Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: pottery, process, production, studio

Tonight I made it back to the studio with one primary focus… handles!
The stamped cylinders were all trimmed and ready… waiting for tonight.
So I came in and quickly pulled all 27 handles – and setting them up so they could
stiffen up a bit. The key to attaching “clean” handles is waiting for them to be
a soft leatherhard, bendable, yet not squishy. Luckily, by time I made it to the end
of pulling all 27 handles… the first ones were already stiffened a bit and ready to go!

So I started attaching handles… score, slip, attach, repeat…
but then I had to take a quick break. My friend & fellow potter Emily Murphy is
in town this weekend and visiting Lillstreet… her former pottery home! And by the way,
she’s huge!!! Very pregnant. Very cute. Looking like she’s ready to pop… but still has
a couple months to go! So after a very quick visit, it was back to attaching handles…
score, slip, attach, repeat… And after a lot of scoring… handles are now in place
and all cylinders are now mugs! Under wraps while the moisture-level balances out
until I can make it back in to add some colored slip accents.

2 Comments

June 10th, 2012

I can’t tell you how helpful that first picture of your 27 handles is…
I’ve been doing it ALL WRONG!
This will save me HOURS of studio time!

June 13th, 2012

MARSI – I love making mugs. And making handles is a big part of it. I think too many people are intimidated by making handles. But the more you do them, the better & easier they become. Keep on making handles!!! And if my method helps, even better!!! Good luck.

Leave a Comment