Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: classes, surface decoration, tools

So fun to watch one of your students “find their voice” & develop their own style in your class. Kristen has truly blossomed in her surface decoration skills. I let her borrow a few of my newest DiamondCore Tools and look what she did with them! Great details with great tools! Looks like Kristen might need to start expanding her tool collection with some more DiamondCore Tools of her own!!!

Categories: process, production, stamped, tools

I mean, who doesn’t like pottery with power tools?! Just drilling some holes through a couple new berry bowls… so much faster, so much louder!!!

Categories: bowls, food

Berries & grapes & watermelon in bowls… oh my! Fresh fruit always tastes better when served in hand,made pottery! Thanks Jody for sharing your fruity feast!

Categories: bike, sunrise

Again, the best way to start my day.

Categories: bowls, classes, food

So not only did we have “imported” OREO’s in class… we also had beautiful little OREO BOWLS for our mint OREO’s!!! One of my students made these cute little bowls with underglaze transfer patterns that were perfect for a single serving of OREO’s… or, you could refill it as many times as needed!!! Thanks for sharing your bowls Darcy!

Categories: classes, food

In my Intermediate Wheelthrowing class we had a CRAZY NIGHT OF OREO’s!!! It started with a collection of Chinese OREO’s…. brought in by Catherine! As with most non-American OREOs, they were a bit drier, chalkier(?) & not quite as sweet. So we had some kind of plain yogurt OREOs, mango cream OREOs, cherry blossom OREOs & peach with oolong tea OREO’s.

Let’s not get crazy… we also had American Mint OREO’s to wash them all down!!!

Categories: flowers

Same dahlia in my garden… the first bloom finally opening!
Can’t wait to see it in full bloom in a couple days!!!

Categories: summer camp

This may look like a pile of garbage to some… but for my Summer Campers this week it is a pile of POTENTIAL!!! Another week of my “large sculptures camp” and the kids started today to work their “sculptural magic” with these empty boxes! More to come…

Categories: bike, sunrise

Another quiet morning along the lake… quiet ripples. quiet reflections!
Another beautiful start to another beautiful summer day.

Categories: challenge, classes, summer camp, wheelthrowing

After they knocked out the lidded jar project, I knew they would be up for an even bigger & better challenge! So I pulled out the blindfolds (and towels?) and I challenged Summer Campers last week to wheelthrowing while blindfolded. I think they were a little anxious at first, but quickly realized it’s not as hard as it sounded. As long as you take it step-by-step, you realize that you can throw just my touch & muscle-memory. And they all did a GREAT job… and had so much fun that they asked if they could do it AGAIN!!!

Of course I said YES!!!