Feel like I'm stuck in a jar

I've been not feeling very talkative lately. Life is a downer sometimes. I have no idea if I ever put this photo up before-I don't think I did. From one of my last firings. Let's see, what's going on with me? I recently got older. Some friends threw me an impromptu party which was really nice and a lot of fun. I got a little hammered. I had to have Adam come pick me up after work. I think he was actually in bed by then. Oh well. At least I didn't drive. What else? I'll be going on a trip in about a month. Going to visit the old man. I'll be gone for about 9 days. I need a break from my surroundings. The walls are closing in.

I'm cold.

teeny-tiny jar

A mind numbing, finger cramp inducing, shiver producing cold that has sunk deep into my bones. I have been cold for days and my only respite is late at night, pressed against Adam under the covers. I jumped in the shower this morning; my sole intent being raising my body temperature. After a moment I remembered that I had hot tub in my back yard and so climbed out of the shower and into the 102 degree water which I raised to 103. It's a strange feeling, soaking in hot water, shivering inside. After 15 minutes I finally felt warm again.

It's five o'clock now. I'm sitting on a heating pad, eating a bowl of black bean soup, not because I'm hungry, but because it's hot (although I seldom need the excuse of hunger to eat) and drinking another cup of tea. I am determined not to turn the furnace on yet. We pre-bought 650 gallons of propane, although I told Adam I thought we should buy 750. If I turn the heat on now, we will never make it through the winter and will likely have to buy more when the price is at it's yearly peak.

Sadly, to try and cope with what has become a frightening heating bill in the winter, we have decided to shut down the master bedroom, which has it's own bath and move into the guest room. We plan to put a damper in the ductwork to stop the heat from heading to that part of the house. Our house is not large, and this will effectively remove about 1/3 of our living space. It is however, an enormous heat drain, being the coldest room in the house on any day. I am assuming they used paper towels-of the single ply variety-to insulate the walls.

And so it is time to get the crock pot out again. For anyone who missed this post the last time, Adam once had the brilliant idea of using a crockpot for my water bucket and it really helps. So will this heating pad under my butt which is coming downstairs with me now.

Maybe I'm so cold today because my reflections are POLARized-get it?

I don't think I've put these up yet-if I have, then you get to see them twice. This handled pot is one of the only ones that came out okay.

I am reading a book my father Dennis sent me. It is called Light, Science and Magic and is by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua. It's a great book, and if you are interested in learning to photograph your own pots, then this book will likely improve your photos and the ease with which you can make them happen; I know it has already helped me a lot and I have much more still to read.

I learned an interesting thing this morning. I have been having a really difficult time photographing my black pots, like the one above. They look washed out and really difficult to control the reflections on them. Well, I think I now know why, and what I can do about it. I can't possibly explain what I have read thus far, but enough to say that there are several different kinds of light, and, interestingly enough, different types of reflections, and different ways to control them. I think the reflection I am getting off my black glaze is a polarized reflection-which is why I can't make it go away. Now, a far better photographer than myself might be able to deal with this differently-or they might do the same. What I might have to do is to put a polarizing filter over my lens and if it is indeed the type of reflection I am getting, it should solve the problem. It won't help if I am wrong-it will only solve polarized reflection issues . . . but . . . this next thing is fascinating.

You can create polarized reflections by polarizing your lightsource. For example, if I have a direct reflection on a pot, a polarized filter will not change it. However, if I were to put a polarized film over my light, the reflections the light created would then be polarized, and would then be able to be controlled by a polarized filter over my camera lens. I don't know why I would ever do that, but it is cool to know and understand. Knowledge is power!

It ain't no five-dollar t.v.

Yesterday I had a last minute porch sale to try and unload my seconds and older work. There was a town-wide yard sale going on and I thought I'd take advantage of the traffic. I was selling my stuff CHEAP. So cheap that I sometimes did not fully understand why someone would by one mug and be done. Okay, I am kind of embarrassed to say how cheap, but I was selling almost all my mugs, cups and bowls for 1$. Yes, 1. I just want to get rid of it. So I set up at noon, and sold till 3:30 and made 158$. I wish I had set up in the morning because I think I would have unloaded a lot more. I was kind of depressed about the whole thing though. One, I hate devaluing my work like that. It was de-moralizing for me, and as I thought about it through the sale, I worried that I was de-valuing my work, or pottery in general in the publics eye as well. I really want to get rid of this stuff though as it mentally keeps me down. I want to move forward, and when the past is staring you in the face . . .

