Keepin' Cool

Every year I promise myself that I won't fire in July again but every year I'm not quite organized enough to have all the summer stock ready by the end of June.  So we fired yesterday with 2 thunderstorms (one little one and one major) and a high of 28 C.  This kiln gets really, really hot and after the last firing in June when I thought I was going to have a stroke I decided drastic measures were required.  So we filled the clay mixing horse trough with our icy well water and when it got to be too much I just climbed in and left Wayne to stoke.  I think it was the best firing ever.

New pots from recent firing

We fired in the heat on June 28th.  The last couple of hours were pretty extreme - need to find a way to cool down.  Might use that horse trough next time.  Here are a few photos of pots from that firing.  Did some glaze testing from the John Britt Cone 10 glazes book.  The Coleman Tea Dust is the only test in the photos.

Shino bottles

Tea Dust Bowl

Shino bowl with Indian fabric stamp decoration

Serving dish with Indian fabric stamp

Coleman Tea Dust bowl

Shino Bowl

Serving dish

Temmoku jar & bowl

From the front of the kiln - natural ash and flashing.

Shino bowl

Cake plates

Thrown

My friend Ron recently sent me this book, Thrown, British Columbia's Apprentices of Bernard Leach and Their Contemporaries.  It's worth looking at if you're interested in Leach/Hamada and their influence on Canadian West Coast ceramic practice during the '50's, '60's and '70's (and to the present!).  It's a collection of essays inspired by the show of the same name at the Belkin Gallery in Vancouver in 2005.  It's well written and heavily illustrated, including lots of photos from the time.

And here's a photo of one of Ron's beautiful pouring bowls.

Recent visitors to the studio

We recently had a huge mama moose and her rather large offspring wander down the driveway and past the studio. Needless to say, they were wild about the work!

Mixing Clay

Every year we mix this giant vat of clay in our horse watering trough. It's a lot of heavy work but for half a days work we get about 1500 lbs of clay that's ready to use in 2-3 weeks. Rankin & Ruggles were kind enough to send me instuctions for the drying racks and for the mixing. I'll gladly pass these on to anyone who's interested.

A Few Pots From The First Firing

The Wood Fired Kiln

We finished building the Manabigama near the end of October with the help of Cam Stewart, potter friend, kiln builder and amazing bag pipe player and telephone/email support from John Thies. My husband Wayne & I fired for the first time on October 31st with the help of Cam and another potter, Susanne Ashmore. It was an exciting event - fast, even firing and pretty good results. A second firing in November gave some interesting pots but over-fired at the front so some fine tuning is required.