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?!

Last night I finally got around to glazing all of my long-overdue class demo pots.
It’s amazing how they pile up after a couple sessions of “not” glazing them?!
I also glazed a couple for the soda kiln loading that was going on as I glazed.

Then later today, we’re unloading the glaze kiln I just shared with Karen Patinkin.
And I still need to glaze more for the kiln that we’re re-loading today… another glaze
kiln this time sharing with Corinne Peterson!!! I just found out about this one yesterday!
But when opportunity knocks, I’m always glad that I have some bisque ready & waiting!

And oh, but wait there’s more… the terra cotta planters that we made while my cousin
and kids were in town are ready to be underglaze-stained & liner glazed. More fun for today!

I love getting things through the end of the process.
Making room in my small studio to start again making more, more, MORE!!!
Busy, busy… a whole lot of new pots coming soon!!!

Another glazing day in the studio. Getting ready for our Wednesday kiln loading.
Lots of pots. Lots of buckets. Seems like there’s never enough colors. Never enough options.

I felt like it was time for a change… so I mixed up a couple glaze cocktails!
Bu simply mixing a couple existing glazes in different proportions, I found a couple mixes
that appear to be working nicely. I’m always on a quest for nice color glazes that break well
and pool nicely in the stamped impressions without just covering them over! These are
the top three I ended up with… and I’ve glazed a LOT of new pots in them. I hope they
work as well on my pots as they appear to have on my test tiles?! Fingers crossed…

I’m sharing a cone 10 reduction kiln this week with my studio neighbor Karen Patinkin.
So today was the kick-off my glazing! I’ve got a lot of bisqued pieces waxed & waiting
to be glazed. Plus, we’re unloading another kiln tomorrow. And another bisque kiln
means even MORE pieces to glaze!!! Yikes…

More of my “catch-it-while-it’s-clean” studio photo tour… a little closer up this time!

Tonight I made it into the studio to pick up some new pots that had just come out
of the cone 10 studio kiln. I don’t know what Corinne did “special” while she was
firing the kiln, but everything turned out beautifully!. With all of my glazes
“breaking” in all the right places! Thank you Corinne… I’ll be your “kiln filler” any time!

While bisque kiln #2 is cooling… it’s time to start glazing the pieces from bisque kiln #1.
So the pieces are spread out all over my studio. And I’m starting the process with glaze
inlaid into the stamped impressions and liner glazes.

So my day started out a little better today than yesterday.
Not quite as early. No kiln to unload. No rush to set things up when I got there.
Regardless… I was still a little tired after a late night of glazing & loading.

The fun continued today with more customers, more friends, more family.
And more chocolate shakes!!! Part of the “food court” area of the art fair
is this wonderful trailer from The Malt Shoppe. And over the years I have “trained”
them to make the best chocolate shakes ever! It starts with chocolate ice cream
and chocolate sauce. They mix it up into a shake, add more chocolate and mix again.
And then, just when they think it can’t get any chocolatey-er… I have them mix in
some hot fudge!!! I want the shake to be brown!. I want it to scream “chocolate”!!!
And over the years, they’ve been doing a great job… and this art fair was no exception!
Yesterday I only had one. But today I made up for lost time with three!!!
But who’s counting?!

At the end of the fair, it’s always an “adventure” to pack everything up and drive home.
Somehow even after selling a lot of pots all weekend long, it amazes me every time how
there’s not more empty space in the van?! Still packed. Still full. How does that happen?!

Yet again… after a full day at the art fair, then packing & shlepping it home…
it was back to the studio tonight for more glazing & kiln loading. There was and empty
shelf on the top of my back stack of the kiln. Plus, Corinne said that I could do another
layer or two on the front stack before she puts her sculptures in. So… despite my exhaustion,
I glazed more & loaded more. Until I couldn’t glaze no more…