This afternoon after camp, my 5-year old niece Taylor stopped by the studio
to play in the clay along with my sister Jen (her mom), and my parents. It was
a special afternoon as she was working in clay, creating her own plates before she
heads off for her big adventure into starting Kindergarten! Taylor has been learning
to cook in the kitchen and loves to have people over so she can make lunch. So I
decided that she needs her own set of plates & bowls to serve her food on. We all worked
hard to make an 8-piece set of textured terra cotta plates & bowls. I made the slabs,
she did the textures, my mom helped slump them into the molds and my dad trimmed
off the extra clay. They all worked on the smoothing & painting… all with Taylor’s
design guidance and insistence!!!

And I’m sure you’ve already noticed… how adorable my niece & sister look in their
vibrant tie-dye shirts! You know how I loves me tie-dye!!!

After the plates were finished & painted, we had another quick tour of Lillstreet,
chatted with a few of my previous students (thanks Patrick), and looked at the kilns
and my studio. Then we headed off for dinner at Superdawg. Followed by a not-so-quick
18-holes of miniature golf. Considering it was only her second time golfing, she did
extremely well – and remained relatively focused & alert during the game!

So today after camp, I stuck around and worked in the studio.
At first I was planning on going for another bike ride between camp
& my evening adult class, but it was far too hot & humid outside…
and my studio has air conditioning! So made the easy decision to stay
in the cool air and finish up a dozen mugs that were waiting for handles!

So the cylinders are not quite so bottomless anymore!
Thanks to a couple free hours between summer camp & my adult wheel class.
Now they’re “ovaled”… as well as stamped and slab bottoms attached.
The bottoms still need to be smoothed out & finished, but they’re one step closer!

Back in the studio and making bottomless cylinders.
Don’t panic… it’s just Step One.

When in doubt, go back to basics and make more mugs!
Good thing I love making mugs, huh?
Trust me, they’ll look more like mugs once I stamp, trim & add handles!

I’m firing another bisque kiln this Friday… and I don’t have enough
greenware to quite fill it. And you know how I hate an “empty” kiln.
I want it full of pots. I want it full of tiles. I want it full of fun.

So tonight in the studio I worked with some terra cotta creating low-fire “versions”
of some favorite standards. It’s a great chance to “fill” the rest of my bisque kiln
and well as finish off some new glazed work with a low-temperature single firing!
Which coincidentally is the same temperature as my stoneware bisque firing!
We’ll see if this terra cotta project pays off ?… either way, it was a fun night!

After a week of kid’s camp on the wheel, it felt great to get back behind my wheel
and actually make some new stuff in the studio… with my newly reclaimed clay!!!
Replenishing the supply just in time for the next art fair.

So I threw a series of enclosed forms – that will later be transformed into more
wall pocket vases. It felt great to be throwing again, and not having to stop
every 8-seconds to answer a kid’s question! Love ‘em dearly, but seriously…

So the Schaumburg Prairie Fine Arts Festival is just one week away!
And while I probably have more than enough work ready for the show, I definitely
suffer from that “uncureable artist disease” symptomatic of ALWAYS thinking
that you need to make more! Must make more… glaze more… finish more… in a week!

So I started off today with high expectations of making entire electric kiln’s worth of
terra cotta pieces – as they are low-fired and cone be finished with a single electric kiln.
Theoretically, I could make everything today, let it dry  over the weekend, glaze it on
Monday, load the kiln on Tuesday, fire on Wednesday, and unload on Friday…
just in time for the weekend’s art fair! But then… reality set in!

As I’m sharing a cone 10 reduction kiln on Wednesday, I still had some glazing to do for that.
And I thought better of glazing the work that is already done… instead of adding a whole
bunch of pressure on myself to crank out some last minute work.

So tonight I glazed some more pieces for next week’s kiln. As it is mostly Marian’s kiln,
I’m focusing my efforts more on smaller pieces, berry bowls and “kiln filler.” So I pulled out
my buckets of glazed, stirred them up, and started the night’s activities…

But still, after a night of glazing…. there’s still a few more piles of bisque waiting in the wings!
Already waxed, dried and stacked – with paper in between to keep the wax from transferring.

After the mini’s… I did a LOT of glazing! A lot of liner glazes. A lot of inlaid glazes.
A lot of wadding. With a bit of colored glazes sprayed on for accents here & there.
My studio cart filled up quickly… ready to be rolled downstairs to the kiln.
Well, not quite yet. Before I left tonight I rolled the cart and turned it around…
so now the entire other side of the cart can be filled with glazed pieces!!!

As mentioned, my rolling cart will travel downstairs for the kiln loading.
With a rickety freight elevator as my only means of transportation, I have found
that some masking tape “safety belts” tend to keep my pots safe… as they jiggle
and bounce around on the trip downstairs!

I will be loading my soda kiln next Friday, and then firing on Saturday.
And I still have quite the pile of bisque stacked up waiting to be glazed!

Miniature pots… Miniature vases… Miniature bowls… just a “little” glazing!!!