
Thrown on Tuesday night, and trimmed tonight… just minutes before my SURFACE DECORATION class. I can’t wait to see what my students do with these “blank” cylinders… as tonight’s technique is mishima!!! More photos to come…

Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play |
Thrown on Tuesday night, and trimmed tonight… just minutes before my SURFACE DECORATION class. I can’t wait to see what my students do with these “blank” cylinders… as tonight’s technique is mishima!!! More photos to come…
Last night in class, we finished off Part Two of last week’s lidded jars demo. Tackling the knobs on the lids… with two knobs created while trimming (closest to the jars) and the other two with cute little finials wheelthrown onto the lids from an attached nugget of clay. Always good to have options!
Spent a little time in the studio this afternoon “finishing up” some of my recent class demo pieces. This was a request from my Intermediate Class to make a large two-part stacked piece. Kelly requested a planter… but I kinda think this landed somewhere “between” planter & vase?! I stuck with planter… and added drainage holes and threw a water trip tray today to go with it.
Did some late-night studio work this evening… adding some underglaze accents to this latest batch of terra cotta flower pots. Just gotta wipe off the surface… leaving the underglaze only in the stamps, and then a bit of clear liner glaze! Hoping to get these all done & ready for next weekend’s PLANTS & POTTERY POP-UP!!!
Nothing better on a damp & rainy day… than to play in the studio, getting ready to stamp some more flower pots… and binge watching the start of THE GREAT POTTERY THROW DOWN on HBOMax. Giddy-up!!!
After Tuesday’s “bowls-on-purpose” class demo, I kinda felt they still needed a little somethin’-somethin’!!! So today I did a bit of stamping, detailing & trimming! Making these bowls even more “not-so-basic”!!!
Last week in one of my pottery classes, we tackled some surface decoration using thick white slip for textures & patterns. Sure, I could have used colored slip… but I’m more intrigued by how the glazes might play well with these cool textures & grooves!
Finally finished stacking the kiln! Shelf by shelf. Post by post. Pot by pot. Tried to make some good choices as to which pot goes where for the best soda effects… in terms of air flow during the firing, as well as factors like clay type, glazed or not glazed, colored slips, etc. Hoping that the right pots in the right places will work out for the best in this firing tomorrow!!!
LOTS OF POTS!!!
Tons of mugs and so much more! All glazed, wadded & ready for a trip downstairs on the rickety Lillstreet freight elevator! Hence the masking tape “seat belts” so nothing hops off along the way!
Time to get some glaze going… luckily, I’m getting ready for a soda kiln firing, so it’s more about liner glazes, inlays & accents… and not fully glazing things. So it “might” go a little quicker?… but everything needs to be wadded too, so maybe not so much?!
Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
Lillstreet Studios ∙ 4401 North Ravenswood, Chicago, Illinois 60640 ∙ 773-307-8664 gary@firewhenreadypottery.com |