Okay, so it’s been a hot minute… a couple weeks since… a couple holidays in between… but I’m finally getting around to showing off Christine’s beautiful pieces that came out of her VERY FIRST kiln firing!!!

Christine has been in my pottery classes for several sessions now… Beginning, Intermediate, Throwdown, Surface Decorations, etc. She’s always been on a quest to gather as much information as she can. She’s like a sponge in class trying to soak everything in. She’s been experimenting with everything she can get her hands on… lots of test tiles, underglazes, overglazes, hi-fire, low-fire. etc. She’s been getting a wide range of results – some beautiful, some not-so-much. So we’ve been discussing some other “options” for glazing of her work… particularly some of the stamped platters & bowls still unglazed from our Surface Decoration class almost a year ago!

One of the options we were discussing was Cone Six glazes. I’ve been doing some cone six firings myself with my work, and she’s liked the effects. So she expressed interest in trying that option… except Lillstreet doesn’t offer Cone Six firings to the students. So I worked with her independently as a friend & mentor instead of as her “teacher.” She glazed up her pieces with some commercial glazes she had purchased online… a group of “celadons” from Amaco. Loaded & fired… and now for the BIG REVEAL!!!…. sorry for the delay…

Here we go…
She started unloading the kiln… her first kiln ever! She had to learn how to load a kiln, stack the shelves, use the posts, etc. And now the excitement of her first kiln unloading!!! Shelf-by-shelf… revealing the treasures inside!

It was SO MUCH FOR ME to see the sheer joy & excitement on Christine’s face… or at least her forehead… every time she pulled out another piece! Large platters with a lot of handpainted underglaze details…

Or my favorite… surprise, surprise… this amazing stamped platter from our Surface Decoration class last Spring.

And a few more stamped beauties…

Followed by the bottom shelf with a lot of great colors! And especially intrigued by how the celadons from Amaco are making all of her textures & details really POP!!!

Plus, there were some wonderful “retro” mugs in her handpainted collection… so vibrant & fun when fired at Cone 6.

And some great “ombre” gradation mugs with sprayed glazes making the blend!

And again… my favorite stamped platter!!! Well done Christine!
I can’t wait to see where the success of this latest “test” by Christine takes her down her pottery path… as I’ll see her again in my class in the next session!

Looks like I might need to start baking some holiday cookies to cover this pretty stamped platter?! Unless someone out there would like to do it for me???

Still a good spiral, with a “few” less stamps… but that glaze running situation is kinda perfect! A little more “simple” than the fully-stamped platters. Yet still perfect for the holidays!

Last night I helped one of my students load her very FIRST KILN!

Christine has been testing every underglaze & clear glaze in class… and has been wanting to test the commercial celadons in cone six. So she saved some of her stamped work from class, spray-glazed them up with commercial glazes… and soon enough we should have some beautiful pots to show off! Can’t wait to see your results Christine!!!

A bit of a late night gettin’ my glaze on! Did more than a bit of glazing on my latest batch of wheelthrown Christmas trees. And if all goes as planned… these festive trees should be glazed, fired & ready for this weekend’s MUD & METAL Holiday Home Show!

So my textured picture frames just came out of the glaze kiln… and I’m totally diggin’ the colors, the textures and how well they’re all playing together! Now I just need to pair them up with Mary Foster’s mini-paintings for THE COZY COTTAGE POP-UP this Friday & Saturday. Always fun to put her colorful gouache paintings in my textured picture frames!

It was pretty late last night when I finally finished glazing in my studio… lots of pots, lots of wadding! So I packed both sides of my studio cart and put some masking tape “seat belts” on it so none of the pots would jump off as I rolled everything downstairs on the rickety freight elevator!

Trying to stay productive… stamps are “filled” with tenmoku glaze… and just added a liner glaze too! Still needing a little clean-up around the rims… and then a lot of wadding for the soda kiln. I’m scheduled to load Friday night… and I still have a LOT of glazing to do. Eyes on the prize!!!

Doing a little glaze inlay into the stamped impressions on a bunch of mugs! I’m filling the stamps with a tenmoku glaze, and then wiping off the “top” surface so the glaze only stays in the texture impressions.

Swirls, spirals & stamps! A mesmerizing combination with a deep green glaze making this platter a stunner! More plates & platters like this will be coming with me to ART IN THE BARN this weekend in Barrington! C’mon out… I’ll be in the Lower Barn in my usual double booth space!