After a little splash of clear glaze… and nice electric firing…
my niece Taylor’s handmade set of dinnerware is all done! And ready for her
to cook us all dinner and serve it up on her new dishes! Shhh… don’t tell her…
I want them to be a surprise. She doesn’t know they’re done yet…

As camp was about to start this morning, I was quickly loading another bisque kiln.
Hurry… and I quickly learned that my ovals don’t pack quite as tightly as I would like.

The second layer was glazed terra cotta… my niece Taylor’s plates being fired!
Don’t panic… that groovy green color is actually low-fire clear glaze!

The third layer packed much tighter than the first. I love when there’s enough
greenware to pack the kiln tightly – and not “waste” precious kiln space.

Thanks to my friend Katie Biderbost who had some smaller mugs & pitchers
that fit in “perfectly” and helped fill the layer. Katie’s been working at Lillstreet
for years, and is now making these precious little pieces with some really
tight slip trailing. I can’t wait to see how her beautiful blue glaze breaks over
the decorations!

Once I had loaded my work, and Katie’s pieces, I had to rush off to camp. I left a layer open
on top for another studio-mate Karen Patinkin to top off with a few of her beautiful platters!

Tonight I unloaded my latest bisque kiln… with a few pieces of terra cotta
thrown in for good measure. The bottom layer was filled with the wall pocket vases
that I made last week. I tried to fit them all in… but ran out of room. One of them
had to squeeze in sideways. And another two had to go to the top shelves!

Also in the kiln, were three new birdhouses just in time for the Evanston Lakeshore Art Fair.
I just need to find the perfect twig to stick into the hole for the perfect perch for our fine
feathered friends as they decide to move into their new residence!

After unloading the kiln, I spent the rest of the evening glazing the wall pockets…
lining them with temoku glaze, inlaying glaze in the stamps, spraying a bit of glaze
for some color accents, and wadding each of them… getting them ready for a soda kiln!

With crazy storms rolling through Chicago Friday night, I thought we were safe today.
It was cloudy, overcast and wet from the overnight storms, But nothing crazy going on.
So I was looking forward to a day of productive home projects! Laundry, dishes, cleaning,
bills… you know, all those things you put off because it’s nice out and you “need” to go
outside and play! So I put my laundry in the machine… trying to stay productive…
when all of a sudden the power went out, followed by a huge “BANG.” Great…
and here’s me with my laundry in the washing machines downstairs! And with no power,
there goes my “productive” day at home!!!

So… I just “had to” go for another bike ride to pass the time, right?
And luckily, when I got home a several hours later we were back on.
Apparently, a transformer blew and took out three power poles that were down in the alley
as few blocks away! Made me think how glad I was that my electric kiln at the studio
was fired the day before! I doubt the power outage in my neighborhood would affect the
studio, but it does make you think how much we rely on the electric power to be there
when we need it… and how “trapped” we feel when it’s not there!!!

So this week I had projects firing in two different electric kilns.
One turned out to be a good kiln. Another would turn out to be the bad kiln.
Kind of like LOST’s “The Evil Twin”… Jacob & “Man In Black”… but I digress…

The Good Kiln.
So my own kiln actually worked out well. And the birdhouses turned out nicely.
I stained the sides with black underglaze, and then glazed the roofs and awnings.
A quick overnight firing to cone 05 – and I unloaded them today. Still need to find
some twigs to insert as “the perch” and then they’re good to go!

The Bad Kiln.
However… not so good for the kiln load of kid’s projects from my first week of
Summer Camp. My kids worked really hard on Monday creating terra cotta flower boxes.
We built them on Monday, decorated with textures and colored underlazes. On Tuesday,
we coated them in clear glaze and set them out in front of fans to dry quickly…
so they could be fired on Wednesday with a long preheat so all the kids’ projects “survive.”
Basically the same system we’ve used for years… with only minor glitches… well…
Well, apparently the 10-hour preheat was mis-programmed as a 10-minute preheat!!!
Ka-boom!!!  oops…

I’ll find out tomorrow how bad it was, but the kiln loaders were working on another kiln
when they heard at least three pieces blow up… literally. So today, my campers all rebuilt
new flower boxes “just in case” and they will be allowed to dry slowly & be fired next week.
Let’s hope we can all “resolve” the firing issues as the kid’s Summer Camp kicks into
high gear next week… and I do my first session of Chess Camp next week!!!

With the Schaumburg Prairie Fine Arts Festival right around the corner…
and final preparations, pricing & packing well under way, I decided to add one
more kiln just to add a little more pressure into my already hectic week?!

So today I helped load a cone 10 reduction kiln with a few more pieces for the show.
I’m sharing the kiln with two other studio members who are getting ready for their
art fairs the following weekend. The back stack of shelves is all Marian’s, while the
front is a mix of mine , Karen’s and Marian’s.

So the kiln is loaded and will be fired all day tomorrow… cooled on Thursday…
and unloaded on Friday just in time to come to the art fair – without a moment to spare!
Glazed, stacked, packed and ready to go… after Karen makes one last check!

It was a long wait today… as the kiln temperature dropped ever so slowly.
I kept opening it slowly to “encourage” the cooling process; being careful
not to open it too quickly. When it got to about 250 degrees, I felt it was okay
to unbrick the door. And then it was time to start unloading the kiln.
Like a little kid on Christmas…

It’s always fun to unload the kiln – to see the results of your hard work. And to see how
things have been transformed during the atmospheric firing process. It was a very
tightly packed kiln. I was concerned that there may be some “dry patches” in the kiln
because it was packed too tight… luckily the soda made its way through the kiln and hit
everything quite nicely… if I do say so myself. Only two mugs were on the “drier” side.
All in all, it was a great firing with great results.

But then, after unloading and packing everything into boxes to get it home…
I still had to clean the kiln, scrape & kiln wash all the shelves, sweep out the fire box
and all of that fun stuff that comes with maintaining the kiln! Exhausting…

This morning’s sunrise was beautiful. Quiet. Serene. And not too chilly.
A beautiful glow on the horizon down on the jetty by North Avenue beach.

After the sun peaked out, and I had taken my sunrise photos…
I turned around to enjoy the beauty of the Chicago skyline as well.

On the way home, I stopped in at the studio to check on my soda kiln.
And it was well over 500-degrees - still kinda toasty!!! So I pulled the peeps
and took off a layer of the bricks along the top arch to help speed up the
cooling process. I’ll go back in a few hours to open the damper, work in the studio
for a few hours, start gradually unbricking… and hopefully get it cool enough
to unload later this evening! I can’t wait…

I just stop in at the studio to check on my kiln… and it is still over a thousand degrees!!!
Too hot to pull the peeps to get it cooling a little quicker! With a LOT or work and
a LOT of shelves, it’s going to take a little longer than usual to cool. Ill check back later
tonight to get the cooling process “officially” started.