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

Looks like a great collaboration plan is coming together… keep it coming Cory!!!

Categories: collaborations, flowers, handbuilding, My Talented Friends

So here’s your first sneak peek at Cory McCrory’s textured beauties for ART IN THE GARDEN! Even without her whimsical colors, these handbuilt flowers are looking INCREDIBLE!!! I can’t wait to see them once Cory adds her fun colors & stains! I’m thinking that maybe these flowers are going to need a fun textured wall vase to hold them… oh wait… I “might” know something about that too?!!!

Categories: artists, collaborations, handbuilding

So now that my textured slab vases are moving along, it looks like my pal Cory McCrory is moving along with her part of the collaboration too! More to come…

Categories: handbuilding

The gourds are looking even better… now with some accents of colored flashing slips! Can’t wait to see what these look like when they come out of my next soda kiln firing!!! I have high hopes…

Categories: handbuilding

While everything else is speeding along in the studio… racing towards my next firing… I did find time to make some more gourds!!! I mean, pumpkins are cool… but I personally think gourds are even cooler!!!

Categories: art fair, collaborations, handbuilding

Working on some collaboration parts & pieces… textured of course! Working on a few “things” I can share with my pal Cory McCrory as part of our collaboration project for ART IN THE GARDEN!!! Gotta love a good “teaser” photo…

Categories: handbuilding, summer camp, terra cotta

After getting some “real tools” from my studio, my Summer Campers put their hands to work making some incredible terra cotta planters on Monday… glazing them on Tuesday. I have a small group of kids this week, but they’re still kickin’ it out of the park!!!

Categories: handbuilding, summer camp, terra cotta

Friday was a very busy day in my Sculpture Camp… everyone trying to finish up their sculptures & get ready for our Gallery Show. But also… the kids’ terra cotta birdhouses came out of the kiln too! I think they had kinda forgotten about them after working on their huge plaster sculptures… but once they saw the birdhouses, they were VERY EXCITED!!!

Categories: handbuilding, summer camp, terra cotta

This past week at summer camp, I taught a class called “SCULPTURES SMALL TO LARGE.” So we started the week with a fun clay project… constructing thematic terra cotta birdhouses and painting them with colorful glazes. It was a great group of kids… including two that had done the camp before, and came back for another round of Sculpture Camp with ME!!!

Categories: handbuilding, mugs, summer camp

This past week in Summer Camp, my kids were Wheelthrowing for the most part… but on Thursday my morning kids switched to handbuilding. Sure, they “could have” made anything, but I gave them a challenge. I told them that I wanted them to make two mugs with a theme that ties them together. Some of the themes they chose?… cookies & milk… fruit & veggies… earth & moon… dragon & dinosaur… cat & dog… and so on…

Once the mugs were built, the kids then switched to painting them with colored slips. Once done, they’ll dry and get bisque fired… and then someone at Lillstreet will be glazing them with clear glaze after camp ends. The kids will need to come back about two weeks after camp to pick up their masterpieces!

And then once they were done, we set them aside so the slip could dry a bit… and put them together in their “sets” of two!