Transitioning from Vacation Brain to Whatever Brain I create with...

Jay and I joined several of our close friends on Grand Oasis, a chartered trimaran, for 7 days a couple of weeks ago. In no way can I describe how gorgeous the British Virgin Islands are. My photos cannot do them justice. You've got to go! My friend Jan will be guest blogging about the trip since she kept a travel journal of our adventures.

When we returned, I was exhausted. It took several days to regain my land legs. I'm sure it was pretty comical to see me swaying as I stood still. The kids were on Spring Break the week after we got back, so I didn't have to jump right back into work, but poor Jay did. He took a day off midweek to sleep and try to snap out of it. We rarely take a vacation, so it really knocked us for a loop. Are you feeling sorry for me yet?

Anyway, I'm back in the studio this week and feeling great. And we had an awesome Clay Club meeting last night hosted by Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts. It's been a long, hard winter and seeing old faces and meeting new clay artists was just what the spirit called for. Even with gorgeous weather outside, I'm itching to get into some new work.

I'm reorganizing the gallery and collecting work for the Toe River Craft Shop when it reopens May 1st. I'm going to try to get 3 kilns fired before Jay leaves for his TAT trip in May. I've got about 1/2 a kiln of work I need to refire plus one big basket that couldn't fit into my last kilnload of 2009.

My other dilemma is that I need to move the Bailey. It sits in an enclosed carport attached to my house, with attic space above. The ceiling is wood and the burners are no more than 24" from the plywood wall behind the kiln. John Britt has seen it and when I asked him how hard it is to move a kiln, he said I could have it moved with a forklift. I might even be able to get it out the door without knocking out a wall.

I have to decide where to move it, and then build some sort of shelter overhead. I'm not sure how much it will cost, but I suppose it's better than living in a Yurt for the rest of my life after my house burns down and my insurance doesn't cover it.

A Body of Work

As I enter my second year of working in clay full time, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. What exactly do you mean when you say a body of work?

All of my pieces are formed in the same way and appear to be related. I really think the viewer can tell they come from the same artist. However, a lot of artists have certain surface designs or firing methods, such as wood or soda that help unify their work.

I love glaze, I mean really love glaze. I love to test new glazes, and I have a tough time limiting myself in the studio.

I have a cone 10 black, white and shino. I have a cone 6 yellow, blue, and plum. I have a couple of crossover glazes: a glossy brown, which is identical in cone 6 or 10, and Rob's Green, which is more of a matt pine green in cone 6 and a glossy, almost metallic green in cone 10. Then I have some cone 10 glazes that look awesome layered. Oh, and I have a couple of Fake Ash glazes that look pretty great.

I find myself wondering how a certain pot will look in such-and-such a glaze. What I have ended up with is a hodge-podge of pieces in my show space and thus a hodge-podge of work to take to galleries.

Do galleries want to see only a few glazes? Do I send all of my cone 6 work to one gallery and cone 10 to another? Should I reserve certain glazes for my functional and others for my decorative pieces? When you send pictures for jurying, should the work have all the same glaze, or at least glazes that look good together?

I'm sure it would simplify my life if I limited myself to only a handful of glazes but would I have as much fun? I'd certainly get the kiln loaded faster.

Should I get off my schizo-rant and give myself a break? I've only been reduction firing again for a year and a half. Perhaps I should give myself the freedom to make however many glazes I can stand and then begin to scale back as I lose interest.

In the meantime, I still need to figure out how to present myself and my work to galleries and guilds so they can will take me seriously.

The Runt is Travelling West

There she goes

Brenda came by this weekend to pick up the Runt and say goodbye as she moves west. Her truck was pretty loaded down already, but Jay built a nice crate around the kiln, and we stuffed every nook and cranny with her belongings. Jay took a look under the hood, replaced a faulty O2 sensor and gave the truck a clean bill of health. 200K+ miles on the odometer would make many of us reconsider the road trip from South Carolina (where she started) to Colorado, but not a determined gal like Brenda.

That little Evenheat aka the Runt (thanks to a comment by Jim Gottuso) has been a very reliable kiln over the 9 years that I used her. I'm ready to move on and hopefully the oval Evenheat that Brenda traded me will prove to be just as reliable. I've still got a bit more work to do before I can fill up a bisque load.

The Runt

Brenda really became part of our family, as we've seen her several times over the past year. I'm sad to see her go, but her journey is taking her back to some of her artistic roots. Besides, her son still lives an hour or so from me, so I know she'll be back to visit.

Life's Short, Buy the Shoes

This was the posted facebook status of a friend of mine. And guess what? I DID buy shoes this week. On sale. They are Earth shoes, but not like those Earth shoes from my adolescence. You remember the ones: brown suede with wavy soles. Then in middle school, we all wore GASS shoes from Kinney's, the Great American Shoe Store. Jay doesn't remember them. He says he wore Hush Puppies. I told him my grandfather wore Hush Puppies.

