Pres

I clean the studio and ware boards with water once a year-after Christmas -usually during my break .I tend to wash kiln shelves in spring when its getting sunny and warm out to dry them outside.Summer is gas kiln repair usually-bag walss etc . every 10 years or so in summer I grind flat any wonky palster bats outside on a wheel with a mask on.60-80 grit stuck to a bat does nthat fast-really dusty job.
I vacuum the shop on Sunday afternoon weekly with central vac system that also our trash out  and recycling day so  I deal with cardboard in recycle tub and trimmings  collected in buckets 
If its warm and sunny I empty my two tub clay waste system early in week to dry out in clay boxes for Sundays trash as well.
I have been on this schedule a long time now but its noit fixed in stone.
same is true with glazing and firing certain days.

Before I retired in 2009 the HS studio was on a schedule. Once a year the Walker pug mill had the gear oil replaced and the rubber drive grommet checked. The Bailey air filtrations system had its filters replaced and the entire studio was cleaned by cleaning staff. This included dusting pipes and other over head areas like the ceiling lights and ducts. Sink traps were cleaned out on schedule once a month, and all of the tools were hand cleaned by students and myself once a month. As to sharpening and upkeep of tools, if i noticed a dull tool, or handle loose etc, I put it in a small bin to get to on an inservice day. All of my classes would wash table tops, replace tools after cleaning, and wash out the sink after the cleanup was done.
best,
Pres

I have a certain amount of cleaning incorporated into my work cycle. Mopping happens after reclaim, glaze or trimming days, because those things generate the most dust. I find if I don’t work tidy, I can’t concentrate. I have a hard time filtering out visual clutter. Or at least the wrong kind of visual clutter. I’m not a minimalist by any means.
l don’t have a schedule for equipment maintenance, but I do keep an eye on how things are working. I’ve got a set of elements and some other kiln parts handy, because I don’t want to be caught out if and when something goes wrong. The last thing I need is to have to wait 3 weeks for replacement parts to be shipped. Note to self: your next kiln will be a model that’s actually serviced in your own country.
This time of year, I’d normally be pulling my booth setup out to see what needs spiffing up, or if the sign need to be repainted. Spring shows were cancelled again this year, however, so that part of maintenance won’t happen likely until July. The farmer’s market ought to be a go.

Oh boy, I just fix things as they break and clean things when I can't move anymore... I'm really bad about that, but this is not my full time job, and it's in a separate building, so it's kind of out of sight out of mind.
Speaking of which, I'm getting a new 3D printer soon so I need to clear off a shelf for that... Hmmm, where to put this giant box of underglazes....
 
I do prebox things I put on my website so I can simply grab them and toss them in an outer box and ship them out as soon as an order comes through, so I'm not completely disorganized...
 
Also, I do keep general maintenance parts around (elements, thermocouples, wheelhead grease, etc) so that when something does finally get bad I can fix it right away.  

Maintenance for me putters along with the work/activity - there's some clean up and put away associated with every session, tools are touched up when they begin to show dull, inventory edited/updated when container requires filling, reclaim when there's sufficient amount in that clay's bin, order/wish list updated when supply is low, orders placed when supply/item will be needed soon, and so. I'm not quite able to remember everything; lists help.

First job will be to raise the vent panel on the roof of the kiln shed.  Almost did it last week but put it off.  On the weekend we had a doozy of a storm with heavy rain, hail and 90 k/hr winds which would have blown the panel off despite the dozen or so bricks weighing it down.   I guess I'll procrastinate a bit longer.
Lin

Hi folks, little late with this as I just didn't have an idea for a topic this week, but thought of something that is nearing for all of us, and in the north is important. .. Spring! Its on the way. So I thought that something about the season was appropriate.
So, QotW: Now that Spring is on the way what will be your first task in the studio?
This change in the seasons, and the warmer temperatures will bring on several days in the shop. I will not be throwing or producing anything, but unloading and unfinished glaze load, removing two kilns, and clearing the area for the new kiln. I will also take the time to do the yearly material inventory and cleaning to get ready for the new kiln due at the end of April. Lots to do, with big excitement!
Once again I will ask Now that Spring is on the way what will be your first task in the studio?
best,
Pres

I had a Summer session, at PSU that resulted in 150 pieces at least. Many of these were raku, but there were a great many that were ^10 stoneware. I did get all of them out of my firings, and took them home to my 3 room apartment. After the first few nights of September weather my wife and I moved them on to the back porch. The pinging kept the baby up! Two seasons later over 50% of the pieces were gone. The following year, none were left. The back porch was on a highly trafficked alley. I am at time embarrassed to see a familiar piece on a mantle or other place of importance when visiting homes, knowing full well they were not gifted or purchased from me. I will sometimes quietly check for the EPR on the bottom as that was my signature back then.
At least I got a chance to analyze my work before it disappeared.
best,
Pres 

