Roving Reporter

I guess until I get a lot of clay spinning off the wheel, hopefully tommorrow, I'll just roam around and visit potters actually doing something. It's been gorgeous, weather wise, so it's been nice to get around these hills. Just went over the hill to visit my neighbor, Steve White of the Rebel's Creek part of Bakersville. It was a breathtaking view of the Black Mtns. from Steve's place.

Steve is a doctor-turned-potter, or I guess you could say a clay turning doctor. Steve just did a couple soda firings, back to back and had some pretty nice pots. Here is Steve with his soon to be famous multi- handled pitcher.

He said it was sort of a handle sampler or handle fetish object. I thought it was pretty interesting and it fired pretty handsomely. Aside from the usual problems we potters have out of every kiln load, the firings seemed very successful. I told Steve about the Salt/Soda potter network and a current discussion about adding whiting(calcium carbonate)to the soda mixture. It's been interesting to follow.

Shane Mickey designed and built Steve's soda kiln. He also built this nifty door brick rack.

Steve had a great collection of pitchers on his mantle as well as a very fine jar by NC potter Daniel Johnston. I failed to get a picture of those or of the soda kiln that was the subject of this post. What kind of reporter am I anyway? I better stick to pots. I have a giant pile of clay ready to pug in the morning and off I go. Hopefully I will get a mess of pots made. I'm going to the Benefit Auction for the NC Pottery Center next Saturday. Maybe I will see some of you there? Have a great week.