When I talked to Adam about it later he said that I shouldn't take it personnally, that yard-salers are bottom feeders. As someone who is not above stopping at a yard sale occasionally, I don't subscribe to that theory, but I do think he was correct when he said that when people go out yard-saling they have a certain mindset about them. They are scrounging for a deal. The five dollar T.V. that they think is worth 300 as he said. Unfortunately they might not appreciate that they are holding a 1 dollar pot worth twent-five. So if I market my work in an evironment of cheapness, and sell it cheaply, I shouldn't be too surprised when I feel like shit about it. Oh well.

Diggin' it

Here's a little jar. This is the same glaze combo as the small plate I put up a few days ago. I really like this combo together, which is good because I have a five gallon bucket full of the lighter glaze because I was trying to make half that much, but made it way to thin, and so to fix it I made another batch of dry and mixed together.


I hope I didn't already post this plate. I guess I'll find out in a minute. A little ring action going on. Diggin' it.

I just don't really have anything else much to say. I'll be spending the next three work days glazing again, firing on Thursday. I have enough bisque that I think I can get two more firings, and then it's back to making pots again.

Boozin' it

I dropped off my first review shipment today. I left twelve pieces, the photos here are three of them, snapped in this mornings manic photo frenzy. I'm actually pretty happy with the photo above of the oval.

This photo has a little too much reflection on it. It washes the color out a little.

This one came out really sweet too. I stopped at the camera shop in Concord and the bulbs I need are 20$ a piece and I just can't swing it, especially with my new mop purchase. So I stopped at Lowes and got some full spectrum compact florescents to try. If they don't cut it then I will have to spring for the other bulbs.

So after a pretty crazy day of unloading, analyzing, pricing, packing and driving and a aftermath of carnage at my house as a result, I am eating some dinner and drinking a very large martini with some fresh mango in it. I call it a martini, but it's just vodka in a glass with mango. My friend, locally famous Bob King is playing tonight at the Common Man. So I will try to have only this one martini so I can go listen later. Good night and good luck.

Plates and jars and pizza

Here are a couple more pieces from my last firing. The plate above is actually kind of small-like a lunch plate. I really like this combination, so I'd like to do more with it. However, the lighter glaze is very difficult to apply with a brush, so it's a pain. I have to check into gum or whatever it is you use to make a glaze more brushable.

Here are a couple of jars.

I have the kiln loaded and ready to fire. It will start again at 12:30 am. I think it reached peak around 10 am last time, so that works out well. I'm still trying to get a feel for what to do with the black brushwork. Like what is too much, and what is not enough. Plus just what feels right as far as design goes. Well that will do it for me. I am making a tasty pizza tonight. It is a cheese-less pizza, but that is partially because I have eaten so much cheese lately I need a break, and because the fresh mozzarella was 8 dollars for a pound which was out of my budget. The crust is made with sourdough-rosemary-olive oil dough that I made this morning, and is topped with sliced ugly tomato-which by the way, is the BEST tomato I have had in years, salt, pepper and olive oil. It promises to be tasty.

a good day

I had a pretty good firing. Quite a few rejects-many do to a glazing incident that I didn't share. I have this container of wax that has alumina mixed in that I use to glaze my galleries and lid rims which helps keep them from sticking together. Well for many of my pieces, after I glaze the inside, I wax the rim and clean the excess off the outside up to the rim. I get a nice clean edge that way. Well, guess what wax I grabbed that morning to wax the rims? Fortunately I had only done about 10 pieces, and the next morning I held them on the wheel with my Giffin Grip (a nice new use I discovered) and trimmed the waxed rims off and reglazed them. I think there was still this residue of alumina and I got a lot of pitting on those rims. Oh well.