I had a Summer session, at PSU that resulted in 150 pieces at least. Many of these were raku, but there were a great many that were ^10 stoneware. I did get all of them out of my firings, and took them home to my 3 room apartment. After the first few nights of September weather my wife and I moved them on to the back porch. The pinging kept the baby up! Two seasons later over 50% of the pieces were gone. The following year, none were left. The back porch was on a highly trafficked alley. I am at time embarrassed to see a familiar piece on a mantle or other place of importance when visiting homes, knowing full well they were not gifted or purchased from me. I will sometimes quietly check for the EPR on the bottom as that was my signature back then.
At least I got a chance to analyze my work before it disappeared.
best,
Pres 

I made some pots a week or so ago and now they're dry.  So today's task was to load and fire the kiln.
Before that could happen, of course, I had to make space to roll the kiln out from under the greenhouse staging, and into the middle of the floor.  So I also had to move stuff away from the kiln, and from on top of the kiln.  Also had to lift and store the anti-fatigue mats that keep my feet warm.  Then had to sweep the floor. Silver birch seeds get everywhere!

Hi folks, little late with this as I just didn't have an idea for a topic this week, but thought of something that is nearing for all of us, and in the north is important. .. Spring! Its on the way. So I thought that something about the season was appropriate.
So, QotW: Now that Spring is on the way what will be your first task in the studio?
This change in the seasons, and the warmer temperatures will bring on several days in the shop. I will not be throwing or producing anything, but unloading and unfinished glaze load, removing two kilns, and clearing the area for the new kiln. I will also take the time to do the yearly material inventory and cleaning to get ready for the new kiln due at the end of April. Lots to do, with big excitement!
Once again I will ask Now that Spring is on the way what will be your first task in the studio?
best,
Pres

Depends on my mood.  Pottery... It's a helluva drug 

working on plates....

Hi folks, as I have not noticed a new question in the QotW pool, I will pose one.
I have been thinking of the question last week involving studio habits that folks adhere to, and wonder about those studio habits that have been warned against.  What you say?? The idea started the other day when I carried in a box of clay to the house. Clearly printed on the box of clay is "Don not freeze" This admonition is from the manufacturer and I assume that it means that frozen clay will be no good to use. Clearly as I store all of my clay outside under my kayaks all of it freezes. I just make certain the boxes are off of the concrete on wooden risers, and that the entire kayak rack with two sea kayaks is covered with a tarp and bungeed down.  I realize that clay that has frozen needs a little TLC when it comes Spring, but I have always wedged my clay, and will continue to do so. Over the years, I have also found that the clay that has frozen and been rewedged by me seems a little more plastic, and throwable than the clay when delivered even a few months ago. Aging counts, and maybe the freezing has something to do with. I do realize that everytime it is frozen the aging has to begin at 0, but it is still better more workable clay a month after the thaws.
So my question for the QotW is: What studio habits do you have that others have warned against?
 
best,
Pres

putting them in isn't a problem unless you turn it on.  

LT-3K is the model fo the Kiln Sitter shutoff device, not the kiln. There should be a serial plate on the kiln that says the actual model number, voltage, phase, watts, etc. I assume you mean Gare, not Glare? Value depends on the size and condition, but in general those old kilns aren't worth much, maybe $300 unless it's a large one.

