Callie Beller Diesel

I can get a serious case of blank page syndrome when faced with a large block of clay and no other directives. I need to have some choices made ahead of time, and I like most things to be planned out before I head to the studio.  I need to narrow the possibilities down, which is why I work within a functional framework.
 
I come at it from a “This is my job” angle. In the early part of the year, I schedule play and design time, to work out new ideas and keep things fresh. There’s not a lot of sales in January and February, and I’m flush off of Christmas, so I have the space to noodle a bit. I think about the feedback I received over the year, and if I’ve noticed I’ve received a lot of requests for an item, I’ll make the effort to design one I like. If I had requests for larger items, I’ll play around with them at that point, because I have the space to do things like throw a large bisque mold, or glaze test, or try a new material or technique. 
The middle of the year is about testing those new designs in the market, and seeing who likes what and how well it sells and at what price point. There are adjustments made, but at that point it’s more about perfecting existing designs, or starting to make more of it, making work for ongoing markets and stockpiling the proven items for Christmas.
 
Christmas planning starts in June, and and my cutoff for trying to work out anything new is the start of September. At that point my focus shifts from “what am I making?” to “how much do I have to make?” That last part is all based on numbers from last year at the same shows, plus who needs what for retail outlets and any online sales. 
Creativity gets put on hold for a couple of months, other than idea gathering and sketching. In a lot of ways I find the production time freeing, because I have a list and can just crank. Seeing a huge pile of stuff you’ve made at the end of the day is very satisfying.  But at the end I’m glad for the rest, and the time to noodle.
 

I can get a serious case of blank page syndrome when faced with a large block of clay and no other directives. I need to have some choices made ahead of time, and I like most things to be planned out before I head to the studio.  I need to narrow the possibilities down, which is why I work within a functional framework.
 
I come at it from a “This is my job” angle. In the early part of the year, I schedule play and design time, to work out new ideas and keep things fresh. There’s not a lot of sales in January and February, and I’m flush off of Christmas, so I have the space to noodle a bit. I think about the feedback I received over the year, and if I’ve noticed I’ve received a lot of requests for an item, I’ll make the effort to design one I like. If I had requests for larger items, I’ll play around with them at that point, because I have the space to do things like throw a large bisque mold, or glaze test, or try a new material or technique. 
The middle of the year is about testing those new designs in the market, and seeing who likes what and how well it sells and at what price point. There are adjustments made, but at that point it’s more about perfecting existing designs, or starting to make more of it, making work for ongoing markets and stockpiling the proven items for Christmas.
 
Christmas planning starts in June, and and my cutoff for trying to work out anything new is the start of September. At that point my focus shifts from “what am I making?” to “how much do I have to make?” That last part is all based on numbers from last year at the same shows, plus who needs what for retail outlets and any online sales. 
Creativity gets put on hold for a couple of months, other than idea gathering and sketching. In a lot of ways I find the production time freeing, because I have a list and can just crank. Seeing a huge pile of stuff you’ve made at the end of the day is very satisfying.  But at the end I’m glad for the rest, and the time to noodle.
 

@Magnolia Mud Research
In  general we do not, much simpler.  So if you look at the typical  potters oxygen probe you will get an output between zero and let’s say 2 volts. The probes marketed to potters today are generalized by results (Fired work)  and the sheer Limit of a typical gas fire kiln utilizing primary and secondary air.
In the kiln above, the owner purchased a probe from Geil which can measure from  approximately 20.9%  to 1E-11 percent oxygen. Very similar to Atmos Engineering  probe (for industry). Generally these things use the Nernst equation %O2 = [Ref O2] x e (exp) (mv/(-0.02155xTemp. K) ) the output is generally logarithmic and correlates to partial gas pressures and therefore a related percentage oxygen content.
Of that 2 volts, the practical range potters experience are about 0 to 1 volt where 1 volt is near unachievable by ordinary kilns. Our 1 volt output corresponds to  let’s say .00001 - .00002% O2 content (temperature dependent) this small amount of oxygen or lack there of, results in a super heavy reducing atmosphere during ordinary reduction firings.
so for all the fancy stuff above we need to only report the output  (mv) and relate it to a chart that indicates its relative strength of reduction to a Potter with a gas kiln. Which generally simplifies to 0.7 v  is heavy reduction, 0.5v is medium and so on. So to answer your question, it’s really not converted to anything thermodynamically. Potters now know heavy reduction is X -volts, medium -Y, and neutral-Z so to speak
Take a look at the various charts below and it should make more sense with ultimately the simplest form you see there being a very popular potters form..
The plot is actually a spreadsheet we give them,  formatted so they can  easily creat their own  reduction profiles to follow and can easily install in the program for on screen display during their firing. Notice the R1.....R4 . So the goal here is to allow them to be programmers without having to do any meaningful programming. The X axis is time but dependent on their firing speed. The  demarcation temps are the O2 levels they have picked for their reduction schedule. Most simple schedules translate to: body reduction (heavy) from 1600 - 1700 degrees and some lesser reduction the balance of the way.
Most ordinary pottery kilns are powered and insulated such that at cone 10 they are lucky to maintain 100 degrees per hour in medium reduction anyway so this really ends up to limit their choice of reduction schedules toward the end of the firing. But having said all that, they can vary their schedule, formulate and glaze  and repeat once they discover the magic combination.
The PLC and touch screen allows them to store up to four of their favorites easily,  and does a whole bunch more as you can set alarm points, see your firing rate, get texts, monitor remotely on your phone or tablet, display on a TV as a lecture aid, record the entire firing and data etc..... 
So far we just help private entities  build these and license the software to them for nothing other than a commitment to give back to the community and promote any knowledge gained. It cannot be used commercially or resold commercially but is intended as a tool to help educate as well as develop new schedules, firings and glazes to be shared with the larger community. None of these  are automatic in anyway, they are simply monitors allowing the user to learn how to fire more readily. You would be amazed at the answers I get when I have to ask how fast do you want to fire?
so far so good actually. Anywhere that has had one the learning curve has accelerated greatly .
 