I'll put up some photos of the successful pieces over the next few days-maybe some nice photos as well, as I believe some of the pieces warrant a psuedo-professional photo op before I send them off to my review never to be seen again (they go from the review to one of the gallery shops). This piece is a honey pot that thank god came out nice. I owe this honey pot in trade for a massage that a massues friend (spell) gave me a while back.

I hope I didn't offend too many people with my tool review. It is just my opinion, and I know that doesn't mean it is the correct one, and that there are many ways to approach a situation. It is not my intent to be judgmental of anyone who would use such a tool. It is just my desire to scream loudly from my soapbox on occasion.

The Scoop

My last test firing was a little disapointing, but maybe two or three nice ideas. I managed to get a few tooth jars in. I really like the black one and the blue one. The black one's blue inside, so a little contrast. I'm mentally and physically exhausted right now, so bear with me. I wanted to put something in the photo for size reference. The blue one is so cute. It's maybe as big around as a quarter. I'm on day three of glazing, and I'm hoping I can get everything finished tomorrow and fire Saturday or Sunday at the lastest. It takes soooooooo loooooooong glazing like this. But I'm figuring out a system along the way.

A little update on my discount gift shop dilema. I called up Rolanda, Farrah-whatever-and I first approached the conversation with an open mind (always good). Heard her out and it was shockingly bad what she wanted for so little money. I'm sure she didn't really understand fully what she was asking for, but I explained it to her.

What she wanted was a little tea set. About maybe six of them. It's something she saw somewhere and like I said yesterday, thought she could get it cheaper through me. The set consist of a teacup, a tea strainer that sits inside the cup, and a cover which also serves the purpose of a little plate to put your strainer in. This is a three piece set (I know you can count) a nesting set, everything needing to be fitted together and such (I'm sure as potters you are all aware of these things, but I need to add drama to my story).

The first thing I asked her after she told me what she was looking for, was how much they were charging for this set? Hold on to your trim tools. 35$. Well, I didn't require a whole lot of thinking after that. One more detail is that the set she saw was mass produced. So, 35$ for a three-piece, mass-produced tea set, and I diplomatically explained to her that there was no way I could possibly do better than that for a price for a hand-made set like that given everything involved, and that it sounded like she had already found a good deal. She wasn't upset or anything, but I sensed a slight bit of surprise, but my senses are occasionally off. I wasn't apologetic at all-in fact-quite businesslike, which I think was a good way to approach the situation, because I am trying to run a business after all. So that is my story and Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Thunder and teeth

I haven't been doing much work in my studio the last two days, so not much new to show. I added some words to a few of the tooth fairy jars. Thought I'd make a few to fill some other needs as well. I have mixed feelings about doing this. There is a pretty large chunk of myself that feels a little like I'm selling out to do this kind of thing. It's kind of kitsy (kichy?) Not exactly high art. BUT, it does utilize some small spaces in my kiln, and give me something to sell cheaply and in markets where people aren't looking to spend big bucks, or buy big pieces, such as the White Mountain Boogie and Blues music festival I went to Sunday. It's not a craft fair and most people I think would just want a trinket. I think I might rent a space next year and I'm thinking of appropriate items. Of course I would bring plenty of pots that don't feel like a sell-out to me such as mugs (high art!!) and bowls and what not. What a conundrum. I do like making these however, they are kind of fun, so I guess if that is there, then it can't be too much of a sell out.

My back is out a little. I've spent so much time at the wheel the last few weeks and I could feel it cramping up. It's hard to get around the last few days. I checked out Staples yesterday for a new stool. I want something I can adjust so I am standing/sitting. Legs kinda half straight, but weight on my butt you know? But I want a seat that tilts forward as well. The only stool I found that could go to 31" high was 169$. Not able to swing that currently. I'm not really into putting my chair up on cinderblocks and tiltling wedges or whatever, so if I can't find something soon I might try building it myself.

