18 April 2010

Fighting to Keep Focus

The weather has turned glorious...spring at it's best...and I find it all distracting. With less than a week to make pots before I begin loading the kiln, I can't decide whether I should be planting things and working on landscaping or throwing more last minute treasures...or hanging out at Laszlo's Weenie World for the Virginia States Frisbee Championships...or...you get the picture. I know that I can put a lot of things off until after the firing, but the weather is bound to get hotter than I prefer by then. 
Still, at least some of the time I'm get to the studio. I've got 50-60 mugs made...I want 100.
These next two are the last of the big'uns...18" - 20" tall. I added lots of dots with my black glaze which you can see on previous posts.
I like to have at least one "Fredericksburg" pot in each firing. My calligraphy skills are crude at best.
Here's a peek inside some biscuit fired pots.I raw glaze/fire most of my work but I've never been able to make my crackle slip work on wet pots. (truthfully I haven't tried all that hard. Yet.) I should write more about raw glazing soon. I love it. The difference in how a pot takes the glaze is subtle but important. Biscuit fired pots suck the glaze up almost frantically as opposed to the way a slip or glaze glides across the surface of a raw pot. Try combing a biscuit pot after applying a slip and you'll know what I mean.

4 comments:

Linda Starr said...

I think your calligraphy is wonderful; my drawings on paper are always so much better than on my pots. I hope you post about raw glazing, that is something I hope to do in the future.

Anonymous said...

hi dan, not sure how you can pass up any event at a place with weenie world in the name... and of course the weather is unbelievable, here too. that first big'un is beautiful, damn nice! perfect proportion and everything else too.

Monique said...

I agree with all of the above!
I would love to hear about raw glazing, I find the handling of the raw pots sometimes hard, especially glazing a raw plate... any tips from an experienced potter like yourself would be great!

Quietly Otaku said...

Nice work! Often when I sit at the wheel I think I'd like to throw x number of bowls or mugs but try not to be so hard on yourself!