I’m very glad my college profs chose to acknowledge that handle pulling looks extremely suggestive before the demo and encouraged us all to get it out of our systems beforehand. And then proceeded to be very professional from there forward. And did NOT make any passes at anyone exhibiting talent in that area. That’s really gross.
I had one guy make a comment to me (in front of his girlfriend, no less!!) about Ghost. I gave him some really hard, uncomfortable wordless eye contact until he backed out of my booth, suddenly less sure of his amusement value. I remember watching the movie as a teen and thinking that the pottery thing was clearly set up for the actors, but that the point was the romance, not the clay. Being a teenage girl at the time, I appreciated the romance part.
Getting back to the original question, I didn’t find clay until my last year of high school. It’s a bit romantic, but not in a weird way.
I took an extra year of high school because I was late in deciding what I wanted to do afterwards. I had tentatively decided on physiotherapy, because it sounded as likely as anything else, and I didn’t really relish the notion of an office job. I was taking a bunch of additional science classes so I could set myself up for the best possible success there, given that I’m not athletic. I hadn’t taken any art classes up to that point because I’d chosen band and drama as electives, and I was told I needed to round things out by taking sewing and typing. Also, I have never bee particularly good at drawing, so I didn’t think I’d be any good at art. But with a full course load of science, I needed something fun in there, so I signed up for Art 10 (grade 10 level art). My school was experimenting with the quarter system at the time, so the experience was pretty immersive, because you only had 2 classes at a time but you were in them for half the day. Not great for Bio or Physics, but ideal for Art, and I wound up taking 20 and 30 level too. They were also playing around with a more self-directed model that year, so couple that with a well stocked art room, a teacher who was a practicing artist herself and who believed in fostering creativity and the idea that “artist” was a legitimate profession; lots of local artists brought in to do regular demos and talks (including a handful of potters), doing a job shadow with a local potter, raku firings as often as we could get the stuff together for it...and I fell in love with clay. At the spring Open House  tour to ACA (now Alberta University for the Arts), I remember going through the clay studio, and thinking that it felt like Home. I came home from school that day and before even taking my shoes off, I announced to my parents that I was going to art school instead. Their response was “My day was fine, thanks for asking.”
 
 
 

In California around the 3rd to 5th grade elementary school we studied the missions that dot California from Mexico to just north of the Golden gate a piece. Those missionary's spread them out to a days walk between missions. They (white men ) settled the territory 1st in a big way. Working or torturing (believe what you may)  the Indians who had always lived here.
From that  history we made small pinch pots like the Indians did as well as cardboard missions. That pot I still have a white body low fire pieve with cobalt on it.
This did not get me thinking ah ceramics thats for me.
The next was seeing my older brothers ceramic two foot owl he made in high school . Still have it somewhere?
That did not do it for me but later when I got the bug was high school at a place that I could with a friend make pots . We both liked it so much we took private night  throwing lessons in Seal beach for some months. That was in 69 if I recall.I bought a Brent wheel from Robert Brent at that time-he was just starting out as well.
I went to JC in 1971  and then I already could throw pots (not well) They where building kilns and just starting a new campus so I landed at the right time to build kilns make pots and so on.
I built a catenary arch kiln at my rental where I lived and made a throwing studio lean to off the back-soon I need a bigger place.-1st kiln the inspector ever saw-he lit a match looking for leaks (wow even then I thought that was a bit off)
I bought a house in 73 with a small loan from my mother and immediately turned a one car shack into a studio and built a kiln.The gas Company ran a 1,000 foot main to house for free -kinder times back then (since then they have made a small fortune selling me gas at commercial rates.)
Within a few years I transfered over to Humboldt state-1973-and there some new hires from Alfreds where teaching glaze and clay making. I sponged that up. They had a salt kiln-right time for learning that as well.  They where on fire with recent clay  learning from the greats at Alfreds.They taught mold  making ,low fire ,high fire ,hand building-I soaked it all in and then some. I got a work study job at school pot shop-made glazes-fired kilns -cleaned the place -ground shelves-built kilns. I took it all in 24/7 for 5 years straight . I lived and breathed clay  while chasing  an art paper degree .After graduation with said Art degree I was making pots at home . I was 22-by then I was selling them anywhere I could find in our county. 12 years slipped by. My mother asked me at age 35 what I was going to be doing with my life in terms of work. I had never thought about it as I was paying the mortgage and eating with pottery money never thought it as a  living then.-it just all worked. Never considered much else -like other work-sure i picked up some stray jobs to help along the way but clay was the way as it felt great. Later in life in my 40s I realized I was a potter and that was my path and livelyhood. Along the way I worked as an electrician as my best friend had a electrical contractin g business and needed help on big jobs where I learned on the job-same dael with a plumber friend he tought me and hired me a bit a swell all during my slower winter times with clay .Same with diving and clay I could help out doing commercial dive work with some dive contractor friends but only if it worked with show schedule. Then another 20 years slipped by again with pots.
I will say those other skills really helped to make kilns and studio and homes and I suggest all the other skills for any potter these days .Runing gas pipe or wiring kilns -all good stuff to know.
All my life I m the guy who wants to know HOW IT WORKS-that worked well for me.
So for me I never had an ahah moment clay slowly did its magic on me and really until age 35 when my mother asked I had not considered it a job or the rest of my life. Looking backing I think I was 17 when clay got me. From that moment on it was like breathing air-I never had a chance. Today I feel like clay got me not the other way round.
Clay has been very good to me and as a sit here doing exercises on my hand that just had a bone removed in thumb due to overuse clay also has been hard on me. Its a mixed bag really. Killer on the body on the scale I choose to pursue but mind and spirt  its been very good indeed..
Need to check my kiln fires now

Here's what I've been up to in my free time.  Been making LED lamps.  Here's a few of the prototype designs. In greenware with crackle slip.
 

