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

Back to basics… making more mugs! But this time I have a special holiday plan. Working on something special… if I get a little “lucky”?!

Categories: pottery, production, wheelthrowing

And when you make a bunch of flower pots, you also need to make a bunch of water drip trays to go with them!

Categories: pottery, process, production, wheelthrowing

Making a quick batch of flower pots… while looking forward to my “Plants & Pottery Pop-Up” down near Peoria over the third weekend of May! If I play my cards right, I’ll be headed down with a bunch of pottery, as well as some plants to fill them!!!

Categories: classes, production, stamped

One of the requests from my Intermediate Wheelthrowing class was to tackle some soup or chili bowls. I’ve never made them quite honestly… but always up for a challenge! So I’m starting with a matched set of six! We’ll call it a test run…

Categories: production

Cylinders trimmed & drying… wait, WHAT?!

Perfectly smooth? No stamping? No texture? No patterns? Don’t panic… I kinda have a plan for these! You know how I love a good plan! More soon…

Categories: mugs, process, production

Well, that’s another batch of mugs with attached handles!
Done in “plenty” of time… now off to teach class tonight!

And what’s part of tonight’s class demo?… per Jeannine’s request… pulling & attaching handles! Gonna do this all over again later tonight… but maybe just a few during class!!!

Categories: mugs, process, production

Pulled some handles & looped them over so they can set-up a bit before attaching to the mugs. It’s not like I pulled all that many… it’s just that they look kinda cool from all directions!!!

Categories: process, production, studio

Getting ready to pull some mug handles. Starting with carrot-shaped nuggets of clay… but it looks a bit like Stonehenge has toppled over like Dominoes?!

Categories: mugs, process, production, stamped, stamps, textures

Getting back to basics… throwing cylinders…
making textured impressions one-by-one, stamp-by-stamp!
You know how I love making mugs… always a good place to start up again!

Mug 1

Mug 2

Mug 3

Mug 4

Mug 5

Mug 6

Mug 7

Mug 8

Mug 9

Mug 10

Mug 11

Mug 12

And for now they’re back under wraps drying a bit to leatherhard… at which point I’ll be able to trim the bottoms and then add handles! Back to making mugs again!

Categories: process, production, studio, tools

More trimming, more fun.
You know how I love trimming…
especially with my DiamondCore Tools & Giffin Grip!
Two of my favorite tools working well together to get the job done.
Spinning fast, gripping tight & trimming sharp!
Especially on these pieces still left over from last session… before the holidays!!!