Finished loading last night… carefully stacking every shelf from back to front & bottom to top. You want to get in as many pieces as possible, while still leaving enough room for the soda atmosphere to move around inside & hit every pot. Lots of new stuff just in time for next weekend’s ART IN THE BARN in Barrington.

Last night I brought studio cart down to the kiln room to start loading the soda kiln. I like to use these masking tape “safety belts” to keep my pots from jumping off the shelves while heading down in the rickety freight elevator.

Painting some colored flashing slip on a few last-minute pieces for my upcoming soda kiln! If all goes well, the slip will turn orange & the textures will all be accentuated by the soda-firing atmosphere! Fingers crossed.

Also finished off another batch of wheelthrown holiday ornaments. Getting ready for a bisque firing… then into a soda kiln for the final firing. New ornaments & holidays coming soon… sooner than you think!!!

This hasn’t happened for a LONG time… like when I started stamping.

But tonight I stamped some of the cylinders from Tuesday night’s class demo.
I could tell they were still far too wet… and I should wait another day or so.
But I didn’t listen to myself… and I ended up stamping right through the side of the cylinder!!!
Maybe good for a dribble glass???… or portion control… or most likely the reclaim bin!
It’s just clay!!! Listen to the clay next time… and wait…

Yep, a nice pile of reclaimed porcelain clay setting up in the studio. All from a bunch of dried scraps from a potter-friend up in Minnesota who doesn’t reclaim… but does save the scraps for ME!!! Can’t wait to start playing with nice some white clay!!!

Another Monday for making more mugs!!! Yep, after a busy weekend at ART IN THE GARDEN… there’s no rest for the weary! Gotta make more… more… more! I have another soda kiln to fill in a week and a half… yikes! Making more stuff for ART IN THE BARN!!!

So last Friday night, I rolled my studio cart down to the kiln room… via the jenky freight elevator… yikes! Everything arrived safely and I was all glazed & wadded… ready to start loading the soda kiln. The challenge is always to “squeeze in” as many pots a possible… while still leaving enough open spaces for proper air-flow through the kiln so the soda atmosphere can make its way though to hit all of the pieces! Here we go…. giddy-up!

Another batch of pumpkins “growing” in my studio…
just a little “pumpkintizing” here & there…
grooves, lines, bulges, warts, stems… PUMPKINS!!!

One last step before I hand them off to Cory McCrory to start her part of our collaboration project for ART IN THE GARDEN. It’s one of the coolest parts of that art fair… where all of the artists have a chance to do some fun collaboration projects with other artists. One-of-a-kind artworks that may never happen again! Just a great chance for we artists to “play together”.. and then share our craft with all of you. And some lucky customers will get to go home with these pieces at ART IN THE GARDEN. More to come…