Handles are attached & mugs are made. So now it’s time to add some accents of colored flashing slip before I set them out to dry. I like to paint the top “banded” area, and a little touch of color on each of the stamps. If all goes well, this colored slip will turn orange in my next soda firing!

Time to make some more mugs… or at least start adding handles! I pull them the old-fashioned way, and then loop them over so they can set-up a bit. I’m not sure what it says about me, but this kinda reminds me of a Rorschach Test… butterfly?… rib cage?… you tell me!!!

Just a quick morning of wheelthrowing… but it’s FAR too nice outside to work in the studio all day. So… wrapping them up because my bike is calling me again… gotta go play outside!!!

Kicking-off the weekend with a big pile of reclaimed clay! It’s been “slaking-down” in my reclaim bin for quite awhile now… finally time to pull it out, dry it up a bit, start wedging… and then start working with my new pile of FREE CLAY!!!

I’ve always said that I kind of enjoy waxing the bottoms of pots… it’s the actual glazing part that I’m not a huge fan of… HA!!! So it wasn’t so painful yesterday during Summer Camp when I waxed all of the bottoms of the kids’ wheelthrown pots… while they were busy glazing their terra cotta handbuilt mugs! This table full is just the morning camp… and then I got to do it again for the afternoon camp kids too!!! Not too shabby for just two days of wheelthrowing, huh?

And why stop with a clean floor?…
My Summer Campers also volunteered to wash their ware boards both front & back before putting them away for the day.

Now if only we could get some of the adult pottery students to follow the kid’s lead… cleaning floors, cleaning wareboards… dare to dream, right???

Summer Camp is the best… especially when you have a great group of kids for the week! And quick enough they’ve all realized that I’m not kidding with Gary’s Summer Camp Rule #3… “Whatever mess you make, you WILL be cleaning up!” And they’ve been doing a great job with keeping the room clean at the end of the day… and smiling… and laughing… and helping each other… even though we’ve already had two spilled water buckets this week!

Everyone grab a sponge!!!

Okay, so I’ve been a little busy with unloading my soda kiln, scraping shelves, kiln washing the shelves, teaching & Summer Camping!!! So here are a few “delayed” shots from Monday night’s unloading. I’m pretty pleased with all of the bright pops of color throughout! So glad that soda-firing does not have to be all gray & brown all the time!

Another “sneaky-peek” as start to unbrick the soda kiln. It was tough to wait… but I had Summer Campers all day who had to learn how to throw on the wheel (in three hours?) More fun with them tomorrow… but now they’re gone so I’m hoping to unload before I teach again tonight!!! Fingers crossed… so far so good!!!

After a couple hours of “pottery Tetris” last night… I finally had the soda kiln stacked & loaded with a LOT of pottery. Luckily, I had “over-glazed” in my studio so I had a few extras pieces to choose from that didn’t quite make it into this kiln… so they just will have to wait until my next soda firing. Oh well… I think there will be “plenty of pots” for my next couple art fairs!