I usually work in the studio wearing flip flops or old bedroom slippers, but they tend to fly off when I use the kickwheel. I have found that as I creep toward my mid-forties, my back and feet hurt more after long days in the studio. These shoes feel great. I don't care if I look like a dork. At least I'm not wearing my grandpa's shoes.

As far as the slab roller goes, it actually goes. The switch wiring for the pusher bar has been disconnected, but I read on clayart where another potter, who had found using the pusher bar problematic, replaced it with a foot pedal. Even without it, I still have to have one hand on the switch for the motor to stay on. Not as safe as both hands, but my husband, Dr. Safety is satisfied.

Mother Nature is still not giving us a break. We got another 6" of snow Tuesday, which translated into two more snow days for the kids. That means another half day of school this Saturday to make a slight dent in the days they've missed this winter. They were in school last Saturday, too. Jay and I used the time wisely. We got the car washed, went out for coffee, did a little shopping for a lawn tractor (to which we can attach a snow plow), bought the fixings for fish tacos and finally got a pair of new tires for the Prius. While we didn't exactly do the 3/50, we did the 2/150. It all evens out in the end. I can't imagine what we'll do this week.

My friend Sarah across the road has crocuses popping up in her yard. Mine are buried under several inches of snow in the photo above, which was taken before yesterday's snow. Too bad we didn't find a tractor last weekend. I could have used it yesterday. It's supposed to reach the high 50's this weekend. Maybe even warm enough for Jay to take the KLR out for a spin.

Maybe I can wear my new stylin' shoes instead of snow boots.

Another Episode of Working Harder Not Smarter

This has nothing to do with shovelling or pickaxing snow. This is another example of doing what you know, even though there is a much easier way to accomplish the same task. I'm talking slabs.

Nearly all my pieces are thrown and pieced with a slab bottom attached. A year or so before we moved here, when I was still working in my little 10x12 garden shed, I upgraded from an old kitchen rolling pin to a serious 28" one. I have a collection of dowel rods to keep thicknesses uniform. It's a reliable system.

I haven't mentioned (or maybe I have) that the house came with a Bailey electric slab roller. Some folks leave you draperies or kitchen appliances. We got a slab roller. It's huge and heavy and the renters before us just made it part of their room decor.

It's missing the instruction manual and the pusher bar. There is some black electrical tape on what Jay thinks might be a safety/kill switch, but who really knows. I am completely intimidated by this thing, so as you can see I just put crap on it.

After rolling a few slabs today, I have decided to, at the very least, plug the thing in this weekend and see what happens. I guess this means another call to Bailey for the instructions. I'm sure I'll be glad once I get it going.

Now where am I going to put all that junk?

Monday, Monday

Rain Rain stay and play! Come and melt this snow away!

Today feels like a normal Monday. The kids have not attended school on time on a Monday since before Winter break. I even welcomed their grumbling and long faces in return for the opportunity for life to return to normal. I'm surprised they weren't more excited about going to school. I'm not a great cook nor have I been much of an entertainer on all these days off.

Into the studio for the first time in a long time. I threw a half dozen bowls and some cylinders for some angled wine bottle coasters. I still don't know if they will crack in the 56 degree basement, so I'm not going to make too many.I test fired the Oval kiln yesterday. Zero to ^08 in 7 hours. The timer works, as does the kiln sitter. Yippee! It stunk though. There is no way to know how long since it's been fired. There is a spot on the lid that smoked and smelled like wax at the end of the firing. I don't think it's wax though, because it looks like something stuck there, and when it was removed, it took parts of soft brick with it.
So Monday goes on. I have time for some yoga before volunteering at Ben's school library. I'm not even thinking about the snow forecast for Wednesday.

It's Getting Crowded in Here

It seems like the kiln room is the dumping ground for everything. Jay moved his motorcycle in to make room in the garage for lumber, etc for the basement remodel. The trash and recycling is piling up, since we can't get the truck up the driveway to haul it away. And a couple of months ago, my college studio-mate Brenda brought her "coffin" kiln, an Evenheat her brother found for her which had been wired to basically bypass all the switches. A WTF kiln to go with my WTF house.

Jay properly rewired the kiln last weekend, and it's ready for testing. I'm guessing Jay wants his bike out of the kiln room as well as the big plastic tub of kids' toys before I fire it up. When I bought my first used electric kiln, I just plugged it in, filled it with greenware and fired a bisque load. This time, I have no bisqueware so I guess I'll load it with a few empty shelves and a couple of cone packs so I can keep an eye on its progress.

You see, Bren is moving to Michigan next week and is taking the Runt with her. Yup, that's it, next to the motorcycle, hiding behind those sleds. The kiln trade was her idea, and I am grateful to have her big kiln. I won't have to fire so many bisque loads in order to fill the Bailey. The smaller kiln suits her needs better also. Looks like a win-win, except for the moving to Michigan part. I have enjoyed working with Bren again after all these years. Alas, her life path is taking her elsewhere, and I'm happy for her. I'll miss her, but she's a great letter-writer, that lost art form.

Now if she'd only start blogging.