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

Friday
After the Lillstreet staff party on the rooftop, I threw a LOT of pieces & parts.
Throwing both stoneware and terra cotta in alternating “waves”  and trying to clean up
everything between each so that things didn’t get all mixed up!

Saturday
When I came into the studio, I altered the cylinders into oval shapes & stamped them.
I also started giving some shape to the pumpkins… both large & small. Turning the smooth,
round thrown shapes into irregular pumpkins!

Sunday
I attached bottoms to the oval cylinders and added some more details to the pumpkins.
First it was the stems, then it was carving the Jack O’Lantern faces and warty-bumps!

Monday
I added colored slip details to the ovals, and painted the pumpkins with colored underglazes.
Painting the pumpkins really brings them to life.

And now, everything is sitting in front of a couple fans overnight… as they are being “rushed”
to get into an electric kiln tomorrow night. I even placed them all on plastic grids elevated on
wood sticks so that air can circulate under the pots as well… hoping to dry them faster &
more evenly!!! And if all goes well, everything will come out well. And the Halloween novelties
I was so motivated to complete will make it to the Barrington art fair in time!!!

I also took a lot of photos throughout the production line.
Coming soon… I’ll be posting some step-by-step process pictures of all three shapes!

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