It's hard to believe some areas are experiencing drought now. This summer has been crazy with rain. I've never seen anything like it. More thunderstorms in the last six weeks than I think combined in the last six years. Torrential downpours, days on end rain. I LOVE IT. Now, if I were living a life of something other than say, working? It would be a drag. I normally love to hike and bike, but I just don't know when to do it, and the less I do the less desire and energy I have for it. Along with this rain there has been no heat. Summers around here are usually brutal. Even if it's only 85 or 90 degrees it is so humid you just want to drop dead. My a/c has hardly been on in two months. The rivers are swollen, raging and brown. I wouldn't want to fall in. I do miss hiking and biking though. I love the feeling of freedom, and the connection to my body. Hiking in New England usually has a spectacular reward. Once you are above tree line you can see forever. I stand on the peak, dirty and sweaty and elated feeling high and totally at peace, and try to imagine how far away is my home.

Covered jars and tooth fairys

Here are five of the eleven jars I hoped to finish today. I've got a little spiral thing going on which I like. It's slip on the pot after it was trimmed, and I'm just hoping there are no unseemly cracks as it drys. You may be wondering, "why does she make so many covered jars? What's up with that?" The reason is that I have avoided it for so long because it was, well, you know, difficult. Making the lids and all that. So I have been pushing myself to become comfortable and good at it. I was focusing on pots with galleries for a while,and now I am trying a flange lid.

I put a little sgraffito (I don't know how to spell that) on a few tiny jars.

My daughter gave me this little jar once that had some perfumed creamy stuff in it, and I saw the jar today and thought it might be a good item to make for all the small spaces (good and faster than my tiny jars). I am thinking that they are tooth fairy jars. I'm going to get some corks and we'll see how they sell. If they don't sell well, I will most likely never make tooth fairy jars again.

Well, I guess that's about it. I don't have the mental energy to write much more lately. Oh, some exciting news. Tomorrow morning I will open up mug test #4 firing. It has a little of that blue in it. Also, a little surprise, so stay tuned.

I love you

I'm finally done with these little pots. For such tiny pots, they take a lot of time.


Here's a picture for a size perspective of them.


So, some good news. I think I've got something going on with my handles. I still need to perfect it a little which will come with practice, and I'm not sure how big to make them yet so I tried a few different sizes, but all in all I'm pretty happy with them.


I found this on my bench this morning when I went into my studio. How sweet a way is that to start the day?

Tiny jars

When I was at the fair the other day one of the potters had these great teeny, tiny jars. I loved the way you could cup them in the palm of your hand. There was a feeling of intimacy about them. So, being the crook I am I stole the idea and began making my own teen, tiny jars today. Of course mine will be very different in every respect really except the size. Below I am holding one of the covers on my finger.

So I did discover a bit of good news the other night regarding the fair. I had posted that it cost 2,000 dollars to enter the fair. That is true only if you want a 12x15 foot booth. A 10x10 is only 1,050 and a 10x12 is 1,200. So I was quite relieved as this makes is drastically more affordable. I think I will probably try for a 10x12 because the extra two feet in the back will probably be very handy for storage given the length of the fair (remember it is nine days long). But I will design my booth to occupy only a 10x10 area because most fairs I will do will only be that size of course.

I'm pretty happy with the coffee cups I threw today. I've been pushing my clay too far and a lot of my cups are really big and light for a pound of clay. So I really made an effort to hold back today and I think it was successful. They all have a nice fat rim and I threw them all sort of low with a belly. I find that most of my favorite mugs lately have a bulbous quality to them. We'll see when they are trimmed how it all works out. In the back is on of my little test cups from the clay I made. It's hard to tell really how well it throws with two tiny test cups but it seemed fine. I'm interested in being able to test my glazes on them. Ben Stark gave me a link to Alex Matisse who had some good info on making your own clay using the slurry method. Adam says he thinks he can build me something like the blunger thing used for mixing the clay which seems like it might be a better idea than a drill, probably a lot more powerful. Well, I'll spare you any more of my ramblings. Oh, one more thing, I'm doing my third mug test firing tonight so hopefully some good results tomorrow. Send me good karma!

