I’ve been looking forward to this all day… Celebrating NATIONAL PI(e) DAY!!! March 14th… also known as 3.14… also know as Pi. A yummy piece of cherry pie on a beautiful handmade porcelain plate made by my friend & teaching assistant Susan Slogoff. All hand-painted with black underglaze as the perfect contrast to the white porcelain!!!

Just one of my “not-so-basic” class demo bowls… after a banded layer of white slip, then carved through with leaf patterns. A quick layer of an amber celadon glaze tops it off. And I’m kinda diggin’ the sparkly gold flecks in the pooled areas.

As part of the GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN, my students we encouraged to finish their projects from Week Two for judging at Week 9… this past Thursday. Remember back when they had to throw a large serving bowl, pass it to another to match, and then pass it back to finish it up… and make coordinating serving utensils to go with it. Well here are the Top Three… congratulations Ashley, Katie & Aaron!

Some of the newest “hybrid mugs” fresh from the kiln! Loving the textures & patterns – and how the soda-firing really makes them POP!!! All of these will be at “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” this weekend. I’m guessing they might go fast… so you may want to come early!

Or at least I hope they do…

So here’s a quick peek at another wall installation I made for our “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” gallery show. Each piece is handmade, stamped, glaze-inlaid & soda-fired. I love how a random “constellation” cluster like this can fill a wall so beautifully! Smaller wall?… fewer pieces!!! Easy-peezy!

Putting together a little “surprise” for my GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN students… they might just recognize a few of these stamps… since THEY made them!!! Shhh… don’t tell anyone!

This week has been crazy busy with teaching class & preparing for my Lillstreet 3-Day Soda-Firing Workshop this weekend… and getting some new stuff ready for “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” for next weekend. So I’ve spent a bit of time adding some inlaid glaze to these highly textured pieces.

There is already some colored flashing slip accent in the stamped areas… but I wanted the impressions to be highlighted too. So I’ve added some tenmoku glaze into them & gently wiped it off the top surface to reveal some more contrast that I’m hoping the soda kiln will love!!!

So I’ve been glazing the latest batch of “hybrid mugs” in preparation for this weekends Soda-Firing Workshop. A simple liner glaze of tenmoku… and then I had to decide which ones to leave raw outside, and which ones need a bit more lovin’ & a bit more colored glaze accents before soda-firing.

A lot of stamping yesterday… followed by a LOT of colored flashing slip accents painted in all the right places today!!! You know I work best under deadline… rush, rush… it’s all coming together!!!

At the end of this week’s LILLSTREET THROWDOWN, we had a table full of beautifully stamped platters! My students killed it… using their own handmade stamps to create these platter masterpieces!

TINA’s platter… and WINNER of the stamped platter challenge!

LIBBY’s platter – and our second place platter!

BRITTANY’s platter – third place… and our only non-wheelthrower!

And now the rest… in no particular order…

TRACY’s platter

AUTUM’s platter

KATIE’s platter

AARON’s platter

CLAIRE’s platter

ALLISON’s platter

ASHLEY’s platter