Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: glaze, kiln firing, process, production

And then I rolled down my studio cart… the same one my Dad built for me several years ago! I have figured out that a full cart of glazed & wadded work pretty much equals a fully loaded soda kiln. The masking tape just works as a little “protection” so nothing jumps off the shelves while I take the rickety freight elevator downstairs… kinda like a pottery seat belt!!

Categories: collaborations, process, production

Playing with power tools! These boards aren’t gonna finish themselves!!!
Which means I need to keep working on these collaboration projects!!!
We’re a little over a week away from having it all come together… fingers crossed.

Categories: process, production, tiles

Roll, glue, stick, flip, press, repeat. Just adding a bit of wadding to every textured tile for my soda firing this weekend. They might look white now, but they’ve all got some colored flashing slips on them. So if all goes well, they should change to a range of oranges & yellows!!!

Categories: hybrid mugs, mugs, process, textures

Early morning “slip dip” for the latest batch of hybrid mugs. Adding some colored flashing slips to the textured “handbuilt” portion… which will change colors during a future soda firing! Just a little “clean-up” needed first…

Categories: hybrid mugs, process, production

It’s been a productive afternoon… and now I’m adding pulled handles to the hybrid mugs. Score, slip, attach, repeat… repeat… repeat…

Categories: hybrid mugs, process, production, textures

Trimming the bottoms on my newest batch of hybrid mugs. The bottoms are wheelthrown, the sides are handbuilt, and then shaped & finished in the wheel. Back & forth… and back & forth. You know I love trimming… AND a nice clean footring!

Categories: mugs, process, production

Just finished trimming this batch of mugs. Next up?… pulling & adding handles to make them truly mugs!!! Because I’m a firm believer that a mug must have a handle! Otherwise it’s just a cup!!!

Categories: hybrid mugs, process, production

Here we go again… another batch of “hybrid mugs” just starting up!!!

Categories: process, production, stamped

It was a very productive evening in the studio. Lots of stamping, trimming & finishing. I had a lot of oval vases, class demo bowls & summer camp demos to attend to. Luckily, I got them all done… and now they’re drying!

Categories: process, stamped, surface decoration

Finishing up a batch of large oval vases. Just adding some accents of colored flashing slip in the stamped textures. The colors will show up better after soda-firing… this slip should turn orange!!!