Emily Murphy's Pottery Blog Info

Here's a couple more photos of some pots. There'll be some more interesting work done over the slipped areas-I think I'll do some oxide brush work instead of sgraffito. I often try and do things differently of different sides of a pot. The first two photos here are the same pot-circle on one side and tall stripe on other (my how ingenious)

The next two pots are the same pot again, but my little sgraffito lines go vertical on one side and horizontal on the other. Not a huge difference, but I still find it makes it more interesting.

So if you haven't already checked out Emily Murphy's Blog this morning yet she has some fantastic info regarding promoting your blog or at least trying to get search engines to recognize it. A lot of people probably don't realize that just the act of putting something on the web doesn't mean a search engine will pick it up. They often have to be encouraged to do so (poor little bots, they have a lot to do). She's got some great advice. One quick tip I just did that she made me think of was link to my blog from myspace so that I know I have a link pointing here which helps the search engines and I just linked back to it here for the sole purpose of creating a reciprocal link which can't hurt my luck either (don't bother looking at my myspace page, there is absolutely nothing of interest there-but maybe I should change that-the only reason I have myspace for is to be able to contact my wandering son, who by the way, has not called me in three months-little bastard-but I'm digressing). Another easy thing to do is to consider what you title your post (again I learned all this while reading Emily's post). What you title your posts apparently becomes the url of the page, so something to think about when naming posts- my titles are usually a little vague so maybe I should rethink that. So anyway, a lot of good info. Thank you Emily -and I tagged all my photos this time!

Pottery post

So these are a few images of the jars I started the other day. I wanted to dip some pots into white slip, but I need to give it some thought. Not sure what to do to keep it off the bottom and gallery without waxing the greenware. I guess I could wipe after but that's a lot of wiping.



I made three of them with holes for a honey stick because a friend of mine wants a honey pot.

I wedged these up and threw from about five till eight but I only got 36 of them done. Like a dozen or so left-coffee mugs. Humming right along I seem to max out at 14 and hour at most. I tend to spend a couple minutes tweaking the form. But I'm not a machine so who cares. Well, I'm pretty tired so not much to write today.

Giving up-what the???

Oookay. These are two squarish jars that I managed to get covers on. The handles are a little different for me. Usually I throw the handles or handbuild them but I had enough clay to try just turning them. These two pots were waaayyyyy more work than they are worth. Contrary to my personality, I am temporarily giving up the square thing until later. I need some advice before I move on. My second option is just squaring the base but leaving the lid area round. I spent way too much time trying to get these lids to fit.

So . . . these shapes harken back to the days of what now seem like my youth. When I was in my early 30's and working on my BFA. These are a few vases I threw today when I decided if I made another covered pot I would throw a IT against the wall (you can see six jars in the making in the background, also in my old organic shape). When I was in college I threw really tight at first, probably like many of us. Perfection meant good you know? It took me a while to loosen up and like many of us, began almost seeking imperfection in my work. Tight and perfect meant no good to me (which reminds me, I forgot to wavy cut these rims!). So now I intentionally throw with my wheel too slow, intentionally cut my rims so they are not perfectly level and give a quick swoop up the side of a pot (not these) with a rib to give it some movement. Like I said, like many of us. I wonder why this is part of the road?

One lone little bowl of the day (with a wavy rim-ooh yah).

20 lumps of clay and a not so good day

Every time I try to make square covered jars they end up sucking quite a bit. I get really frustrated and destroy most of them and so now I have 6. Six little not so great-ish, not so square-ish pots. I don't know what I am looking for with these, but not finding it yet, that much I know. I went flipping through my back issues of Clay Times because I remember an illustrated article about making square pots from the round but couldn't find it. Maybe it's in one of my Ceramics Monthly. Who the * knows. For some reason I'm just not in a great mood today. So here's a story. I'll finish below.


So I go to the cable place (Time Warner Cable next to the liquor store, a FIIINE place if you don't mind interacting with robotrons) and they ask for our phone number (got it) name (got it) last four digits of Adam's SSN (um, what?) "I don't have that", I say. Well we need it. "You need his social security number for me to cancel cable? Don't you think that's a little intrusive?" It's our policy. "Well I don't have it. You have all the other stuff. I'm his wife." That doesn't matter. "What?" It's government regulation.

