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

Over the years, many people enjoyed some tasty treats at City Olive in Andersonville.
Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond her control, the owner Karen decided to
move her business to Roscoe Village. Be sure to stop by for quality olive oils and other
culinary treats from around the world. You can even taste-test many of the oils before
you buy them. Don’t know much about oils?… her staff is there to teach you!

But it’s not just olive oil’s healthful properties, including high levels of beneficial
fatty acids and antioxidants, which delight City Olive’s customers time and again.
It’s also the taste, the old world allure and the bounty of delightful products that grace
City Olive’s shelves. Carrying the finest selection of olive oils from countries such as
Italy, Spain, Greece, France, Portugal, Turkey, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Chile
and the United States, as well as vinegars, spices, mustards, tapenades and other gourmet
items, City Olive’s charming boutique offers the culinary best of the old & new worlds.

City Olive – Roscoe Village
2236 West Roscoe Street, Chicago, Illinois 60618 – (773) 687-9980

And very soon, City Olive will be returning to their roots in Andersonville
with a second store location just in time for the holidays!

City Olive – Andersonville
5644 North Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois 60660 – (773) 942-6424

Plus, City Olive also carries an assortment of ceramic oil pourers made by yours truly!
Luckily, they sell out pretty quickly… so I’ve got to keep making more! Especially with
the holidays coming so quickly! Stop in soon to snatch one up!

 

Categories: art fair, clay, pottery

It’s Barrington Day Two… it’s already sunnier, already warmer, already less windy…
and my shelves are all replenished and ready for another fun day in the Lower Barn!
C’mon out to play – we’re here from 10:00am-5:00pm again today!

Categories: clay, process, production, studio

As part of today’s “must-clean-studio-while-firing-kiln” program, I just plopped
out another huge pile of reclaim clay onto my plaster bat. This is the second half
of the scraps that Amy bequeathed to me earlier this year. Yippee – more free clay!!!

Categories: clay, studio

Today I made it back into the studio after my extended Dover excursion!
Before I left, I set up a huge pile of reclaim clay onto my plaster bat while I was gone.
I had expected to be gone for one week, but the “glitter gig” turned into a 2-week
project – setting up, watching bands, watching people, then packing it all up!
So I was a little concerned that the pile of reclaim clay might have dried out too much
while I was gone. I was very relieved to find the pile of clay still moist… and actually
a little bit wetter than I would like it to be. But I proceeded to tackle the mound any way!

So I started by pulling it off the plaster bat and piling it up into cubes. The clay was still
a bit gooey, so I pounded it into blocks and put them back on the plaster bat to set-up
a bit more. Glad it wasn’t a hard, dried brick… instead, it was quite the opposite!

Special thanks to my Northwoods friend Amy who gave me all this clay. Sure it was all
dried trimmings and other chunks. But after a few weeks of slaking down, I now have a lot
of wedging ahead of me… and a lot of “free” clay to make things out of it. Remember, this
was just the first half of the clay scrap I got from Amy… and it totaled out at 186 pounds
of reclaimed clay… and one used chamois hidden inside just as an added challenge!

Categories: clay, process, studio

Pile it on… pounds of possibilities! Here’s the first half of the reclaimed clay
that I got from Amy Higgason from the Northwoods. It’s been slaking down
for awhile now, and tonight I turned it out onto a large plaster bat to help it
set up a bit. The other half of her trimmings & scraps are now in my bin,
covered with water, slaking down for the next batch. My understanding is that
this is a mixture of white stoneware and B-clay. We’ll see what comes of it.

I love reclaim. I love free clay!!!

Categories: clay, summer camp

Today is going to be another day of kids wheelthrowing.
But today we switch to terra cotta… so it’s going to be a messy, messy day!

Categories: clay, summer camp, textures

Well, today is the first day of my “tour of duty” at Lillstreet Summer Camp.
My morning camp is wheeltrowing, and my afternoon is Clay & Multimedia.
Which means we doa c lay project on Monday and other art projects the rest of the
week. So today was out clay day in the afternoon camp. We decided to make
textured vases… you know how I just “hate” making things with textures!   Ha.

Categories: clay, studio

Remember that big pile of gooey clay I was reclaiming in my studio a couple weeks ago?…

Well, tonight I finally pounded it up and put it into clay bags.
Turns out it was two hundred & eleven pounds of “FREE” clay!!!

Sure, it still needs a lot of wedging before it can be used. But I needed to get it off the big
plaster bat before it got too dry. My next step will be to take my “mixed-up reclaim” clay
and layer it with some “new” clay. I’ll take a new bag and interleave it with the reclaim,
cut it, layer it, squish it, pound it… cut it, layer it, squish it, pound it… repeat. Once the
layers are incorporated with each other, I can start the wedging. I’ll do a bit of wedging
and then put them back into the bag. I’ll so the “real wedging” when I get ready throw
with it. Until then, the bags of reclaimed clay will be sitting in the corner of my studio.
Just waiting…

Categories: clay, process, studio

As a productive studio artist, I use a lot of clay.
And with that, comes a LOT of scraps & trimmings to be reclaimed.
I work hard to reclaim as much clay as I can. I put all of the dried scraps into
a large orange container in my studio, and fill it with water. As the clay absorbs
the water, it slakes down to become clay once again. When it feels & looks like clay
again, and much of the water has been absorbed, it’s time to scoop out the clay mix
and place it on a large plaster bat. So that’s what I did tonight… I scooped & scooped!
I scooped until my reclaim bin was empty and the bat was overflowing with clay.

And there it will sit until the overly-gooshey clay stiffens up and can be wedged up.
And when it’s ready… it’s a LOT of wedging, and wedging, and wedging…

And just in time… as my Northwoods potter friend Amy Higgason got “a little behind”
in her studio reclaiming and brought some of her scraps for me! Just a couple boxes…
okay, like twelve!!! That’s a lot of scraps!

So Amy’s scraps have now been placed in my reclaim tub. Add water. And wait…
Soon enough, it’s going to be  another huge batch of FREE CLAY!!!

Categories: clay, production, studio

So my day in the studio started with me moving around a LOT of clay.
I had to organize all the boxes & bags of clay strewn about my studio.
And then I had to move up my most recent clay purchase from the loading dock.

It was a lot of work & sweat. Moving everything around in my studio. But once it was done,
it looked great. And I just kept telling myself that it was “thirty boxes of potential.”