Tonight I tackled all of the porcelain reclaim I dried over the past two days. It was a lot of hammering, smashing & pulverizing to get it down to small pieces & powder. A good workout that will pay off with a lot of FREE clay! And look, it already filled up my large reclaim bin… plus a bit more in another bucket too!

After cranking through a lot of work getting ready for ART IN THE BARN, I found that I had a lot of clay scraps to reclaim.I’ve been breaking them up and submerging them in my reclaim bucket. So the scraps have slaked down & re-hydrated to a very wet, gooey clay. So I turned it out onto a large plaster bat. The plaster will draw the water out of the clay quicker… and in a couple days I can start wedging it up for a LOT of “free” clay.

And then since I had an empty reclaim bin… I decied to wash it out and switch to reclaiming some porcelain. I had a few scraps of my own to break up. But I also had several clay bags full of porcelain from my friend & potter Emily.

So I started breaking them all up all of the scraps… and then dumped them into my reclaim bin with water.

But then I found several of Emily’s bags had clay that wasn’t quite dry yet. Reclaiming clay works so much better when you start with dry scraps. The water seems to soak in more evenly and faster. So I spread out the rest of Emily’s porcelain scraps so they can dry overnight.

More breaking, crushing, smashing and submerging tomorrow!!!

Not quite a morning sunrise, yet surprisingly similar color-wise?!
My day has begun and the kiln is warming up slowly.
It’s gong to be a long day of firing before we get to Cone 10.

A FULL day of glazing & wadding. Followed by more than a couple hours of loading. Luckily everything pretty much fit. Okay sure, some sections might be a little tighter than I would normally like in a soda kiln. But oh well, it is what it is. So now it’s all packed, loaded and bricked up for the night. Time for a “couple” hours of sleep and then right back to start the firing in the morning!

Here’s the back stack… one shelf deep.

And the front stack… two shelves deep… and DONE.

My studio cart full of glazed pieces ready to be loaded into the soda kiln.
Complete with my masking tape “seat belts” to keep the pots from jumping off
the cart during their ride downstairs on the rickety freight elevator!

Got an early start in the studio this morning… as it’s going to be a LONG day of glazing!!!

As my latest bisque kiln continues to cool…
I thought I would get a start on all of the glazing that I need to get done!
And why not start with my favorite?… MUGS!!! Okay, so there’s a few.

Okay, so I went with off-the-side!!!
Handles have been attached and colored slip accents have been added.
Now they’re drying on an elevated plastic grid to help speed up the drying process evenly. I’m running a little late… these will “hopefully” go into my bisque kiln later tonight? Very late tonight after I teach my pottery class, then a slow pre-heat overnight!!!

Just finished adding some color flashing slip accents to the teapots. I think this one is pretty much done… two more to go…

My latest trio of teapots is one step closer. Still under wraps to keep them workable.
They now have their lids & spouts… just waiting for their handles!!!
Over-the-top  – or – off-the-side???