Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
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: mugs, stamped, surface decoration, textures

Some of the newest “hybrid mugs” fresh from the kiln! Loving the textures & patterns – and how the soda-firing really makes them POP!!! All of these will be at “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” this weekend. I’m guessing they might go fast… so you may want to come early!

Or at least I hope they do…

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: handbuilding, mugs, patterns, textures, wheelthrowing

Pretty excited about this first batch of “hybrid” mugs… half wheelthrown, half handbuilt… using my new MKM Pottery Tools for some great patterns & textures. I’m pretty sure the soda kiln is going to LOVE making all of these textures really pop!!!

Categories: mugs, process, production, stamped

Making a few more stamped mugs on another Mugshot Monday!
Score, slip, attach, repeat… MUGS!!!

Categories: challenge, food, friends, mugs

So while I was working on these new mugs… look what showed up!!! WHOO-HOO!!! I had a surprise visit from master tile-maker Mike Skiersch bearing a pack of the newest flavor of OREO’s!!! Which also means he WON a free mug… as I had posted that challenge a couple days ago!!!

Categories: mugs, process, production, stamped, surface decoration

Another day of making mugs! Adding handles & adding colored flashing slip accents. A band of color around the top & a dab of colored slip on each stamp. If all goes well, this flashing slip with change to vibrant shades of gold in an upcoming soda firing!

Categories: mugs, process, production

Score, slip, attach, repeat… repeat… repeat. Mug handles all attached & ready to start drying slowly! Just in time to make it downstairs to teach class tonight! The perfect way to celebrate another Mugshot Monday!

Categories: mugs, process, production

Handles pulled & looped over so they can start setting-up. I like to loop them like this so they “dry” a bit with the curve already established before attaching them to the mugs. A little bit of finesse is needed while attaching them later… but most of the handle curve is already there!

Categories: mugs, process, production

Here we go again… another day of adding handles onto mugs! You know mugs are my FAVORITE thing to make… so here we go! Starting with these carrot-shaped nuggets of clay getting ready to pull handles the old-fashioned way!