Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: flower pots, flowers

My spotted orchid re-blooming for the first time! Methinks it might be the flower pot that makes all the difference! I mean… why wouldn’t they want to show-off in a flower pot like this???

Categories: flowers

Pastel yellow orchid blossoms with a pop of magenta! Love the speckles and magenta “lip”… apparently called the labellum. Who knew?!

Categories: flowers

Classic white orchids… and so happy about these re-blooming for the first time! I’ve had the plant for a couple years, but this is the first time they’re popping out new blossoms! Not sure why… I think they might just thrive on neglect?! I mean, they’re lucky if they get some water splashed on them now & again.

Categories: flowers

Cute little orchids popping up in time for NATIONAL ORCHID DAY…
such a fun pop of color. As you know… orange is my favorite color!!!

Categories: flowers

Celebrating NATIONAL ORCHID DAY today with a few of my own orchids that have decided to re-bloom just at the right time… almost as though they “knew” that their own special holiday was coming soon!!!

Categories: kiln firing, pottery, soda-fired

Just now getting around to sharing some photos from my soda-firing last weekend. I unloaded Monday night… but then somehow the week got away from me! Here’s a full look at the kiln after taking the front door off. You always tend to hold your breath while unbricking… hoping that everything went well… that everything looks good… and that there’s not too much dark-gray “dolphin skin” over-reduction!!! So I was very pleased when I got the brick door off and saw all of the fun colors & light clay surfaces. Even more fun as I continued to dig into the kiln unloading the whole thing!

Categories: classes, food

Last week in my classes we may have had a few “yellow towels situations”… and there “may” have been some of the new Blackout Cake OREO’s being enjoyed! Allegedly…

Categories: stamped, stamps

Finishing up a dinner plate class demo with a little stamping around the rim. Sure, I could have left it plain with a nice spiral… but you know how I subscribe to the “more is more” theory of pottery!

Categories: flowers, nature

A couple days of HOT “summer” weather here in Chicago… and we suddenly have a lot of flowers blooming everywhere! Like these beautiful azaleas… that might not be so happy come Monday when we’re forecast to get MORE SNOW!!! Welcome to Spring in Chicago!!!

Categories: bike, sunrise

A cloudy start… with some good sunrise potential that never really quite came together?! The sun tried peeking through, but instead we were kinda stuck with a monochromatic morning!