Hey--this is some serious art here! This is the art of resilience and adaptability. It is the art of pleasing women who shop at gift boutiques and are obsessed with gnomes. It is the art of kicking Peter Voulkus out of one's head and replacing him with a big nosed little creature in a valentine hat. It is the art of survival.  And, truth be told, it is the art of having a bit of fun. But we shall not speak of this ever again.

Working on test for a  Greek mythology set.

Likely as many takes on your/Bam's question as there are potters (plus those dreaming of being potters).
While dreaming/doing can be exclusive - opposed on the "doing" continuum* - per the core o' this week's question, my thoughts on it keep veering toward the dreams that drive doing.
I'm well into my third year of retirement, happy to be where I am, and looking back, gave up a lot for it - nights and weekends burned to complete my second degree, restore and remodel properties (our several homes) so we may be able to sell at a profit someday, and work, work, work (including working away from home - out o' town). In the world of 24/7 production, one must, etc. Now, the "must do" is between my partner and I, and no one else - no one that's a regular base human creature, that is.
The dream, dreaming is important, whatever Hamlet say. 
Any road, to the question, I am competitive, to a fault, hence, to get "doing" going, a smidge of competition, whether real or imagined, doesn't matter, I'm all go.
Pottery is a hobby for me; I don't see that changing. Motivation to do isn't a big deal for me. For those whom motivation looms larger, may I suggest looking at the big picture - decades down the road, what's your dream? Like the song says, "You gotta have a dream, if you don't have a dream, How you gonna have a dream come true?"
Aaaand, balance, priorities.
 
*pronounced continue-uhm; Webster on continuum:
: a coherent whole characterized as a collection, sequence, or progression of values or elements varying by minute degrees
"good" and "bad" … stand at opposite ends of a continuum instead of describing the two halves of a line
— Wayne Shumaker

My motivation source is similar to @Pres's answer: Give yourself a deadline. Shows are terrific for this. Once it's confirmed on your schedule, you have no choice but to get ready for it. 
With all of last year's shows cancelled, I had to create my own substitute events, but they worked the same way in terms of giving myself a deadline. 

Hi folks, even though there was no QotW in the pool, I did receive an email with a good question to ask from @Bam2015: 
 have good intentions to work on pottery in the evening, but after a long work day I'm tired, so instead of working on pottery projects, I spend time on Instagram looking at pots. While I learn a lot and it's entertaining, I realize that it's not very productive. 
So my question, how do you motivate yourself to be a doer rather than a dreamer? Feel free to revise, or if it's not in line with what you are looking for, I understand.
I know how this went years ago. I was teaching school HS full time, just barely making ends meet when I started doing the Penn State festival. I had shown my pots at local shows and sold some. I had also joined the local PA guild of Craftsmen, and was the head of the jurying committee. The Penn State festival is in mid July, and the same weekend as the Alumni weekend. At the same time they opened up the rules for the locals to jury in with their pieces in person. I started producing in the middle of the early Spring in the garage, heated with a kerosene heater. I would get home at 3-4pm, turn on the heat, go in to change, then get out and throw til dinner, usually at 6pm, then throw til 11pm. Thing is, I am not a good judge of time, and often I would work until 2, get up in the morning and do it all over again. It was joyous at first, then work, then drudging. To do the festival, rumor was 10K of stock was needed to properly do the show. I really worked hard for months to get there. In early Summer as soon as school was out, I was in the shop everyday for all day often working before breakfast, and til 11pm or longer. My wife and one of her friends learned to dip glaze, and I sprayed color and did calligraphy for decoration over the white bristol type glaze. 7 year I did the show, until my wife was burned out, and was I. In the end, it really made me better at everything, but I realized in the long run, I loved to teach, loved to make pots, but wanted to make pots for myself. . . whether I kept them, sold them or not.  Hope that last statement makes sense since it is not as simple as it seems.  If being a doer is in you, then I believe you will do, being driven is inherent if you love it, but how do you sustain that if working two jobs.  
So,  QotW: How do you motivate yourself to be a doer rather than a dreamer? 
 
best,
Pres

Whats a dreamer? Always been a doer-I think some dreaming skills may help me-lets see drinking my expresso now I'm dreaming of finishing all my work today-only have one hand so work is slow.I am dreaming about this cast coming off-only 5 days left then it a tempory cast for two weeks and rehab on the thumb will start. clay throwing still a long ways out-wait thats a dream.
I do dream about being underwater if that counts