Yesterday seemed to vanish in the haze but I began organizing the kiln shed for the firing and I cut some wood. The poplar is from late summer last and is fairly dry despite being out in the weather. There hasn't been a lot of rain and it seemed very dry as i stacked it.
In the workshop I shuffled pots in and out of the sun, loaded another bisque firing, # 9 I believe, with several more to go. There were still a few pots that were damp and the dry heat and bright sun took care of them. I will get both kilns loaded this morning and organize my wares for deco. I have contemplated bringing most of the pots over to the new shop for decorating and glazing. Some negatives would be no lights and no running water. Benefits would be that i could stack up pots in boxes to transport here instead of carefully wrapping glazed pots and I would be close to home. We'll see.
I spoke with Kim yesterday about my clay and he suggested adding a little bentonite to the clay to help it with plasticity. So I pugged a cupful of bentonite into about a hundred pounds of clay and made these pots.
It did help quite a bit, although there remained some little hints of the clay opening up. We'll see about the handles today and see how the color is affected. Test, Test, Test. My hunch is that I put a little more Bentonite than i needed. I could have been a bit more scientific...
