Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: soda-fired, stamped, textures

Some soda-fired fun for another TEXTURE TUESDAY! No glaze on the outside, except some tenmoku inlaid in the stamped impressions. All of the color & shine comes from some flashing slips & the soda-firing process itself!!!

Categories: flowers, soda-fired, stamped, vases

Love this time of the year when everything is in bloom. Especially the lilac bushes with their fragrance wafting around bringing childhood flashbacks.

Categories: flowers, mugs, soda-fired, stamped

Some pretty pincushion protea also enjoying their time in one of my mugs…
perfect for Mugshot Monday!

Categories: flowers, mugs, soda-fired, stamped

Celebrating a little Mugshot Monday today with some “found flowers.” I’m not above “saving” some special event flowers from the trash to let them live a little longer in my studio! And I have plenty of mugs that will work as a fun vase for a few days!

Categories: kiln firing, pottery, soda-fired

So it’s been a busy week… with working all day, teaching three night classes, cleaning the kiln, biking & doing my taxes!!! Yes, I’m still working on my TAXES!!! But here’s the inside my soda kiln from last weekend… finally! Another beautiful firing with some great colors & flashing marks all the way through! Looking forward to spending some more time with each of these pieces as I start to prep & price them all for the upcoming art fair season! After I finish my taxes of course…

Categories: flower pots, flowers, soda-fired, stamped

Plants everywhere are loving their ceramic homes! So happy to be living their best lives in a handmade, stamped & soda-fired flower pots. And you know I want to make more happy plants… so I’m making more flower pots! Thanks Rick for sharing your beautifully blooming African violets!

Categories: soda-fired, stamped

And since I had tasked my THROWDOWN’ers to make a trio of candlesticks… and knowing that we would see them all again during our final potluck… I knew I wanted to make a set for myself!!! So I did… and then I soda-fired them too!!!

Okay, so “maybe” I made four… just as a back-up in case the soda kiln gods didn’t look favorable upon all of them?! Luckily, all four came out quite nice!!! If I do say so myself…

Categories: art fair, handbuilding, soda-fired, textures

Fresh from the soda kiln… my little boxes! Done just in time for “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS”… our Pop-Up Exhibition & Sale that starts tomorrow in Evanston! If all goes well, all four of the 4×4 artists will be making “little boxes” in their own medium for a very special display. I made a few extra… as I only “really” need four. But always hedging my bets in the soda kiln. Four boxes by four artists.

Get it?…. 4×4.

Categories: hybrid mugs, mugs, soda-fired, textures

You know how I promised you more… we’ll here are the last of them for today!

More textures. More patterns. More colors.
More flashing effects from the soda kiln.
And wonderful textures from my collection of hand rollers from MKM Pottery Tools!!!

Categories: hybrid mugs, mugs, soda-fired, textures

Even more textured fun for TEXTURE TUESDAY! You know I love pattern, texture & color… and how perfectly the soda-firing process works to make it all come together!!!