Mixing Clay Again

It's been a busy month with wood splitting and stacking, lots of company, and now clay mixing.  We did all the mixing on Sunday and then one more for good measure this morning before we scooped it into the drying racks.  Less than half an hour later the water was already dripping off.  In about two weeks the top layers will be ready to store.  The bottom ones will take another week.  Then I'll have about 1500 lbs of clay ready to use.  Not bad for 4 1/2 hours work!

This is a lot harder than it looks!  

Filled and covered drying racks.

Puddles from drips from above.

Summer Beauty

The lilies are growing in with the kale and kohlrabi behind an 8 foot fence - the only place safe from the marauding gangs of deer.  I think lilies are their favourites.

Lilies from the garden

Beautiful Ocean Spray

Wood

Yesterday was clear, sunny, and 33 degrees C. (91F).  So of course we spent the entire day splitting wood!  We rented a big log splitter to deal with the up to 24 inch across chunks that our little electric splitter can't handle.  We were up at 5:30 and splitting wood by 6, done by 4.  A very long, sweaty day.

Now we just have to stack it all.

What You Don't See

Normally when you see potters' photos of their work you see the "good ones".  What you don't see very often is the "oh no's".  Here are two of mine.  I tried a number of oval bakers made in the traditional way of cutting the leaf shape out of a round baker and pressing the sides together to make an oval.   All three in this firing cracked.  The firing was also faster and hotter than usual which makes the ash glaze run.  The runs I'll grind and if they're not too ugly on the bottom they might sell as seconds, the cracked bakers go on the shard pile.

I've often had visitors to the studio say that it must be so relaxing to make pots.

More June Pots, No Rant

Ash glazed honey pot

Temmoku cream & sugar set

Shino teapot

Shino honey pot

Red Shino honey pot

A stack of red shino bowls

Tea dust temmoku pasta bowl

Red shino tea pot

Triangular shino jug

June Pots

This was the last firing until September/October.  It'll be good to take a break, enjoy some summer and maybe get my enthusiasm back.  I'm feeling a little downhearted about pottery's place in this world of cheapmart culture.  I know that unless you've mixed clay, made pots, put their handles, feet etc on, gone through all the steps of bisqueing, glazing, wadding, loading and then firing a wood kiln you really don't understand how very much work it is.  Satisfying, at times exhilarating, but always hard work.  Then when someone asks you how much your hard won wood fired mug costs and you say $25 (which you think is pretty cheap for a wood fired mug) and they say "Each?" your heart aches.  When several more people say the same thing over the course a few weeks heartache turns to bitterness and you just want to grab them by the shirt and say "No! For the whole works!!!  Go ahead, take them all!  What are you thinking, you #%$##@!"

This is not a third world country.  I still have to pay for groceries here and for gas and for clay and electricity.  We've all got so used to paying next to nothing for things made by poor people in poor countries that we've lost sight of what beautiful work made by highly trained, skilled, artists is worth in our country.  Most potters I know are not rich but we're doing what we love.  But just because we love our jobs does that mean that our work has no value?  I ask you.

So here are a few photos taken before the battery died.  More to follow.

temmoku condiment dish

shino oil bottles

Ash glazed faceted bowl

temmoku butter dish

shino butter dish

Ash glazed butter dish with slip & texture

Red shino butter dish

Ash glaze over thick slip honey pot

Firing Today

Firing today, unloading Wednesday, photos later in the week.

Fairly early in the firing.

Expected high is 28 C so the tub is ready with icy well water.

Beautiful verbascum growing in the shard pile.