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

Just a couple more fun glaze combos from Chelsea… on a couple of my class demo pieces from several sessions ago! Like I said, I don’t like glazing. So some of my class demo pots tend to “pile-up” on my teacher shelf after bisque firing. So when Chelsea said she wanted to glaze a few things… I was there and ready to volunteer a few pieces! And if these cool color combos continue… I’m willing to offer up even more!!!

Categories: bowls, glaze

Another beautiful glaze combination done by my fellow Lillstreet teacher Chelsea! I made the bowl, but she made it sing! Several layers, some dipped, some painted, some splattered… all with a plan to optimize the drippy blends, yet to avoid running off the bottom onto a kiln shelf. Another unexpected success!

Categories: bowls, glaze

My favorite kind of collaboration… where I make the bowls and someone else glazes them for me!!! Yes, as I have said before many times… glazing is my least favorite part of the whole pottery process! So here’s one of my “class demo bowls” that Chelsea glazed as a demo for her class. Lots of glazes, lots of layers, lots of colors. Stunning glaze combos Chelsea!!!

Categories: bowls, classes, glaze, surface decoration

For the final class of my Intermediate Wheel class this session, we decided to do a trading-stealing-exchanging-White Elephant kind of game… with the category being large serving bowls. We had so many beautiful bowls in the mix… that all got mixed up, traded up & each went home to new homes!

Categories: bowls, glaze, patterns, surface decoration

Just one of my “not-so-basic” class demo bowls… after a banded layer of white slip, then carved through with leaf patterns. A quick layer of an amber celadon glaze tops it off. And I’m kinda diggin’ the sparkly gold flecks in the pooled areas.

Categories: glaze, mugs, stamped

Looks like Lisa is enjoying her perfectly purple mug while puzzling!

Categories: glaze, holiday, mugs, stamped

Green with envy… FRESH FROM THE KILN!

Here we have the full batch of handmade shamrock mugs in random shades of green! Gotta clean them up, take some photos & get ready for my SHAMROCK MUG SALE only on my pottery Facebook page… mark your calendars for this Friday at 7:00pm CST.

Click on www.facebook.com/firewhenreadypottery this Friday!

Categories: glaze, soda-fired, stamped, surface decoration, textures

This week has been crazy busy with teaching class & preparing for my Lillstreet 3-Day Soda-Firing Workshop this weekend… and getting some new stuff ready for “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” for next weekend. So I’ve spent a bit of time adding some inlaid glaze to these highly textured pieces.

There is already some colored flashing slip accent in the stamped areas… but I wanted the impressions to be highlighted too. So I’ve added some tenmoku glaze into them & gently wiped it off the top surface to reveal some more contrast that I’m hoping the soda kiln will love!!!

Categories: glaze, mugs, process, production, soda-fired, surface decoration, textures

So I’ve been glazing the latest batch of “hybrid mugs” in preparation for this weekends Soda-Firing Workshop. A simple liner glaze of tenmoku… and then I had to decide which ones to leave raw outside, and which ones need a bit more lovin’ & a bit more colored glaze accents before soda-firing.

Categories: glaze, platters, stamped, surface decoration, textures

The large purple platter has been so popular at my art fairs this summer… and I typically only had one per show! Well, this time… I HAVE TWO AUBERGINE PLATTERS for this weekend’s Mud & Metal Holiday Home Show!!! Yes, two… count them TWO!!!