My mugs may be food-safe & dishwasher-safe… but they’re not gravity-safe! Always kinda kills me when someone sends me one of these pictures… but in the end… IT’S JUST CLAY!!!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
Next weekend is another POP-UP art fair… handmade pottery along with a couple of My Talented Friends! The “cozy cottage” is actually the home of my friend & painter Mary Foster. We’ll be joined by metalsmith Amy Taylor & Karen Wilson with her artisan candles & more! It will be a fun Friday night & all day Saturday next weekend… with fun surprise Gift Bags for the first twenty-four people!

A serene skyline with a pastel sunrise shimmering on the calm morning lakefront.

With the sunrise coming an hour earlier after “Falling Back” with the time change… we had a simple sunrise with a single stripe of clouds running across the horizon. I always enjoy getting an “extra” hour in my mornings… more time for my sunrises!

When the kiln gets to its top temperatures, I introduce a mixture of soda ash, soda bicarbonate & wood chips into the kiln. The mixture combusts & sends the soda throughout the kiln… in effect “glazing” the pots as the flames travel through the kiln. As an added bonus… you also get these wonderful flames shooting out of every space & crack they can find!

Fairly early on in the firing, you put the kiln into body reduction which “forces” the gas to reach outside of the kiln to find the needed air. Which made these really cute flames dance & flutter above one of the peep bricks!

After a couple hours of loading the kiln last night, it’s always great to get to the end & brick up the door. One by one, brick by brick. Hiding the pots… knowing that we won’t see them again until after the soda-firing process works its “magic”… fingers crossed.

You gotta love the crunchy “glazed” patina on the bricks within the soda kiln. Sure, the bricks might be slowly disintegrating due to the corrosive soda mixture that we insert during the firing… but it sure does make some really cool bricks!!!

An empty soda kiln last night…
waiting to be packed with shelves, posts & POTS!!!
So much potential… waiting to be fulfilled…

It was pretty late last night when I finally finished glazing in my studio… lots of pots, lots of wadding! So I packed both sides of my studio cart and put some masking tape “seat belts” on it so none of the pots would jump off as I rolled everything downstairs on the rickety freight elevator!