennis was so kind to me. He not only gave me 5 years worth of magazines, but several books too. The pictures I have in my scrapbook are mostly from these old magazines. I've also culled glaze recipes and handy pottery tips!

Since 2003, I've been gifted with a new subscription to a pottery magazine each year at Christmas. It's been a great source of inspiration and now that spring is here I've been inspired to purge the house of some clutter! The old issues are being given a final go-thru. The knife and glue sticks are flying. Staples are being pulled and the recycling bin is slowly filling with dusty, vintage pottery mags.

In the newer magazines I began to notice the trend of things unrelated. It intrigued me this idea of making a piece that is two concepts in one, like the pitcher above. Part wheel thrown and part hand built, this jug wasn't all that lovely the first time I pulled it from the kiln. In fact, JF nicknamed it the Franken Jug. There was no true marriage between the brown and the green. Also the piece was a little under fired making the brown glaze too matte for my liking. The green hadn't fully matured either.

I decided to re-fire the piece and add more green glaze around the top portion of the pitcher where before the colours didn't overlap. I got inspired to do this because on the inside of the pitcher I saw that the glazes, one on top of the other, were a great combination. I brushed a thin layer of green glaze onto the pitcher, not knowing how my applying it in this way would turn out. I usually pour my glazes onto pieces or dip them into a bucket of glaze. I was just trusting my instincts.

Once re-fired I felt I had achieved a very pleasing result. I love that the brown glaze is now a deep, rich gloss thanks to the re-fire. I love the green "toucan" spout and how the overlapping of the two colours brought the top and bottom together. Every time I look at it I'm reminded of the art deco period. Maybe it's the rings in the body of the jug or the earthy colours of pottery from that era.

Working With What You Have

I read somewhere not too long ago that Japanese potters work with what they have as opposed to North American potters who have the end result in mind and work towards getting what they expected. For example, if a bucket of glaze turns out to be different from that of a picture or description, then one might assume that the American will "fix" the glaze so it yields the expected result.

Not me. I'm lazy in some ways with my work. But being lazy can be, as my husband says, "working smart."

When I arrived in Québec, I'd never mixed up glazes from scratch. I decided I would start since I'd purchased 500 lbs of glaze making materials from the potter who'd sold an electric kiln to me.

Other things were new to me as well as mixing glazes - I'd never fired glazed work in an electric kiln before. The kiln I bought fires to cone 11 or 24oo degrees F. What I didn't know was that if you repeatedly fire an electric kiln to that temperature everything inside the control panel will melt. And it did. But I digress.

My glaze learnin' has been informal. I read, I try recipes (someone else's creation), and I read some more. I'm largely concerned with the task at hand, which is working for a living by making pottery that people are ordering now and wanting soon. Formulating my own glaze or fixing a glaze so it works for me isn't something I've mastered. Not even close. I have a rather Japanese approach to my glazes. I work with what I have, and frequently in my case, what I have found, been given or what was on sale. I make pieces to suit whatever's in the bucket. The bucket of glaze is my inspiration!

One of my clay pals, Tim T., gave me some bagged glazes that his studio won't ever use. It was a similar situation to how I got the glaze that Cynthia gave me - neither she nor Tim knows anyone who fires to cone 9/10, except for me. If a glaze is formulated to fire at cone 9/10 and you regularly fire to cone 6 (the preferred firing temperature of those who fire electric kilns), well, it's probably not feasible in a teaching studio situation to experiement.

So, I have this glaze from Tim T. and I mixed it up. It was labelled Tenmoku and the Tenmoku that I'd worked with in the past was a black gloss that broke brown. In fact I researched Tenmoku glazes and found this: "Tenmoku glazes can range in color from dark plum (persimmon), to yellow, to brown, to black." So I was surprised that this Temmoku was peach coloured in the bucket.

David Leach (England 1911-2005) Tenmoku Glazed Studio Pottery Teabowl, 350 GBP.

I fired this small stoneware wine cup and got a gorgeous crackled glaze that is almost transparent. In places where there is more than one layer of glaze it's a very pale opalescent white-blue. On stoneware, the buff coloured clay shows through and the colour reminds me more of...lightly speckled fish flesh. Hmmm. Not exactly beautiful. What to do with this glaze? I'm going to try it on white clay! My guess is that it will be a very blue, celadon-like glaze. (I'm still puzzled over its being labelled tenmoku.) What will I make? Saké cups! Why not?

