Tonight before class I had a wonderful visit with a fellow potter from South Carolina. Stephanie follows my blog and decided to put a visit to my studio on her itinerary while here in Chicago for her husband’s business trip. It was great to meet them both, talk pottery and give them a tour of Lillstreet Art Center. I hope they enjoyed their visit as much as I did… and Stephanie is taking a mug home as a souvenir!

As I was leaving the studio tonight, I decided to exit through the classrooms to chat with friends and to see if I had any class demos that had come out of the kiln.

Well… I hate when this happens…

Apparently one of them did in fact come out of the kiln. It’s what happened next that I would love an explanation for. My slip demo plate was sitting on the bisqued cart just like this. In two pieces!!! It obviously got broken during the unload, or by a careless student. I understand accidents happen. But they could have at least left a note!

On the good side… at least we can see how even my throwing & trimming were… I guess we’ll chalk this one up to “another” demo. One that I didn’t plan on sharing.

The 2013 Student Member Show opened today in the Lillstreet Gallery.
And while I’m not part of the show, it’s great fun for me to see so many
of my previous students & friends in the show. A lot of great pottery, sculpture,
jewelry & paintings by a lot of great artists. The show only runs for a week…
so hurry in today!

The soda kiln has been rebuilt. Brick by brick… with a nice curved arch.
Remember, the old kiln was suffering from a sagging arch, so it’s good to see it back in place. And so fresh & clean. At least for one last day. It will never be this clean again… the Lillstreet soda class is loading the kiln tomorrow night for the inaugural firing of the new soda kiln. Firing on Saturday… the new soda will be added Saturday night leaving it’s permanent mark on the fresh, clean bricks!

Well, it looks like they finished building the new soda kiln today at Lillstreet. Yeah!!! Huge thanks to Doug Jeppesen & Neil Estrick for leading the team to get the job done. As well as soda monitors Fred, Amanda, Adam & Sam. So nice to have anew kiln with a new arch. Remember my last soda kiln firing?… the last firing in the old kiln. You’ll see how the arch of the old kiln was nothing arch-like… it was almost straight across and not very safe! Here’s a little reminder…

So clean. So new.
Yep, a couple firings should take care of that!

Today they added the arch. The bricks are in and the wooden frame is gone!
If you recall the photos from my last firing in the old soda kiln, our “arch” was pretty much straight across. Good to see that this kiln is starting out with a pretty dramatic arch.

Thanks to Lillstreet Soda Monitor Amanda for sharing these photos on Facebook…
and for being part of the kiln rebuilding team. You guys are rockin’ it!!!

The kiln rebuilding looks to be coming along nicely. Today the team got the steel frame back in place. As well as building the wooden frame for the arch bricks to sit on. The kiln looks a little smaller than the old one… but I’m sure it will “grow” as they add the arch bricks tomorrow.

Doug Jeppesen, Neil Estrick and the kiln building team made some great progress today on the new soda kiln at Lillstreet Art Center. It’s starting to look like something is coming together! Can’t wait to see those brand-spankin’-new kiln bricks after a few soda firings!!!

Several skids of new kiln bricks showed up at Lillstreet today. Looks like some kiln building is about to take place!?… I think the plan is for Doug & Neil and the kiln building team to start building tomorrow. Can’t wait to see it all come back together.