Last night I threw twenty salty & pepper shakers. And then wrapped them up for the night. When I came back into the studio this evening, I found the typical condensation inside you’d expect. But I was intrigued by the little one spot on the plastic that had no moisture?! What gives?!

Upon closer inspection, I found that there was a teeny-tiny little hole in the plastic right there in the middle of the “dry spot.” Go figure.

Apparently, only twenty fit on my ware board. So that’s where I “had to stop” for the night. Next up, some stamping, trimming, slipping and hole punching to turn these into a new batch of salt & pepper shakers!

After Summer Camp, I finished adding handles to my latest batch of mugs.

It was moving along quite nicely, until it was time to teach my evening adult class… and I still had TWO handles to add. I “almost” got them done. Just two more. Two more and I would have been done. Instead, I had to come back up to my studio after class to finish those last two!!! So now they’re all under wraps for the night – and I’ll add some colored slip accents tomorrow!

Last night I continued my reclaiming of the “free” clay I got from Katie B.
The clay I had sliced thin was all dry, so I broke it up into small pieces and added it to my reclaim bucket. I then added enough water to cover the dried clay. Bubbles. Gurgling. And a slight hissing sound as the water seeped into the dry clay.

So now it sits… submerged & slaking. I’ll give it a few weeks, stir it up once & awhile, and when it’s ready… turn it back into “real” clay!!!

After camp, I went up to my studio to find a “surprise” pile of old clay to be reclaimed.

Katie Biderbost, one of my longtime pottery friends, gave me all of her “dead” bags of clay. She knows how much I love reclaiming to get free clay. So I sliced up several of the bags to help them dry out completely.

Tomorrow when they’re dry, I’ll crumble them up to add them into my reclaim bucket to begin the slaking process. Thank you Katie B. for the free clay!!!

It felt great to get back into the studio tonight after this weekend’s art fair in Evanston… and the start of another week of Summer Camp kicking off today. Luckily, the bowls I stamped last week were at a perfect leather-hard state for trimming. So now they are all trimmed, burnished, signed and drying upside-down.

Quick night in the studio tonight… and another two dozen done! Oh yeah, and five more bowls!!!

Another LONG day at the studio today!
Summer Camp this morning with 5-8 years olds.
Summer Camp this afternoon with 8-12 year olds.
And my Beginning Wheelthrowing Class this evening with adults.
Full spectrum of classes & ages.

Oh yeah, and I trimmed all forty mug cylinders too!!!

This evening was a very productive night in the studio. Wedging & throwing!
Already putting my new reclaimed clay to good use…

And since I’m just now beginning to build a whole new kiln’s worth of pots, you know I’ve got to start with my favorite… MUGS!!! So tonight I started by throwing the basic cylinders out of the new clay I just finished reclaiming. And I must admit… the clay was pretty darn sweet.  It threw very well. A good mix of who-knows-what???

After a week on the plaster bat, it turns out that my latest batch of reclaim clay gave me 129 pounds of FREE clay! Okay, so sure there was a lot of slicing, layering, pounding, layering, slicing, wedging, bagging and sweating… so I guess it wasn’t quite “free” after all. But you still gotta love reclaim!!!