So I spent the last Month off and on to: 
Congratulations Dawn & Ray!
We Just finished the fourth Kiln monitor, interfacing with their Geil car kiln,  and made further improvements to the programming to help folks reduction fire more easily, repeatable, and hopefully share their results with everyone in the pottery community.
First reduction test run was designed to calibrate and hopefully allow schedules to be created that are effective and finish in about eight hours.   From an initial peek inside the kiln, All test tiles reduced everywhere as expected ……… they are on their way to creating cool stuff and sharing their results and new schedules / techniques. Next build I think we are gonna find a cool dressy enclosure though.
Generation  Four- Finished!
Pictures of some of the peek inside the kiln and other stuff below
 

So I spent the weekend making more of these, and I really like to make them.  I keep improving on the design which means I'm learning.  Learning makes me happy!  So anyway, was able to finally glaze fire some and I like the result.  Here's one from the batch

2 feet of snow... ya'll are crazy! 
Feels good to have something on the bench, life's been busy, wife sold her store, we opened a new one in a nearby small town and I've actually sold a few things there already, tried a booth at a local shop that rents booths but  it's not done much better than the rent. We had to practice like 30 hours for a gig at a friend's party, that was awesome, made people cry, felt good to nail it for a change.
Anyway, uggg, you don't throw for a while and for me anyway, let's just say the first few mugs will have carving around the bottoms, a couple might not make it due to thin bottoms, and I felt a bit rusty, lol. Sure does feel good to spin some mud though, nothin' like it.
 

I have been glazing and firing bowls all weekend, no surprise. 
But today I am making a few carafes for a company on the east coast to see if they'd like to do business with me.  Just a little commission gig to get some money flowing.  Supposedly 20 a month at 40 a piece, that's at least enough spending cash to buy more clay and feed my real addiction lol.  

Two down, 50 to go. 

Two down, 50 to go. 

Two down, 50 to go. 

Each of my work stations (for functions in the process) has its own array of most-used tools and assists placed as neatly near by as possible. I use little household bins to hold horizontals and jars for uprights, bowls/catchalls for sponges, hooks for hanging things, carefully chosen shelving, and planned use of spaces under tables. My clay is in 5 gal buckets set on those plant-moving things with wheels, I use carts with drawers to store smalls, labeled by category.  I label everything so I can remember what's what (i.e. this shelf is bisque for glazing, that shelf is greenware etc.). I write the type of clay and cone, and type of glaze and cone, on masking tape and put that where I can see it at a glance. I try to put like items together-by size or type or function.  
I have such a small space and I don't tolerate mess very well, especially my own, that I just have to keep it functional or I get put off and back out when I need to press ahead. It's kind of a mental containment strategy, to keep my studio so that I can walk in and just get to work and have what I need at hand without having to search for things  or clean them off first. 

Two down, 50 to go. 

Two down, 50 to go. 

Much like @Callie Beller Diesel, I have a full plate tonight.  In celebration of my youtube channel reaching 100 subscribers I decided it was a good idea to throw 100 bowls.  Now that they're all drying at a rapid rate, I'm having second thoughts on how great of an idea it was! Haha
 

Two down, 50 to go. 

Two down, 50 to go. 

Two down, 50 to go. 

+1 on the grout sponge.
Sketchbooks, and craft foam for templates and small slump molds are worth a mention too. And snap off utility knives are better than fettling knives imo. 

+1 on the grout sponge.
Sketchbooks, and craft foam for templates and small slump molds are worth a mention too. And snap off utility knives are better than fettling knives imo. 

What's on my workbench? Nothing.  There is no worktable at the moment. Up until today--2 days before, 1 day of, and 3 days after the non-even craft fair, it was not available.   It has finally made it into the studio now, though half of the bins of the pieces are still in the trunk. The little sidewalk fair was fun-ish, at least talking with the other vendors who weren't selling anything either (no traffic). Not so great for the back/hip, so in the future I'll only be participating in venues that provide tables, however few that may be. And, DUH, I can't do anything, really, without my work table actually being in the studio, so there's that lost time as well!  Maybe tomorrow I can get up the steam to put my work space back together.   Updated, the last 2 pics-a day later- got my table back up, yay me for not procrastinating and laying about all day watching Nothing Gold Can Stay--an addictive Amazon series, just FYI.  

I use so very little cobalt, I'm not even sure anyone would care if I gave it up or not. I use it in increments of 1% or less, so I'm still working on the 250g package of carbonate I bought two years ago. 
I don't work in oranges or reds because I don't want to expose myself to cadmium, never mind anyone else. I don't care if they're stable enough for my use, someone had to expose themselves to keep me safe. To me, it's not worth it for a few pots. I bought the smallest package of red stain I could 5 years ago, and I can't bring myself to use it much. 
The yellow stain I do have is praseodymium based. Not sure how rare earth mining practices compare those of cadmium or cobalt. 

Rare earth refining is where you would draw concern I think.  I think all the lanthanides are mined together and separated via chemical process.  Since China is the dominant (only) producer of rare earth elements I'm sure they do it all safely and ethically.  But once again, the pottery world draws almost zero demand, so you aren't the driving force behind the mining and processing of the ore, you're a side concern of a side concern when it comes to praseodymium.

New mugs, and a commission for tiny display dishes for a spice shop. 

New mugs, and a commission for tiny display dishes for a spice shop. 

New mugs, and a commission for tiny display dishes for a spice shop.