So when got back into the studio today, I unwrapped the not-so-basic bowls
from last night’s class bowl demo. And there were a few of them that still needed
a little help… they needed more details.

So I stamped… and stamped… and stamped… and added a few more details.
Much better.

You know I love my kiln filler… and tonight I finished up even more!
One last bisque this week, then it’s another soda kiln firing this weekend.
And it was great to use all those new mini stamps that come out of my last bisque.

Still working towards my next soda kiln… about 9 days away…
and I was kind of panicking thinking I may not have enough to fill the whole kiln.
So I decided to make some new textured slab vases. Great fun playing with textures.
Putting them all over the vases… part of the fun is that both sides of the vase are
different texture “pictures.” So the finished vase can be shown with one side…
and then turned around to look like a completely different vase a few days later!

Once these are dry, I’ll bisque them and do a little bit of glazing… inside & out…
and then let the soda kiln work its magic to help accentuate the textures!
I may have gotten a little out of control. And now I’m pretty sure I’ll have too much
work for the kiln! There might be a “few” pieces that don’t quite fit into the kiln…

As I was loading the kiln, I was carefully stacking bowls…
and began to notice how cool they started looking with the rhythmic repetition
of the curved & fluted rims, the details of the stamped details and the great shadows that
helped define the textures. I may have to consider this… and make some new nesting bowls?!

My answer is NO.
I love making small pieces that fit into all of the other pieces in the kiln.
Tumble stacked, piled together, nested, whatever it takes… a full kiln is a happy kiln!
I hate firing a kiln that is not well-packed. I feel like I’ve wasted space if it’s not full.
So the latest set of small bowls were intended to be “filler.” But then tonight I decided
to make even more! And even smaller! This time… I made a full batch of miniature vases!

So I threw them all “off-the-hump” and let them sit for a few minutes.
Then I back-tracked and started stamping the first ones as they were already getting stiff.
So now there’s even more to trim!… and even more to pack into my next bisque!!!

Yesterday I threw bowls. Today they were ready to stamp. So I did…

Now they just need to be trimmed…
and then they can all go into the bisque kiln early next week! One step closer…

So I’m getting ready for my next bisque kiln.
And I suddenly realized that I’ve “done it” again…
I have this habit of making a lot of stuff in series, not thinking it through
and realizing too late that they may not stack so well in the bisque kiln.
Mental note to self… bowls of the same size don’t nest & stack so well inside each other.

So tonight I decided to make some quick bowls of different & smaller sizes to use as
last-minute kiln filler. You know how I hate an ineffectively loaded kiln!!! So tonight I threw,
tomorrow I’ll stamp… and hopefully trim so I can do a bisque in a few days!!!

Same bowls, different angle… a view from above!
I’m kinda diggin’ the new stamped-inside look with the fluted rims! So far, so good…

Perfect timing… I went back into the studio today hoping to stamp the bowls I threw yesterday.
Luckily for me, they were at just the right “stiffness” for some good stamping! So I did..

Bowl #1 : before, during & after…

Bowl #2 : before, during & after…

Bowl #3 : before, during & after…

Bowl #4 : before, during & after…

Bowl #5 : before, during & after…

Bowl #6 : before, during & after…

Bowl #7 : before, during & after…

And the tools of the trade… my banding wheel, a couple of my handmade stamps,
a needle tool, bamboo skewer, chopstick & and a dowel rod. That’s it… voila’.

With “Empty Bowls” in full swing downstairs, I opted to be productive upstairs in my studio.
I ran downstairs to see what all the commotion was about… and it was great to see hundreds
of bowls all over the place & plenty of customers picking them up and donating to the cause!
I especially liked when I saw people carrying one of my bowls as their final choice! After all,
there were a dozen of my donated bowls to choose from!

Back upstairs, I started throwing some new pieces. Having received my “acceptance” letter
today for the Schaumburg Prairie Fine Arts Festival on Memorial Day Weekend, I thought I
better start making more flower pots for the Spring art fair selection! So I threw some more
traditional-style flower pots with the water dish attached.

What to do next?… well, there’s never enough bowls, right? So I decided to throw a batch
of bowls with B-Clay. Plan being that I will be ready for another soda kiln fairly soon,
and B-Clay turns out really nice in the back stack of the kiln… where most other clays
turn out “dry” after soda firing.

With my tables filling up quickly with freshly thrown pots, I had to make some room.
Luckily, the new batch of kitchen utensil crocks was already stamped and ready to be
trimmed. So I finished them off… and added decorative slip to a couple of them.

By the time I finished trimming the utensil crocks,
and made another trip downstairs to check out more “Empty Bowls”…
the new flowerpots were already stiff enough to start stamping! Giddy-up!

First with a single stamp pressed repetitively around the sides of the pot.
Then a small divot added around the rim to help with spacing.

With the proper spacing “indicators”… it is then pretty easy to “flute” the rim
all the way around. Consistently pressing the wet clay – enough to move the shape,
but not enough to squish or smoosh the shape of the pot… trying to avoid
an “ovalled-by-accident” flower pot!

After a few stamps… the new flower pots are decorated and ready to stiffen up to
leather-hard. They are now covered with plastic, as are the bowls. Tomorrow I plan to
head back to stamp the bowls. Maybe they’ll all be ready to trim on the next couple days.
And then I can make more!!!