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

Back to glazing… as I’m nearing the end. Lidded jars glazed… inside the jar & inside the stamps! Next up… soda-resistant wadding on the bottoms & lids.

Categories: glaze, mugs, stamped

Celebrating another MUGSHOT MONDAY with this little green glazed mug… stamped on two sides instead of all the way around. Just playing around trying something new?!

Categories: glaze, process, production, stamped

Celebrating with another batch of mugs… this time for a quick special order. My fingers are crossed as the request is to “match” an older mug from a previous firing. Of course I didn’t keep notes on what I did for that first mug… so I’m kinda flying by the seat of my pants and “hoping” that I have the color combos right?! The blue color is a soda flashing slip, and the brown liner glaze is tenmoku. I’m just hoping that these work out… and “match” as much as any soda-fired piece can!!!

Categories: glaze, mugs, process, production

Okay, so I’ve done a little touching-up… no more drips running over the edge, and a clean-wiped line around the rims. Next up… wadding and perhaps a touch of colored glazes here & there for a fun pop of color?!!! Who knows? … so many mugs, so many options!

Categories: glaze, mugs, process, production

So I’ve finally started glazing these combo mugs! Since they’re going to be soda-fired, I pretty much need to just put a liner glaze inside, and then hope that the soda-kiln atmosphere makes all the “magic” happen! They were all dipped in colored flashing slips before bisque firing… so there should be some fun colors when they come back out of the kiln!

Categories: glaze, mugs, stamped

HAPPY MUGSHOT MONDAY! And I’m pretty excited this Monday to share these two mugs. Part of my never-ending quest to find a few good glaze recipes that work well at both cone six oxidation & cone ten reduction. Looks like this one works… a bright lime green at cone 6, and a pretty grass green at cone 10. I would have a lot fewer buckets in my studio if I could get them all to do double-duty like this!!!

Any glaze recipe recommendations?

Categories: glaze, platters, stamped

A little fun with glaze… before & after! Loving how the green glaze pools & breaks really well on the hand-stamped texture & concentric circles!

Categories: bowls, glaze, pottery, stamped

Details. Stamps. Handles. Bowls… just a little visual “teaser” of the new basket bowls that have now all been glazed… and getting ready for a POP-UP SALE on my Fire When Ready Pottery Facebook pagecoming soon!!!

Limited colors & quantities… sorry, no dibs
Gotta wait for the sale!

Click here to go to my Facebook page!

Categories: classes, glaze, mugs, stamped

Last night in my Beginning & Advanced Beginning Wheelthrowing class, we did our last class “exchange-trading-stealing” game … this time with a theme of TWO mugs… “matching” if you’ve taken my class before! These bright green mugs… that were “kinda” matching… were my entries into the game… and I believe they happily went home with Kate & Kathleen!

Categories: bowls, glaze, process

When a basket handle comes tumbling down!!! Well, I kinda knew it would. When I got this basket bowl out of the bisque, there was a small one-inch piece “missing” and sitting down inside the bowl. Sadly, I recall “allegedly” trying to put a kiln shelf in and having it “bump” a basket handle because I didn’t measure the height so well. Guess that “bump” broke the handle!!! Whoops!

But, when I was glazing, the missing piece still fit into the gap and gravity held it in pretty snug. I decided to go for it. I glazed the pot, the missing piece, and wedged them together… and gave it all a second dip to help seal it together. I had my fingers crossed… but wasn’t too surprised to see it had fallen out during the firing.

What did surprise me though was the way one side of the broken handle totally “imploded” and fell right into the bowl!!! TIMBER!!!