It’s always fun to go through all of your work down in the storage room. And to see everything
one more time before it goes upstairs to the Home Show. This large stamped bowl caught my
eye. Mainly because I know that the glaze is “supposed” to be a beautiful red color. Not blue.
But it’s one of those glazes that can be easily affected by the kiln firing. If there’s a little too
much oxidation in the kiln, the red glaze turns this beautiful blue-ish color.

Sadly, nothing you can ever bank on happening ever again.
Just another “happy accident” coming out of the kiln!

Mark your calendar for TWO WEEKS from this weekend for the Big Event.
My Holiday Home Show is my biggest pottery event of the whole year. With the most
posts up for grabs – just in time for the holiday shopping season! There’s pottery in
practically every room of my condo, as well as festive food & drink in the kitchen.
So much more fun than a 10’x 10′ tent in some park somewhere!!!

Saturday, November 17th & Sunday, November 18th from 10:00am-6:00pm.
Always the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving!!!

And don’t forget the annual “Tired Of Shlepping” Sale on the back porch.
A great chance to scoop up some great deals & bargains on some of the pieces I’m just
tired of shlepping around from art fair to art fair, as well as seconds, class demos and
so much more. Great discounts if you get them before someone else snags ’em!!!

If you’re in the Chicagoland area and would like to come play with us in two weeks,
just send me a quick e-mail for my home address and full details. Thanks.

Fresh from the kiln… more soda-fired textures on the sides of my new slab vases!
All of which will be available at the Holiday Home Show in two weeks!

A box full of holiday fun! All of my ornaments turned out great.
No mishaps. No jumping off the tripods. No problems with the risky-balanced-ornaments!
Now I need to add a shiny metal ring to each of them before the Holiday Home Show!

Here’s a sneak peek into my recent soda kiln. It’s always such  fun surprise to unbrick
the door and see what’s waiting for you inside! So you take out the bricks one-by-one
revealing what’s inside layer by layer. When they’re all gone, the kiln is wide open…
and ready for some quick photos before packing it all up!

As I unloaded the kiln, most of the pieces go straight into crates & boxes so I can get them
home. Along the way this time, I stopped and took a few more photos than normal to share.
Nothing too professional, no graduated gray background… just some quick snapshots in
the empty spray booth with existing lighting! Like I said, nothing too professional…

Plus, something that photos can’t always show… both sides of some pots! Frequently, the
beauty of a pot is in the holding, touching & fondling. Being able to see the pot from all sides.
Noticing all of the details – both inside & out. So here’s one of my new stamped bowls…
both inside with temoku glaze, and outside with more stamping & flashing slip!

And another bowl… this time squared off with a very light layer of temoku glaze inside
along with some flashing slip on the outside.

And I love when you can see the direction of the flame as it passed the pot during the firing.
Where the slip is orange, the flames hit it and deposited some soda. Where the slip band
is still white, the soda couldn’t quite “hit it” as the flames could wrap around the bowl before
moving on & exiting the kiln. So on this bowl, you can see that the flame hit the left side,
and not so much on the right.

Plus, we also have a new Stoneware clay with Ochre in it at Lillstreet. The clay is darker than
regular stoneware and it fires to a dark chocolatey brown. This is the first “ochre” bowl I’ve
ever fired in the soda kiln. It’s a little more dramatic, a little darker… and the flashing slip
band around the foot ring has a great “directional” flash to it. Kinda likin’ it…

Unfortunately, after emptying the kiln, the work continues. It takes quite a while to scrape
and clean all of the kiln shelves, put on a new layer of kiln wash, clean the fire boxes, sweep
& mop the floor… let alone shlepping it all home at the end of the night! A long evening.
But a great reward to have a full kiln’s worth of pots ready for the Holiday Home Show!

I unloaded my soda kiln tonight and was thrilled with the results.
It’s always a fun “treasure hunt” as you uncover it layer by layer, shelf by shelf.
I got some great colors, a lot of fun flashings… and more importantly, no kiln splats
or chunks in any of my pieces. A very clean firing. I took some photos and hope to
have more time soon to post them! Sorry, you’ll have to wait…

So my handmade studio rolling cart made it safely down  to the first floor kiln room.
The masking tape “safety belts” really did the trick again as we traveled down the rickety
freight elevator. Nothing jumped off the cart as we hit every bump along the way.

And then the loading began… an arduous task as I try to pack in everything I can!

The back stack of the kiln always seems to load a lot faster. Not only because it’s only
one shelf deep, but I think it’s also that there’s a lot of work to choose from. Later on,
your searching and hoping for that perfect sized piece to fit that precise spot.

I finally squeezed in pretty much everything I possibly could. It took hours!
It’s a delicate balancing act as you stack shelves and try to leave enough space so that the
soda vapors can travel through – versus packing it tight to get the most work you can into
the kiln to help justify the kiln & gas fees. So as you can see, I err on the side of packing it
tight. And I love have smaller pieces like ornaments & tiles that make the perfect kiln filler.
Very little of the white, kiln-washed shelf even show after I place hundreds of tiles in the kiln!

After housr of packing the kiln, you still need to bulid the dor brick-by-brick.
It’s very “old-school” but still a lot more fun than a new-fangled metal door!
So once I have it closed up, I turn it on low for maybe 15 minutes while I’m gathering my
things from my studio. As I’m ready to leave for the night, I turn off the kiln and close the
dmaper to try and hold in some heat. As I know that it’s just a few short hours until I’ll be
back to start the firing early tomorrow morning!

My bisque kiln from last night was still warmer than I would like.
So I decided to let to cool longer and dive into glazing some pieces from an earlier kiln!
I generally start by painting a lot of temoku glaze into all of the stamped impressions.

And then, once the glaze is dried, I take a moist sponge and wipe off the top surface
so that the temoku glaze stays inside the stamped impression – but not on the surface.
I love how the inlaid glaze really shows off the pattern of the stamp, instead of covering
& obliterating it with too much glaze!

But don’t think that they’re done. Oh no, I’ve got a lot of work to do on them first.
Liner glazes, sprayed accents, wadding, etc. So there’s still a lot to do… and even more
coming out of the bisque kiln tomorrow night. Not a lot of time to get everything done.
It’s my plan to load the soda kiln on Friday evening, and fire all day Saturday!

So the Lillstreet Member Show opened today… and I was quite happy to find a couple
“treasures” to add to my Terry Hogan Collection. She’s crazy obsessed – and we love her!
She makes these incredible porcelain pieces with intricate designs pressed & pierced
into them. Wonderful patterns with groovy fun textures! And she’s one of the artists who
is consistently under-pricing her work… so I snatched these for a steal. And “then” told her
that she needs to raise her prices. For the time & work, she could easily double her prices!

And as if they weren’t cool enough… here’s some close-ups to show them off even more!

Getting ready for my next soda kiln… trying to make more, but quickly running out
of time! So tonight I loaded another bisque kiln for firing. Not really my “best work”
in filling a kiln… but sometimes you just need to get it loaded and get it done.
As the glazing portion needs to begin really soon!!!

Kiln Layer #1 -More bowls, mugs & ornaments!

Kiln Layer #2 -More bowls, mugs, tumblers & ornaments!

Kiln Layer #3 – Plates, gourd leaves, ornaments and some “filler” from Catherine Tweedie!

Kiln Layer #4 – More mugs, tumblers, ornaments & “filler” from Tweedie!!!