Load Friday. Fire Saturday. Cool Sunday. Unload Monday. Four days of fun!!!
Tonight I unloaded my kiln, packed it all up, cleaned & scraped the shelves and
shlepped it all home. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have time to actually admire my new pieces?!

And then, somewhere in the middle of the kiln, there were some other beautiful things
happening in there… especially with some newer, bright pops of color!

There are still far too many naked pots in my studio.
I just unloaded my second bisque kiln.  I now officially have a LOT OF POTS
to glaze & wad before I can ever start loading tomorrow night. Yikes!!!
Not quite sure how & when this is all going to get done?!

When you make a big batch of mugs…
at some point, you’ve got to glaze a big batch of mugs!

Same mugs… just a different, possibly cooler perspective…

Tonight I loaded more pots into a cone 10 glaze kiln.
Marian, one of my studio neighbors, is firing a kiln of her work for the
upcoming 57th Street Art Fair. Lucky for me, she didn’t have enough work
to fill the kiln… so I was once again “Kiln Filler.” I glazed up some more bisqued
work to load in, as well as some of my normal kiln filler tiles & rattles.

Unfortunately, the kiln won’t be unloaded in time for the Schaumburg Art Fair
this weekend… but they will be ready & on their way to Hinsdale!

By now you know that I love a lot of patterns & textures!
And since I’ve already told stories of how incredible the St. Croix River Valley Pottery Tour
is in previous posts, I decided this year to show off the “Potters of the Minnesota Tour”
by their patterns & textures! There are forty-nine potters on the Tour, but I’ve narrowed
it down to just twenty. All of them would just be overwhelming… as is the Tour!
So here’s the game…

How many of these twenty potters can you name just based on their work?!
So here’s the deal… I’ll show you the close-up, you tell me the potter who made it!

Potter #1 -  ____________________

Potter #2 -  ____________________

Potter #3 –   ____________________

Potter #4 –   ____________________

Potter #5 -  ____________________

Potter #6 –   ____________________

Potter #7 –   ____________________

Potter #8 –   ____________________

Potter #9 –   ____________________

Potter #10 –   ____________________

Potter #11 –   ____________________

Potter #12 –   ____________________

Potter #13 –   ____________________

Potter #14 –   ____________________

Potter #15 –   ____________________

Potter #16 –   ____________________

Potter #17 –   ____________________

Potter #18 –   ____________________

Potter #19 –   ____________________

Potter #20 –   ____________________

You know… after looking at twenty of the fantastic potters showing up north
in the St. Croix River Valley Pottery Tour, it seems like something’s missing?!
There’s a lot of glazing… a lot of carving… a lot of atmospheric firing… but…

Don’t you think they need some obsessively stamped pots up there?! I’m just sayin’…

I love it when patterns, textures, slips & glazes all come together!
Just a few more “teaser textures” that jut came out of my soda kiln yesterday!!!

Another late night of glazing at the studio.
I got a lot done, and yet somehow there still seems to be a lot more to do?!
Back again tomorrow for a full day in the studio and the final push…
more glazing, wadding & loading the kiln tomorrow.
No rest for the weary… gotta get it done!!!

Tonight’s glazing marathon was quite productive…
and yet I’m expecting another even longer marathon tomorrow night!
Still a lot of bisque waiting on my shelves?!!! So much to do still…

After unloading Karen’s glaze kiln, I turned around and help Corinne load her kiln.
Luckily, she had a third of a kiln left open… and you know how I like to be the “filler.”
She called my yesterday to ask if I had anything left to fire. I said I had some bisqued
ovals that didn’t make it into Karen’s kiln. So glazed last night, and loaded them into
the kiln today while it was still warm from Karen’s firing! And I just LOVE the crazy
juxtaposition of Corinnes’s textural monoliths & my somewhat “precise” stamped ovals!

Enough of the photo session… gotta get back to the loading. All the way up to the top!
More pots. More ovals. More ikebana. More kiln space to be filled!!! Thanks Corinne!

Check out more of Corinne Peterson‘s finished works by clicking on her name!

Today I unloaded the glaze kiln I shared with Karen Patinkin.
As you may remember, in that kiln were some new glazes I recently made.
I was encouraged by the test tiles that I fired, and couldn’t wait to actually put them
to the test on actual pieces! And of course, I can’t start small with just a couple mugs.
Instead, I glazed a LOT of pieces in this kiln with the new glazes. Luckily… they seemed to
work very well so I gave them names and labeled the buckets! Here’s a very quick preview.

SPRUCE – a beautiful dark evergeen shade that breaks well on my stamped textures.

GOLDEN CRANBERRY – a thicker glaze that breaks golden, but pools with a burgundy tone.

CILANTRO – kind of a yellowy, parsley color… didn’t break as light as the test tile did?!

And the best part?… they look even better on B-Clay!!! And they feel great too!!!
I love how the Spruce Green turns a beautiful shade of blue and yet breaks so beautifully.
The Golden Cranberry shows more depth and pools well in the grooves.
Cilantro is yellower, with a nice clear color that accentuates, but doesn’t fill the stamps.

Guess I gotta start making more things out of B-Clay, huh?!