Stoneware wine cup. "Tenmoku" glaze. Artist's collection.

Say Cheese!

Covered Cheese Dish -19 cm x 11 cm. Stoneware. Wax resist design.

Covered Cheese Dish - an inside view.

Spirals occur naturally and everywhere it seems, like in plants, seashells, on the body, in bodies of water, mathematics and the galaxy. I'm sure I'm missing a few. Oh, yes, in pottery making too.

If you watch someone working on the wheel, you'll notice right away that when starting in the centre of the bottom of a pot, the act of compressing the clay down and out creates a spiral. I've always found myself drawn to shapes and designs that are soft and flow, like paisley, egg shapes, ovals and spirals. The petals of a flower are a spiral and I loved to draw flowers as a child - dahlias, specifically, with their close knit sprial of petals in vibrant colours like crimson!

I've also read that the spiral is an ancient symbol of woman and the endless flow of energy in the Universe.

The energies were very good yesterday for us. I finally located our cat, Ti-min. It turns out that she was trapped under the shed. The snow that came off the roof last week fell all around the shed, trapping the cat underneath. Poor wee thing! She certainly doesn't seem traumatized though. Thankfully I hadn't given up hope that she was still alive. When I went outside yesterday for some fresh air, I called out for her in hopes she would appear, then I heard her meow! I listened hard because at first I thought I was imagining it, but no, it was her. I traced the sound to the shed and discovered that she was trapped under it. I shoveled a path through a four foot drift and then dug a hole at the corner of the shed. After her fear of the shoveling noises, fresh air and/or sunshine left her, she appeared at the door for food. Man, that cat has had 9 lives for sure. I know of at least 2 that she's used so far.

The Group of Four. Textured slab work. Handbuilt.
photo by Jean-François Davignon

New Photos

I have a small bunch of new photos! JF and I worked on getting a series of them done recently so I could have something to send along with my application to 1001 Pots. This summertime event runs from July 11, to August 10, 2008. It's a gorgeous and very popular outdoor exhibition and last year there were 108 ceramic artists present. Each time I walked through the grounds, I saw something I hadn't seen before!

Textured jug. 24 cm x 14 cm. Stoneware.

This photo was among those that we sent. I started doing textured slab work when I was in Winnipeg. The technique was taught to me by my clay mentor, Kevin K. I have made many a textured piece but none of them really took off until I began to use this bright cobalt blue glaze - VCAA blue (Val Cushing).

When making such pieces I cut a thick slab of clay, make textures in it with various tools (grout trowel, fork, hallow pencils, seashells, etc.) then throw the slab, always textured side up, until it stretches out to the desired thickness...or thiness, depending on how one looks at it.

The throwing of the slab takes a really long time to perfect. When one first begins this technique, the slab is often lopsided - too thick in places and too thin in other places. It's prone to tearing and splitting.

After the slab is stiffened up a bit, I wrap it around a form - usually a cardboard cylinder. If too dry when wrapped around the form, it will crack along the deepest textures. I let it set up for awhile then add the bottom and when that is set, I remove the form. When it's leather hard, I add the handle and do any finishing work, like tidying up the inside of the vessel.

After bisque firing, I sand the bottom to make certain it doesn't wobble, wash it then glaze it by dipping it into the bucket of glaze. Once it's glazed I wipe back the glaze so that the deepest crevices still have glaze, but the shallowest textures are revealed.

Vintage Glaze

When I moved to the area, I joined the local potters guild and met Cynthia O'Brien, a scuplture artist. A couple of years later she was cleaning out her studio and gave me some pre-mixed glazes that she knew she would never use. Cynthia got them from a fella whose mother was a potter but since had passed away.

These pre-mixed glazes were dry,bagged, mixed by Tucker's Pottery Supply and dated 1982. Wow! Vintage glaze! I had no idea what I was in for, but as soon as I found a few empty buckets I mixed up Shiney White, Old Blue and Oatmeal.

I loved the way Shiney White looked on my buff stoneware clay body. It showed throwing lines in the clay through its almost transparent sheen. In places where the glaze overlapped it was opaque and in other places like on the rim, I could see small crystalline patches. Here's a picture of a jug and some wine cups glazed in Shiney White and Creek Mud - a local clay that I happily discovered fires as a glaze at cone 9/10.

