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

Tonight is EMPTY BOWLS at Lillstreet Art Center.
We’re once again doing our best to help the local needy with this great charity fundraiser. Many of the Lillstreet studio members, teachers & students have made & donated HUNDREDS of bowls!!! Come tonight from 5:00-8:00pm and you can purchase a bowl and they’ll fill it with homemade soup and bread from First Slice Pie Cafe! Yummy food for a great cause and you get to keep the bowl… when it’s empty again!!!

Categories: classes, lillstreet, wheelthrowing


As we are in Week Nine of ten, we’re coming down to the wire in my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN pottery challenges class. Last night was their final “Quick-Throw Challenge.” Tallest cylinder thrown with just one pound of clay in 15 minutes. A classic challenge testing their basic throwing skills. I think they were all surprised to find out it wasn’t quite as easy as they had assumed.

After the time was up, we did a bit of comparing…
trying to rank them from top to bottom… tallest to shortest for points!

 

Save

Categories: classes, food

Last night in my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class, we were treated to the most amazing cupcakes ever!!! Patti (aka “Peggy Burnish-ine”) baked these wondrous confections for us.

Let me explain… bottom layer of graham cracker crust. then a layer of chocolate. Then the chocolate cake batter with graham cracker crumbles in it, topped with another layer of chocolate… and then the best ooey-gooey, light & fluffy marshmallow frosting ever… toasted marshmallow to boot!!! As you can clearly see… they were VERY much enjoyed!!!… repeatedly!

Sadly, I had to explain to her that there are no “extra credit” points in the THROWDOWN for sucking up to the teacher. Valiant effort though!!!

Save

Save

Save

Save

Categories: patterns, process, production, stamped

Stamped, trimmed and now painting a layer of colored slip accents on these cuties…
little flower pots for my Spring art fairs!

Save

Categories: process

One of my favorite parts of the process… easily in the Top Three!

Save

Categories: ornaments, production

So Winter is slowly coming to an end… but it’s still holiday festive in my studio
as I’m trying to finish up this latest batch of holiday ornaments.
I’ve added all of the handbuilt caps & rings to the trimmed tops of each ornament.

And then I painted them with some colored flashing slip accents. My hope is that these colors will “POP” a lot more in the soda kiln. There should be some oranges and mustard yellows in here somewhere when we’re done!

Save

Save

Categories: architecture, Chicago

A bit dreary downtown today. It can’t quite decide if it wants to rain or snow?!

Categories: classes, creativity, lillstreet

So my students are KILLING IT this session! I’m teaching a new class and having a great time. It’s my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class loosely base don the BBC reality show. We’re more than halfway through and they’ve just finished their first real handbuilding challenge! Sure, we could have done something easy… but what fun is that. So we dove right in and went for a handbuilt butter dish!!!

And here they are in all of their buttery glory!!!

And a tribute to architect Frank Gehry…

This one was a bit too large… so we were joking that it was “Large Marge-erine.”
So she went for it!!!

Love this one with the attached knife holder…

This one is extra sweet with a handmade ceramic butter knife too!

And probably the most inventive & creative of the bunch…

Even better when put into the scene parked at the ol’ trailer park!!!

Plus, sadly... the one that didn’t quite make it into the kiln in time…
We all would have loved to see this one glazed and done like the rest of them!

And the big winner… with Catherine tackling her handbuilding challenge with porcelain!
With beautiful simplicity and a perfect fit.

Save

Save

Categories: mugs, porcelain, soda-fired, stamped

Fresh out of the soda kiln just in time for Mugshot Monday.
Lots of colors & flashing effects on this little one!

Save

Categories: Chicago, family, food, Taylor, weather

Another wonderful day with beautiful blue skies
as far as the eye could see. Happy Sunny Sunday pedal on!!!

Followed later in the day with ice cream with my sister Jen and niece Taylor!
First you work it off… and then…

Save

Save