Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: mugs, process, production, stamped, television

Working in the studio adding some colored slip accents & details to my mugs. Celebrating Mughshot Monday… and what better time to watch “The Great Canadian Pottery Throwdown” watching potters succeed & fail on Reality TV. Also fun to see that my Lillstreet Throwdown’ers had already done some of the same challenges in their class!!!

Categories: food, holiday, platters, Taylor

Some Easter fun yesterday with my niece Taylor who took on my “challenge“ to make her standard crescent rolls into Easter Bunnies!!! NAILED IT… but in a good way!!! Ha!

Categories: Uncategorized

Back at it… putting handles on & making more mugs!!!
My favorites!!!… no, seriously… I love making handles, I love making mugs!!!

Categories: Uncategorized

And for those who just like to celebrate a beautiful Spring day… here’s one of my “old-school” ikebana vases filled with homegrown flowers brightening the day for my friends down in Peoria. So pretty!

Categories: bowls, holiday

No matter how you celebrate, it’s always a good day for “tie-dyed” Easter Eggs, jelly beans & chocolate bunnies! Thanks to Keith for sharing today’s Easter Basket moment.

Categories: bowls, process, production, stamped, stamps

Still working in the studio… and I’ve moved on to stamping some serving bowls. Just have to pick the stamps I want to use… and then start pressing them into the “softer-than-leatherhard” clay one by one… by one… by one…

Categories: process, production, wheelthrowing

Early morning production… just trying to crank out one last batch of mugs before my next soda kiln!!!

Categories: process, production, stamped, vases

Just added some handles to this latest batch of oval vases. Not only do I think they’re kinda cute… but they should also help spread & hold the flowers in place! Working towards filling another kiln or two… the summer art fairs are coming soon!!!

Categories: pottery, process, production, stamped

Busy making again… this time it’s bottomless cylinders that get turned into ovals.
No one ever said that wheelthrown pots had to be round!!!

Categories: classes, platters, textures, tools

While we’re in-between sessions at Lillstreet, it still seems like the perfect chance to show-off one of my Intemediate students and her handiwork! While sharing my MKM Pottery Tools with my class, Jen decided to make a “quick” handbuilt platter using a couple of my MKM hand rollers. Jen is normally a “wheelthrower”… so she assumed this would be a “quick” project to crank out. But quickly found out that handbuilding takes time & patience as well… with a lot of attachments & things to clean-up. But look at this textured plate… it’s AMAZING Jen!!!