The new Summer class schedule is out and registration is now open.
Sign-up for a class and play in the clay this summer! 10-weeks of fun!

I will once again be teaching my Tuesday night class for multi-level beginners.
It’s the perfect class for brand new beginners, and repeat beginners who still want to refine their techniques… as well as people who may have played with clay years ago and really just want to get dirty again! The class syllabus is customized to fit the mix of students each session. Of course we cover all of the basics, but we also push a little further to cover topics that the returning beginners are ready to tackle!

Beginning & Advanced Beginning Wheelthrowing on Tuesdays from 7:00-10:00pm.
The ten-week class session runs from June 18th through August 20th.
And if you register before May 27th and save twenty bucks off your class!
You can register in person at Lillstreet Art Center or click here to register online.

And lookey here… on page 6 of the Lillstreet Summer Class Catalog,
there’s some beautiful stamped mugs drying on a studio shelf… if I do say so myself.

From my friend Kelly on Facebook…
My favorite Baby Feeder mug….and Ryann’s too!

And she should know… Ryann is baby number ten!!!

Still making. Still stamping. Still trimming. Still drying.
Still trying to bump up my inventory for this summer’s art fair season! Coming soon!!!

Tonight was the last night of our 10-week pottery class. It went by so fast.
We celebrated with a lot of great potluck food… chicken, samosas, sushi,
guacamole, cheese, brownies, two kinds of homemade cream puffs, and way
too much more! Including ice cream sundaes with my homemade hot fudge…
and a special late “entry” from a former student of baked kale chips!!!
Just for the record… I prefer my hot fudge!!!

We also finished our class with a fun “Mug Exchange” where everyone brings
in a mug they made during class. We do a fun hidden-trading-white-elephant-
kind-of-game where everyone puts in a mug and leaves with someone else’s mug.
Nadine got my stamped green celadon mug, and I came home with
an amber celadon beauty by Dave Benjamin.

So when Kristen came into the studio last weekend with her adorable son AJ,
she wanted to buy a new mug. So she “shopped” off my studio shelves while
AJ was making his ornaments. And when she had found just the right one…
I wrapped it up and it was a sudden & surprise birthday present for Kristen!!!

Hope you like your new mug Kristen… and that you have a wonderful birthday today!

It was a productive evening in the studio.
Throwing cylinders and hoping a new holiday ornament design might come my way.
It didn’t come fast enough… so I just kept making more & more cylinders!!!

When in doubt, make more mugs & tumblers… right???

When you’ve got twenty cylinders stamped, trimmed and at the perfect leather-hard state,
you’ve got to start attaching handles quick before the cylinders dry out. So I start by
wedging my clay, making sure it is the same clay as the cylinders themselves. Then I cut
the wedged clay up into smaller pieces and pound them against the table to create these
little “carrot” shapes.

Then I pick one up from the fat end at pull handles the traditional way. Basically by dragging
a wet hand down the “carrot” tube from top to bottom. The slippery friction makes the clay
stretch. By switching around your hand positions, you can create handles of different shapes
and widths. When I get mine to the right size & shape, I quickly give ‘em a flip and loop ‘em
over. They sit this way for a few minutes so that the clay can stiffen up a bit. If you try to attach
them when they are too wet, the handles don’t hold their shape… they get all mushy looking.

When they are ready, I cut off the portion for the handle that I need to attach to the mug
cylinder. Each one is then scored & slipped, and carefully attached to the cylinders.
Paying close attention to the placement & size of each handle and how they “fit” to the
cylinder itself. As I finish each handle, I put the mugs back on my plastic ware boards,
give them a quick spray of water and then wrap them up again overnight. I like to keep
them wrapped in the hopes that the moisture levels between the cylinder and the handle
might even out a bit so they can dry & shrink more evenly later.

Today, while I was attaching my handles, I was also watching this informative DVD of
Tara Wilson as she was demonstrating at the 2009 NCECA Conference. She makes these
wonderful forms, very clean, very smooth, very voluptuous. She does a lot of darting &
altering of her thrown forms, and then fires them in a wood fired kiln to create wonderful
flashing surfaces & finishes. Always fun to watch someone else show how they do
their work… as I continue to add my handles… again… and again… and again…

All class demo bowls trimmed & unwrapped.
All mug cylinders trimmed & wrapped.
Tomorrow it’s got to be handles, handles, handles!!!

So we’ve opened the flood gates, and I’m back in studio production mode!
Monday night I started by throwing a bunch of cylinders that will become mugs.
Tonight they were ready to be stamped… so I did… again, and again, and again…
And here’s the “proof”… before & after and the stamp that did all the hard work!

So now they’re all stamped, but they were still too wet to be trimmed. A little squishy still.

They’re all wrapped up overnight so they don’t dry out too fast. Hopefully they”ll be ready
to trim and add handles in the next day or so. Don’t want them to dry too fast!!!
Most people don’t realize how important TIMING is in pottery. Catching the clay at the right
moment to stamp, then a little later to trim & add handles. Waiting for “leatherhard” can be
tough. But if you miss the window of opportunity, your clay can get too dry too fast
and then it might be too late to stamp… or worse yet, too dry to trim!

It’s been a slow start for me getting back into the studio.
I’ve been quite the slacker through the holidays. Enjoying some time off.
Sure, a few small projects here & there. But tonight was the night to actually kick-off
some full production mode! And why not start with my favorite?!… MUGS!!!

So I started by wedging up some balls of reclaim clay. Wedged and ready to go…

So then the throwing began… and it felt GREAT to be back behind the wheel!!!
And as always, I prefer to throw on my plastic bats. I have quite a few of these square bats.
Love ‘em… and they take up so much less space on my work table! As you can see, part of my
table is already covered with my large plaster bat and a large pile of goo… aka – reclaim clay!

Once they’ve dried just enough to not be squishy & sticky, I wire them off the bats again
and condense them down onto my plastic ware boards. Again, it’s all about conserving space
on my work tables… so I have room to make more!!! Plus, it’s a lot easier to cover them all
with plastic like this, than if they were spread all over the place on twenty separate bats.

Next up?… stamping, trimming, handles, slip painting, drying, firing, glazing & firing.
Wedging & throwing is the easy part… and just the beginning of more to come.