The Oatmeal was exactly as I expected it to be - like 1978. Iron yellow, brown specks, warm and homey.

Here is a teapot done in oatmeal flanked by my DaisyWare glazed in VCAA Blue.

Old Blue was a gorgeous dusty grey blue that also showed throwing lines well, although it was opaque. I loved that you could really see the flow of the glaze as it melted in the kiln. But that Old Blue was like a ghost. I went to great lengths to find the recipe for it. I got on Clayart and asked everyone there if they had a recipe for Old Blue. I scoured every issue of Ceramics Monthly from 1977 - 1982 (yes, I actually do have every issue from that period, but that's another story), and found some recipes that could maybe be Old Blue. I mixed small batches of these possibles and it led nowhere except to the discovery of an ugly glaze that indeed was blue, but it also had pink speckles in it. Really not my cup of tea. I even wrote to Tucker's and asked if they had the recipe for this Old Blue. No. No one had even heard of a glaze called Old Blue.

Plate detail. Handbuilt slab plate with stamped design. Stamp made by artist.

After a year or two, and gathering a few empty buckets, which are few and far between in my studio since I'm kind of a glaze junkie, I opened up that box of pre-mixed glazes from Cynthia to see what else I could mix up. I pulled out several more slightly torn paper bags of glaze and among them I discovered two bags of blue glaze. One was marked blue and the other blue semi-gloss. Hmmmm. My interest was piqued. I mixed up both bags in seperate buckets and they looked really similar to Old Blue. I tested the glazes and eureka! It was Old Blue. Okay... suddenly it became clear. It was in the interest of using up that one last bag of glaze before the others that the potter had written on the bag the word old (in red) in front of the word blue. Of course!

I wrote back to Tucker's and this time I asked for the following group of recipes:

Shiney White, Blue semi-gloss, Oatmeal, Cain yellow, Cain brown, Temmoku and Black semi-matte. They came through! They had all those old recipes on file. Now I could reproduce what I already had. They might look slightly different since the raw materials I have to make glaze came from a supplier in Manitoba, but that is the way of this art form.

Sunrise Salutations

As the weather reports call for another storm - this one could last for 30 hours - I can only think of two things: spring and my cat, who seems to have gone missing.

Two years ago I recall coming home from Easter vacation and there were dwarf irises popping out of the lakeside garden. Easter was in April then. This year we're celebrating in just 2 weeks and some of the snow drifts are 4 - 5 feet tall! I don't think I'm going to see any flowers until May this year.

Yesterday the Boys came and shovelled the snow from our roof. There must have been 4 feet of snow up there. I let the cat out shortly before they got started. I haven't seen her since. She's semi-feral I guess one could say. She lives and sleeps outside and for most of the year, she eats inside and takes naps sometimes too. She likes me and my partner and runs when confronted with others. She heard the Boys making noise outside and was getting freaked out so I let her out so she could find a hidey-hole somewhere and ride out the roof shovelling. Being the morbid person that I can be at times, I wonder if an avalanche of roof snow took her life yesterday. My partner gave me "the eye" this morning saying she most likely had run off before the snow was moved. She's been gone before and she'll be back.

I'll let my sculpture, "Sunrise Salutations" be the inspiration for this moment in time - to give us all hope that spring is coming and soon we will be able to warm ourselves in the rays of the sun.

Sunrise Salutations - 1999. Sculpture in porcelain. 28 cm x 10 cm.

Dragon Vase

With all the snow we've been having you would think I'd be very busy in the pottery studio, making delicious pots. Hmmmm, well, let's just say that I've been busier than I would have liked with things other than mud however, my hubby and I have taken a few photos of some of my latest work. I'll post a few each week and tell you all about them.

Dragon Vase is a piece that I made back in Winnipeg at The Blue Door Clay Studio, Kevin Kushnier's place. The design is a dragon inspired by a drawing of a petroglyph at Nanaimo Petroglyph Park. I painted the dragon on the leather-hard pot in black slip. It was bisqued and then glazed in Dry Shino and fired it to cone 9 in a gas kiln. It measures 12 cm x 12 cm.