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!

After a long day of glazing & wadding yesterday, I finally had my studio cart filled and ready to roll downstairs to the kiln room. As the freight elevator is not the smoothest of rides, I always use some masking tape “safety belts” to keep any stray pots form jumping off the cart during their travels!

Stamps inlaid with glazes & wiped clean… now to add a liner glaze of tenmoku to match!

Starting off today with a batch of mugs that need to be glazed & wadded. I’ve applied a layer of tenmoku glaze into all of the stamped impressions to help accentuate the textures & patterns. Now to wipe it off… leaving the glaze inlaid in the stamps!

You know it’s my least favorite part of the pottery process. But it’s got to be be done. So I’ve been working the past couple days trying to make some headway through my bisque… as I need to fill a soda kiln this weekend! At least this accidental “smiling sponge” made me happy this morning to kick-off another day of glazing!!!

Trimming some perfect spirals with my DiamondCore Tools! Always fun to see how the trimmed ribbons pile up, fly off or trickle down the sides! Even with a “thinned-over-time” trimming tool, this Diamond Core Trimming Tool stays sharp & still does a great job… but I think I might need to replace the blade soon!!!