So… my friend, studio-mate and fellow TV Jeopardy player… Karen Patinkin
has finally made her online debut. Welcome to the wonderful blogosphere Karen!!!
Now don’t get too excited… she doesn’t have a new blog… she doesn’t have
a new website… although I keep urging her to jump on the blog band-wagon.
But today she was featured on a Chicago-based blog “Chicago Now” that features
great things around town. And today she’s being “exposed” as one of
“The Best Kept Secrets” after 30 years of making beautiful pottery!

Check her out on “her first blog posting… Karen Patinkin: Best Kept Secret

This evening I glazed up the test tiles with the “mystery” glazes
that I scored from Tony when he moved out of his Lillstreet studio.
I’ve glazed two tiles for each glaze – one test is going into a cone 10
reduction kiln, and a second set is going into a soda kiln. I’m hoping to see
how they turn out and if the soda atmosphere does anything cool to the glaze.
Fingers crossed…

You know how tough it is some times for a potter to actually make something for themselves?
We’re always so busy making pots for shows, art fairs, kiln filler, etc… and never taking
the time to make that thing I’ve been wanting for quite some time now.

Well tonight was finally the night.

Last year I finally got around to making oval planters for my dining room windowsills.
But now I need one for outside my kitchen window. I “needed” it last summer…
and then I’ve “obsessed about it” all Winter. And with a hint of Spring the past couple days,
I knew I had to bite the bullet and take some time for myself.

So I threw the cylinder and turned it into an oval tonight. With some stamping around
the edge, it was “done” for the night. Tomorrow I will add a little “rope” texture along
the bottom and poke some drainage holes through the bottom. Hoping to get it all done
in time to put some plants in it this Spring!

So I loaded another electric bisque kiln tonight before class. I love loading kilns.
It’s like a three-dimensional, spatial-relationship puzzle trying to fill every space,
fit it all together and get as much in as possible! The beauty of a bisque kiln is that you can
carefully stack the greenware to optimize the spacing in the kiln. I always do good
at the bottom layer, but it always seems tougher as you get towards the top and start to
run out of “options” and no more smaller pieces to squeeze in. I hate leaving open spaces.
It seems like a waste of space. I should have made more!

Layer One: All mugs!

Layer Two: More mugs, bowls and berry bowls…

Layer Three: Bowls, berry bowls, berry bowl plates… and a couple mugs!

Layer Four: Plates… and my new butter dish “prototypes”!!!

A lot of little plates thrown today… hopefully I’ll get them all trimmed tomorrow?!

And hopefully… everyone will want to buy a ceramic berry bowl this Spring!!!
So today I spent the day at the studio turning the stamped bowls into berry bowls.
I trimmed the foot, then pierced the bottom with drainage holes. Once they were done,
I needed to find a place to let them dry… so I used “The Annex.”

“The Annex”… which is my friend Karen Patinkin’s empty studio which I so kindly refer to
as “The Annex” every time I need to “sneak” in and borrow her empty table top. So while
she’s off traveling somewhere in Timbuktu (literally) and won’t be back for awhile. It’s the
perfect place for me to dry the berry bowls! She’ll never know… unless she reads my blog?!

So now that they are drying… I need to make the saucer to go under each one!
Small plates with the same fluted rim treatment – no stamping, just keeping ‘em simple!

Also, I have found another great tool for making the holes in the bottom well-spaced and even.
I used to just guess visually and hope for the best. Some would work, some would be a little
wonky. This simple plastic disc has made all the difference in the world. They come in different
sizes, but this little size works great for me. It came as a set of two… one disc is divided into
even-numbered segments, the other disc is divided into odd-numbered segments. There are
little holes in the plastic to help mark the pot with even spacing before you actually go in
to cut the holes. Evenly spaced every time!

If you’re interested in getting your own disks, they cone from MKM Pottery Tools.
Phone (920) 205-2701 – or e-mail to:  mkmtools@sbcglobal.net

As the summer art fair season comes looming ever closer, day by day, week by week…
I’m trying to get a head start on my studio production. Focusing on producing more work
instead of lollygagging and letting the days slip by. So tonight I stopped in the studio
to stamp all of the bowls I threw on Wednesday. They were a little damp, but I stamped
anyway… sadly, too wet to trim. That will have to wait until tomorrow…

With the mugs drying on my rolling cart, my studio worktable was empty.
The perfect chance to spread out some of my reclaim clay to let it dry up a bit
on a large plaster bat. So here it is… my big gooey pile of clay!

All of my trimmings & dried clay scraps are stored in a large bin covered in water.
Over time, the dried clay pieces absorb the water and “slake” down into a slimey sludge.
Mix it up a couple times, add some more dried clay scraps, some more water. Waiting for
the time when my worktable would be clear for the plaster bat. The sloppy clay is scooped
out onto the plaster bat which will help absorb the moisture.

So this big mound of gooey mess will sit for a few days until it is back to clay consistency.
The a little wedging… okay, a lot of wedging… and I’ve got a lot of new clay again!!!
Ready to make more pots with my newly reclaimed, recycled & ready-to-throw clay.

After a lengthy “hiatus” from the studio while remodeling my bathroom…
the mug cylinders I had thrown before renovation began had “a little bit of a wait”
for handles & slip. Going in just to spray them now & again… trying to keep them
feasible… keeping them moist so I could finish them off. For about three weeks!!!

The bathroom project is finally finished… and tonight I finished the mugs!
Now they just need a couple days to dry… then into a bisque kiln…

Like I’ve said before, it’s kind of tough for me to get back into the studio
and start up the full-production routine again after the holidays. It seems
like I’ve been so busy for so long. And everything at the studio is clean…
empty… not wet… nothing drying… nothing urgent. So why hurry into it?

Well, today was the big kick-off. I finally sat down to do some throwing.
Back in the saddle so to speak. And what to start with?… mugs, of course!!!
We started the holiday season with over 100 mugs at the Holiday Home Show.
And now the inventory needs to be seriously replenished. So I wedged up some clay…
and boy did it feel great to get dirty again.

And then I threw the basic cylinders that will get stamped, trimmed, handled, slipped, dried,
fired, glazed and fired again in the weeks to come! It felt great to be back in the saddle again!