Laundry Time!

The day began with some wood stacking and some putzing around the compound, waiting for the second cup of coffee! As I washed my hands in the clean up bucket I realized that the mosquitoes that used it for their crib all summer had all flown away and the water was really cold! I guess summer is really gone?! This time of the year we have a good covering of frost on the ground in the morning and by lunch I'm in my T shirt! I forget that it's Fall sometimes, but am always reminded when I walk into my shop in the morning to its chill. I really need to get a kettle to heat up water on the wood stove for my throwing bucket!

It's another gorgeous day and after checking yesterday's pots, I decided to get rid of the huge pile of dirty towels on the floor. After awhile these kind of things (piles) disappear and don't reappear until I'm tripping over them. Maybe there is a critical mass of clay ridden towels that one reaches.
I dedicate this line of laundry to Mr. Philbeck!

Anyway, I miss hearing your comments and hope everyone is doing great. Looks like the issue won't get resolved anytime soon, since there are pots to make and towels to dry.

Tuesday

I found this tree to have a very interesting seed?nut?bud? and
will look at trying to create a pattern in its honor!

Jack's backside on our walk

In the ongoing effort to stay caught up and not get too distracted in the endless list of projects I usually fail. Today was full of auxiliary activities and I reminded myself that all of them contribute in the final big event of the firing in a few weeks. This beautiful autumn day included cutting wood, organizing/putting away all of the random things on my tables that are in the way of the oncoming ware boards and bats full of pots.

Here are some images/impressions of the day.

thistle

bear grass, Christmas trees, and the distant Black Mtns.

oh yea, pots!

Meanwhile, I'm still working on the blog and it's internal problems in the commenting department. I'm playing around with WordPress and trying different themes and widgetry! I'm finding out how steam lined I have made this process on Blogger and to learn a new application is a little intimidating. I am pursuing the possibilities but may not have anything that I can confidently go with for a while. All this stuff takes time!

Life is Good

Today's views from the main throwing place at my Shimpo Scream! The bottom picture shows haw dirty this window can get. The other window, the clean one, is the one I most often glance out of. It also provides great light that helps me to see the profiles of my pots.

With weather like we had today I was quickly out the door after some a.m. pugging to cut wood for the rest of the afternoon. I burn the kiln with poplar so I can squeak by just a few weeks of drying, but the kiln runs like a Nascar, or should I say Formula 1 car when the wood is well seasoned!

I got to thinking how lucky I am to be doing what I do. There are times when I don't feel so lucky, but today it was a blessing to be out cutting wood for the kiln and making pots. We squeak by with our meager income, and have everything we need to be happy. I just wish I had a couple of more weeks to get ready for the next firing!

porcelain bowl, ca. 2000

This is pretty random, but as I was going through the old eMac I found this little ditty from about 1999/2000. It's evidence of pre-dirt Kline. This is from a series I did as a resident at Penland. The pattern was painted on bone dry porcelain with a can of shellac that Shawn Ireland had given me as he moved out of the Barns. The shellac was painted on and then the porcelain was reduced very carefully with an elephant ear sponge. I still own most of them they were so precious to me. I did sell a few of them , though.

I did love the translucency and the process challenged me to work with a completely different technique while still exploring the patterns I made with the brush. Some of the work had several layers of shallec that let different amounts of light through. The failure rate was pretty high. Sometimes I would just botch the pots from too much handling, sometimes cracks would appear after the salt glaze firing. The process was hard on my neck and back and eventually I gave it up. The nice thing about making things in clay and firing them is that they're around somewhere, either on the hard drive or in someone's home/life.

Here's one that lives in our living room

Finished the pots for the Montessori set! Yim, don't these trimmings look like chocolate? Well it is Halloween and that means it's that time of the year for small candy bars. I'm off to paint some pots at the Crabtree Creek Art and Floral Gallery in Micaville. See you there.

I will be back at the pug mill to prep my clay for the stoneware I'm going to throw for the upcoming firing. It will be number XXXIII! That means a lot of roman numerals on my pots. I'd better make a stamp!

May your Halloween kilns turn out more like Christmas.

Tom White

circa 1974

I got a call from an old friend up in Mass. the other day. We had a nice chat and he told me about his new website. You may remember mention of Tom White a while back. He sent me a beautiful jug with a fish stopper, that Lillian likes to sip from time to time.

Well you've got to check out Tom's page. Here's a link to his early years! These pictures are not to be missed. Tom, no doubt from these pictures, fought in the early battles of selling pots across this great land back in the 1970's!


He's also go a nice gallery of the pots he's making today. Check it out. Tell him I sent you!
And it's not to late to start planning your trip to Northfield, MA for

the 30th annual
Tom White Pottery Holiday Sale!

(WOW! I had just graduated from high school 30 years ago.
Some of ya'll weren't even born!)

Every year Tom sends out a great holiday
card to all of his fans. Here is one of those.

Tom's sale this year will be on Dec. 12-13th and 19-20th. I'll try to remember to to remind you.

Crabtree Creek This Saturday

I'll be doing some deco demo at the Crabtree Creek Art and Floral Gallery in Micaville this coming Saturday! Come on out if you're in the neighborhood. There will be refreshments and me (possibly in costume) sitting there painting pots and telling all of my secrets! Or if you have some bisqueware you need painted, I'm your man. My rates are reasonable!

;-)

Splash

When I came in the shop this morning and went to the wheel to throw I noticed the layering of earthenware clay and white slip from yesterday's slip spray had marbleized very nicely. So I snapped this picture being the resident shutterbug.

It was a beautiful day with lots of sun and bright fall colors in the hills around the shop. I continued to work the earthenware for the special Montessori pots that I'll need to bisque over the weekend. Meanwhile I'll need to get started on some stoneware.

Other activities that filled the day:

• re-rolled fluorescent red tape onto a spool while talking to Sam.
• packed and shipped some pots.
• cleaned showroom and priced some pots.
• cut a bunch of cord wood
  
• took Jack on our trail loop up the hill and around the edge of the woods
• baked some rye bread
• found Google Mars!
• sanded plate rack getting it ready for a fresh coat of paint

a good day

all-in-all.

Unintended Changes (or, OOPS, I Slipped!)

Many potter bloggers talk about their love of the freshly slipped pot! I love it, too. Those slipware potters must have a lot of fun!

In other news, there were some unfortunate things that happened last night as I was updating the blog. Without getting into details I wanted to let you know I'm working on getting back to normal. For now you will notice at the bottom of each post there are some reaction checkboxes. Please feel free to "react"!!

I hope to have normal commenting back soon. Thanks.

Slipping, Combing Earthenware!

I'm making some limited edition earthenware dishes for Evelyn's Montessori class! The class has a special literary tea once a month and since there are several potters kids in the class, the teacher asked us to make some dishes. Anyway, here is a video showing a way I came up with to apply some white slip to some freshly thrown plates. I could have brushed the slip on, but I wanted an even layer.