I try to call Adam but am unable to reach him. "Can I just leave this (the remote and cable box) here and I'll have him call you?" We can't give out our phone number. I feel like I've been dropped on my head. "You can't give out your phone number. Are you serious?" (I say these last three words with a slight valley-girl inflection) No we can't, but you can call this number. She hands me a card where I can reach a corporate answering clone. Store policy, she says again. "Okay fine, can I just leave this stuff here and as soon as I reach him I'll have him call." No. "I can't leave this stuff here?" No, she says again.

I am tired of pretending any longer that this conversation is rational. I pick up the box, checkbook, and remote and tuck the special little corporate contact card into my wallet. "You know," I say, "I don't expect you to care much because it's only 40$ a month, but when I tell my husband about this, he's gonna be furious and you're going to loose us as customers" (for this I receive a blank stare). I start to walk out, turn back around and say simply: "this is ridiculous" and then as I turn again to leave I drop my check book and bill onto the floor and so have to bend over while balancing the cable box, remote and my wallet, to pick them up from the floor. I wonder if this might have lessened the drama of my parting last words but then as I reach the door, I pause and turning only my head to aim my words with precision I say: "it's only cable you know", and walk away. I get into my car and carefully back out and drive away. No screeching tires, no slamming doors, no flipping of birds, just pure, dignified outrage.

So Adam WAS angry and called the corporate clone and canceled and we did have our revenge in a small way. He refused to drive up to return the cable box again, and so they are sending a postage-paid box for us to return everything in. They could have cared less we were cancelling and their cheerful parting words were: "is there anything else we can help you with today?" How friendly. How absolutely, condescendingly, corporately friendly. So now we have to switch from cable internet to DSL through the phone co. I'm not so sure we came out ahead here but sometimes we just have to prove a point.


Some sad clay worms recuperating from the abuse they suffered on the wheel and a beer which did not make me feel better one bit.

Pots, tools and smelly stuff

The other day I was going through my shard buckets looking for anything I might want to sell at my super-discount-out with the old-in with the new pottery and yard sale and I came across this old mug I handbuilt about two years ago. It's not the greatest mug in the world but I decided I wanted to keep it. Most of the stuff is broken-on purpose. I throw the rejects into the buckets with great gusto.

I finally threw some things again today. I can't tell you how tired I am. These pots only weigh 1.25 lbs. and it kicked my butt! I have lost a lot of strength over the last six weeks of not working. I feel like one of those sick people in the movies who has to shoosh everyone out of the room because she needs to rest. That is what I am going to do next. These are going to be oval shaped pots. They don't have bottoms so many of them began their transformation as I cut them off their bats. I will roll out some slabs tomorrow morning to use as bottoms after I re-shape the pot. Maybe I will photograph the process for the billions of non-potters who are reading my blog. It promises to be fascinating.


Some covered jars I made several weeks ago.

More covered jars. They remind me of baby bottles. I did a demonstration to that effect for Adam including a little "wah".


This is my newborn baby Sourdough Starter. It is about thirteen days old and we are very proud of it! It is all bubbly and stinky and in a few days I will make some delicious bread or bagels or english muffins or some other delectable delight with it. Some people have had cultures (starters) for decades or more than a hundred years. If you take care of them they will last literally forever and you just keep using it and hopefully it keeps getting better and better. A few years ago I had an amazing one going. It made the BEST bread. One day I was vigorously stirring some flour into it and the gallon jar I was keeping it in shattered, as did my heart.

Bluer Than Blue

I love these pots. It might be hard to see in the photo but they are covered with fine craze lines.
I have tended to avoid making covered pots in the past because making lids that fit well is challenging but also very satisfying when you get it right. The designs in the sides are from plaster stamps that I carved. I've tried making stamps from clay but find plaster to be far easier to work with. I made a long squarish form of plaster, maybe and inch and a half wide and sliced it into chunks. Once it sets up, carve away. The nice thing is that if you don't like it you don't loose the stamp. Just scrape off the design you just made until it is a flat surface again and try again. I made these stamp blanks over a year ago and they are still fine to work with.