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

Stamping more bowls… just adding some textures & patterns around the rims to celebrate another TEXTURE TUESDAY!

Categories: bowls, production, wheelthrowing

My students all know how much I LOVE a good spiral…
too bad they’re “not around” these days for me to play with…
err, teach.

I miss them… and I kinda miss them making fun of my spiral bowls!!!

Categories: art fair, porcelain, process, production, stamped

Working on a new batch of porcelain ovals… trying to stay motivated with the thought that “someday” we might get to play at art fairs again?! I just can’t wait to get outside to play with people again!!! This “solo” stuff is getting old real fast!!!

Categories: porcelain, process, production, stamped, stamps

Back in the studio for another VERY quiet night alone… stamping some more porcelain patterns! One-by-one. All the way around. So much more fun when there are people around the place to distract me from getting my work done!

Categories: production

Stamped, trimmed and drying!
Not too shabby after a good afternoon “socially-distant” solo bike ride!!!

Categories: porcelain, pottery, process, production

Sure, I still have some spoon rests in inventory…
Who knew everyone would be cooking so much at home these days??? All day. Every day. But had I somehow known about all of this COVID-19 craziness in advance & made a plan… I would have started making more spoon rests a lot sooner than tonight!!!

Categories: mugs, porcelain, process, production, stamped

Making some porcelain “carrots” before making porcelain handles. I think it’s a god shape to start with… wedged and compressed into this shape before pulling into handle shape.

So I just finished pulling some traditional handle. I just gotta let them set up a bit… and then I can start attaching them to mugs!!! I like to loop then over like this so that they are already most-of-the-way into curved handle shape before they start to set-up. Of course there can be a lot of re-shaping after they’re attached to the mug!

Here we go…
Score… slip… squish… attach… repeat… repeat… repeat…

Just finishing up the latest batch of porcelain mugs on another Mugshot Monday. Handles are attached & under wraps for the night as they start to dry slowly. Tomorrow I will do a little clean-up on them before I unwrap to let them dry completely.

Categories: porcelain, process, production, stamped, stamps

Tonight I got to do a little stamping here & there… and there… and there… just a few more porcelain cylinders working their towards becoming more mugs!!!

Categories: porcelain, production, studio

Playing with a bit of porcelain while working in my ever-so-quiet & isolated studio. Not a single person to chat with… which I guess is good as we need to stay safe. But I also need some human face time… even if it is from a safe distance! But still… no one!!!

Categories: platters, porcelain, process, production, sgraffito, tools

My original plan was to have these sgraffito platters ready for my first art fair in April. Well, that’s been cancelled… but I’m still trying to stay on top of things. So here’s some of my latest sgraffito fun in the studio. Working on a few platters using my favorite DiamondCore carving tools!

Platter #1

Platter #2

Platter #3

Platter #4

Platter #5