Grouping

More Reed/Grass pattern pieces. After the pots are painted with two "flavors" of wax resist, they get dipped or poured with slip and glaze. Seems like I couldn't stop myself with this pattern. Tonight more vine pattern and big jars.

Banks of Clay

This spring I was happy to see that all the grass seed I had spread behind the shop had taken with all of the rain we had had. It's not easy to grow stuff in this clay! But the hot summer sun and a dry month have taken a toll on the red clay banks behind the pottery shop. I've happily watched and imagined the grass grow on these pots with hopes that some day the blackberry and the grass will grow high on the banks of clay .

Quick Pix

Night photo of wildflowers on the "walk home"

During a run of pottery making, it seems ironic that just when I feel invincible and able to make anything on the wheel, I have to stop and paint and glaze pots! I know at this point I am most likely repeating things I've said in the past. I guess we'll have to accept that. After all, this is post # 839. If I could just go for a couple more weeks I could probably make the same amount of pots I've made in last four or five. I'll be doing that next Spring preparing for my first kiln opening. (tentatively slated for May 8th of next year!!! Save The Date!) I'll work from January through March on making pots, April will be painting, glazing, and firing!

Meanwhile, back to the present...

I cut wood with John Simmons who is the current studio assistant up at Penland. John not only brought me a trailer full of kiln dried oak, but helped stack it this evening. John is a painter and a potter going to ETSU over the mountain in Johnson City, TN. Check out his web site here. Mad props to you John!


I managed to paint a whole bunch of pots tonight and snapped a few pictures. It takes me a day to get real, real going, and it takes me that long to get the designs flowing. To someone reading this blog for a while, it may seem hat the designs are always the same, vines, vines, vines! But subtle changes evolve and it's just a matter of me remembering it all, yet leaving enough room for new things to happen with this genre. So here are a few things that are fairly pedestrian and hopefully I'll explode tomorrow with more new foliage and maybe some birds. wooohoooo! Who knows what else may emerge during the coming days?

Bad Places

With over 400 pots made and no table left unpiled, I have turned to some unlikely places to dry the last pots. The sun is breaking through the clouds for now so I hurried these guys outside for a little sunning. Revealing this embarrassing situation, to you, my reader, shows that I have nothing to hide! Or should I say, no shame?

Which one is your favorite? Maybe I should build a couple of saw horses? But who has time when I should be glazing!?

Big Rain and the Hatch

Had a nice conversation with Alex tonight about those wall pockets. It was good to hear he was tying flies in hopes for some fishing here in the hills sometime soon. Meanwhile outside there was a lot of rain as I hustled jars that had been sitting outside under the roof to catch a breeze and be dry for the big kiln loading. With the rain came some big hatch of teeny little flies that were sneaking in through the open door and hovering near the lights! I'll save a few for Alex.

I didn't follow my boss's advice to start painting today, and instead, continued to throw a few more large platters. I lost a couple in the bisque kiln and thought it would be worth squeezing in. The cracked platters had been stacked with sand in between and had little hairline cracks. Damn!

I worked on cleaning up the wall pockets and cutting holes in the backs. I first took a fettlin' knife to the edges and them smoothed them with a chamois. When I came in this morning several had cracked from being too wet from the throwing and then being closed in the throwing. Alex says that he thoroughly dries the interior before he closes the forms. That should do it for me. My red dirt is really prone to cracking in its wet state. So I spent some time repairing the cracked ones and had an idea to try to "dart" some in the future. One of the intriguing changes that happen when one flattens a thrown form is how that form changes. Exciting, huh? Welcome to my world of pottery intrigue!


Anyway, I shuffled and organized the bisque ware and pots still needing to be. It's becoming clear that there won't be time or room in my electric kiln to bisque everything, so the last few pots will be raw glazed, bone dry glazed.

The punch list is bigger than I thought and I'll start hitting it in the a.m.

So long for now.

Coffee Break vol. 20

It's never to early for a spot of coffee. Here is a wee teacup made by Linda Sikora, that some of you may remember I picked up at a local second hand store. I'm happy to be the second hand! Pots have this secret life as they travel around and if they could only tell the stories! Have a good Monday!

Weekend Wrap

Here are a few things that I have been working on over the weekend. The firing is coming up next weekend and I'd better get to painting the accumulated bisque ware really soon, like Pronto! That's an Americanism from the mid 19th century for "stop throwing those pots and get to painting!"

Anyway I took advantage of the dry breezy weather to continue to get stuff dried out for bisqing and did some drawing, aka scratchin', on some jars. I usually do this on the pots that I'm planning to coat with the crackle slip. It "pushes back" the drawings so that they're subtle amongst the graphic vine pattern. It's a somewhat fun activity, the scratchin', but I'm still a little timid and not as confident as I am with the brush.


Also I made a few wall pockets, some with swirl. I just sent my last out the door and on the way up to Madison, WI. I have never seen these made by anyone, but I have a nice one by Alex Matisse that hangs by our front door. It is one of those shapes I don't make often, but should since they always are the first to sell. Go figure...


I returned to a form I haven't made in a few years. Probably since my first show at AKAR about 7 years ago, the bottle. (I guess the handles make these flasks, or flagons. I wasn't so happy about the handles, and with each pot tried something a little different, and left one without handles which I liked. It's a hard call, with just a few to work with. I lost a few in the process of making. One of the redeeming benefits from making a series is that they reflect a process of seeing and updating with each try. A natural rhythm can be established and the pots go beyond the initial idea/sketch stage and become one's own, hopefully. But one must have faith in the process and stick to it.

Tomorrow I hope to wrap up the throwing and set up the deco stage. I have a few bisque firings to do still and hopefully will have time for everything I've made in the last few days.

Clear Bright Day

Why I [Heart] the NC Pottery Center

click on images to see larger version.

Just got this card in the mail and it reminded me how much and why I love the NC Pottery Center. Here's a beautiful facility that is home to a wonderful collection of pots, old and new. Here's a venue for a showing of pots from our great state's pottery tradition and how these pots have been interpreted by the Garner's! If you'd like to be a part of this wonderful organization, they would love to have you as a member.

From the card:

click on image to see larger version.

As a matter of fact, if you are looking for something to see and do today(Saturday), and you're in the vicinity of Seagrove, go by the Center and see the kiln being fired TODAY! The Garner's are firing the groundhog kiln at the NCPC today with their Webster reproduction work for the show! Get a good look at the pots through the firebox before they are displayed in next month's show.

I hope to get out and see the show, maybe try to get over for the opening with the family on August 14th. We are planning a getaway some time soon. It'll be good to see all my cousins over in Seagrove!

Friday Evening

Seems like the night time is the right time to get things done. After supper I made the walk up hill to the shop for some Friday night pottery fun. The afternoon was spent with visitors, bisqueware shuffling, and cleaning up. I wanted to make pitchers but ended up working on some vases/bottles. I've wanted to make these for a long time and struggled getting the technique figured out. After several that ended up in the bin, I got a few that I kept. The first ones were made by adding a coil to the top and throwing that into a neck, but it was hard to figure the proportions, (mostly my coil and throwing technique sucked!) The neck would kink and get off center from uneven coiling, etc. So what I decided to do was use the capping technique and threw the neck separately and that seemed to be a much easier approach. It's been a long time since I made of these forms, (probably early nineties)and I'm looking forward to playing around with the handles. Maybe they don't need handles? Your suggestions are welcome.