Have Pots, Will Travel

The new pots fresh out of the kiln.

I have new pots! They're cooling down in the kiln. I'm pretty excited about them too! When they are cool enough to pick up without gloves, I will pack them up and take them to sell.

This load of pottery in the kiln was an effort of sheer will. After looking at my display at 1001 Pots I couldn't believe that I had forgotten to make small bowls! When the artist in me kicks in I become unpredictable even to myself. So there I was thinking, "I've got time," every time a new idea popped up through my hands and then pretty soon the date to pack up and go had arrived and I had forgotten about the small bowls (not to mention the teapots)...until I stood back and looked at my display. I looked around at others. Mine was missing....something. *sigh*

So I went home and thought about it, looked at the calendar and it seemed do-able. I kicked my butt all the way into the studio and threw 37 bowls.

They dried for a couple of days, I trimmed foot rings and then waited through the most humid weather for them to dry.

They didn't.

Last Saturday I loaded the leather hard bowls into the little kiln and force dried them and the next day they were ready to fire. The kiln shut off Sunday around 4:30 and then began the wait for the newly bisqued pots to cool enough to unload them.

Early Monday morning I cracked open the kiln and finally around 10:30 I unloaded the pots and got to work sanding, washing, applying wax resist to foot rings and as a design (spirals), letting that dry, applying glaze, waiting for glaze to dry, applying 2nd colour if needed, cleaning the foot rings and finally loading the kiln. I finished loading at 2 a.m. and set the glaze kiln to candle at 200 degrees F. I woke up around 5 a.m. today to check if the pots were dry yet by sticking a mirror inside the kiln (which is cracked open to let the steam out) and seeing if it's foggy. If there's no steam or fog on the mirror, then I can start to fire.

I closed the lid, put the spy plugs in, turned it up and went back to bed. I got up around 9:30 and things were going as planned. The weather held out the entire day. Blackouts around here happen. Brown outs are fairly common. I fire in an electric kiln, so brown outs cause me to pray that electricity comes back on and black outs cause me to swear loudly.

While the kiln fired, I planned a garden extension and a grocery list, placed a book order and a fall bulb order on line, checked my email and cooked.