Min

My workbench is full of ugly bisque again. I really is my least favourite stage. But a week and a half ago, I decided it would be a good idea to document some new compost buckets before I was packing them up to go to a sale. These are much nicer pictures!
Before you make fun of me for my product staging, I was legit making soup stock with the Easter turkey.

A kiln load has been waiting for a month to be glazed and single-fired. 
After work and weekends have been building a chicken coop with double chicken run. Been raining so much have really put construction behind. Chicks arrive May 8.

(Waster donuts, take less clay than cookies) 
Mugs were my last thing on the bench today

 

(Waster donuts, take less clay than cookies) 
Mugs were my last thing on the bench today

 

On my workbench today ... an experimental bowl with an exaggerated footring/pedestal. How the heck do I fire this thing, on a waster cookie?

Busy day glazing today! These are all waxed and ready to dip.
 

The recent greenware. 

I seem to have a 20 year fixation with small lidded jars.  It started about my third year in college, and has been a form I've worked with off and on ever since. That, and mugs. So.  Many. Variations. For both of those forms. 
I went through a depression several years ago now, and I wasn't able to make a whole heck of lot, but I knew it was important to me to keep making.  I thought, well, the simplest thing to make is a cylinder. I didn't really just want to throw plain cylinders and scrap them, so I decided just to add a handle so I could feel like I was doing something productive.  So consequently, I can make mugs no matter how much I may not feel like doing anything. I'll usually start a work cycle with them, because it gets me into a rythm of moving, which allows me to make the next thing, and the next thing...etc,

When LeeU said “one of my more masculine pieces” in another thread it had me contemplating her comment. Masculine and feminine encompass a large set of related characteristics, would be hard pressed to make a pot that didn’t have curves but that alone doesn’t make a pot feminine. Are visually heavy pots defined as masculine?  At first this seems like an easy question but I’m finding it very hard to nail down what defines a pot as masculine or feminine and yet I have no problem looking at a pot and thinking it is one or the other or neither. Does our subconscious make the decision for us? 

Thanks for posting my question Pres. 
hanging planters for succulents

 

today i had things on my workbench i would be happy to let anyone see.  hope they all make it through the next steps to finished product.
i would be happy if i could capture in the final firing that soft color of the slip.  who knows how it will look when it is finished?

"bench" is buried.  kiln is bisque firing and i cannot use the space until it is opened and i restore the space.  i only bisque during the winter when i am a thousand miles from my glaze kitchen and big kiln.  that allows me to get the pieces home.

Raw Glazing.  And in the background a first attempt at throwing a double walled vessel and then carving it.

Winter tea bowls in red clay, part of a series I call "Wild Heart." They will all have a red accent somewhere on the bowl.
 I have hand-built some using a simple template that gives them a squared shape at the base above the foot ring, and I threw a couple this morning.
But it is too cold, really, to go very long at all. Today I threw wearing a thermal shirt, thermal pants, and a down vest.
 

working on pieces for Invitational at one gallery, a wood firing in June, and seasonal gallery opening in Nye, Mt. 
 

Working  on found object texture tiles to be raku fired and assembled for a wall hanging.

Good question for a Monday morning!
I have a kiln load of bisque that needs washing and waxing. I’ve got samples for a mug re-design for an existing client and a big pile of test tiles in the bin to go along with that, I have 18 mugs for a new client, and serving bowls, sugar jars and more mugs for upcoming spring shows. And I have weekly scheduling, and homework for an online business course on the go. 
 
Yes, this is my kitchen. Washing and waxing bisque is the only job I really do outside of my studio this time of year. It’s still too cold to take it outside yet. 

Thanks for posting my question Pres. 
hanging planters for succulents

 

Tupperware containers of glaze and slip, vintage mustard jar packed with brushes, trays of tools for throwing/trimming. Studio isn't sectioned off for different things but everything is in reach by the wheel. 

Thanks for posting my question Pres. 
hanging planters for succulents

 

A nice size coiled bowl  with black stylized Anazai designs on white clay.  Didn't quite get in finished today.   Sorry no photo.   Denice

making a combination of things.  big pieces with leaves and birds and small, about 3 inches across lace impressed bowl shaped "containers".  the small items will sell if i can get a nice glaze in several colors.  the bigger ones also sell, depending on the venue.  but the small stuff is my version of mark's sponge holder bread and butter item.  not that they hold sponges, just that they sell quickly and bring in cash.


got to make some glazes!

Elephants!

What's on my workbench?
Clutter.  It's far too cold and damp to be out there this time of year.
My shelf at the centre, however, has rolled clay waiting to be turned into Herb Labels, there is an Owl drop mould sitting upside down, waiting to be fettled and put into the kiln, and there are mugs and spatula rests waiting for a ^6 firing.

Thanks for posting my question Pres. 
hanging planters for succulents