Not so great

Well, I've been reluctant to come back to post because I am feeling a little down about my last firing. I had a really high failure rate. Failure, as in the sense that, I thought a lot of the stuff came out kind of ugly. I also put the turquoise glaze on too thickly on some pots and had some shelf stickies.

This black and white casserole I think is kinda cool. It could be more interesting though. One thing I have learned is that for this to look good- the black liner with the white outside- the white needs to go into the pot over the rim, instead of the black liner being outside the pot over the rim. It just looks like wet black paint, kinda hanging out on the outside of the pot the other way. Obviously glazing in this manner of having the liner glaze stop inside, just adds a lot of messy work.

This platter is probably one of my favorite things from the firing. However, it is not presentable because there is a small s-crack on the bottom, and the blue glaze is really pitted if you look closely. I forgot to take a picture of the bottom. Wait a sec.


My square plates came out okay. I'm not jumping up and down over them. I wish I had put some deco on the white stripes.

I am in a bit of turmoil right now. I need to reassess the direction I am moving in. I spent way too much time on making and then glazing (days) to have such a small success rate. I haven't worked in my studio for the last two days and don't plan to today. I'm just tryin to get my mind straight around all this. Well, I might go in and load the bisque, but then what? Spend another few days glazing that bisque to loose most of it to ugliness? I'm getting a little tired of that.

So on a different note, my first yoga class the other day was a Vinyasa Yoga class, it's like more aggressive, active movement class, and it KICKED MY ASS. I have been sore for days now. I went back last night and took another class, a normal yoga class hoping it would loosen me up. I am enjoying it however. It's kinda nice gathering with a group and practicing together. Melissa the teacher is really great too. She adjusted me a couple of times in a pose, and she doesn't just come over and move you and walk away. She comes over, and gently lays her hands on you, and you can kind of feel her assessing what needs to change, then she wraps her arms around you and presses you gently into position, and then stays there for a few moments holding you there. I swear you can feel the energy coming from her, and as soon as she puts you into position, I can feel that it is right now. Interesting.

I have been back to the Obama headquarters three times now. Yesterday we were assembling all the literature that you come home and find stuffed into your doors, only to toss into the garbage. So the next time you begin that toss, think of us, the little volunteers, our fingers raw and bleeding from stuffing them all together, and set them in the garbage gently.

Debbie And The Horrible, Not So Good, Very Bad State Of Mind

You would think that something awful has happened today but it has not. I am feeling sooo defunct in the optimism department about making a living doing this thing. I can not tell you what a bummer (I suppose some of you know) it is to feel like you have spent so much money, and invested so much time for nothing. I got this check in the mail today for 59.00. Whoopee. Man does that make it all worth it. I just went and switched my old work out for my new at two places local I have it. I picked up sooo much old work. It was really depressing. There was a time I dropped that stuff off and felt really good about it. What does that say about the stuff I left today? Am I gonna be picking that up in six months as well and thinking maybe it sucks after all? So now I gotta head down to my studio and work with a very bad attitude, feeling very uninspired, and wondering how long it will be before I head back to the restaurants. At least I had a steady paycheck.

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.

Flowers and a dirty floor

Still another couple of pieces from last firing. These are some better photos I tried to take. I still need to work on my lighting a little. I'd like to find three of those cool-burning photos lights. I just need to get off my butt and do it. The tumbler below is pretty big actually. It could be used as a vase.


My firing this time was eh-eh. I did not get my main browny-orange glaze on thick enough on many pots. Sometimes they look okay like that, sometimes not. I had maybe a 60% success rate. So that's better than many firings in the past. However, I did have great success refiring two pieces from last firing where the glaze was too thin, so I will try to refire a few of the pots that I really like but didn't quite come out.

I bought something really special yesterday. You have to wonder about my sad little life when something like this pleases me. I bought a commercial style mop bucket and mop. You know the kind where you dunk the mop into a yellow bucket on wheels and and squeeze out the water in the presser thing. It's by Rubbermaid and is really quality. Nice to occasionally buy something nowadays that hasn't been manufactured like crap. So my little setup does a great job of mopping the floor, which was sorely in need.

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 dinner plate

Well here is one of the plates from my last firing. I probably should have taken a detail of the blue area. It has this cool grey-ish -webby thing going on. I am wondering if some free alumina affected it somehow as I've never really seen this before and likely never will again. The plate is pretty simple, but I like it.

Well I've reached another difficult situation. The white glaze I used for the last firing, while it dooesn't pinhole and works well with the other glazes, I have discovered is not very resistant to metal marking. So the search is on. I have tried so many it is not even funny. I have another idea I will test today. I have this old glaze I used to use, a cream color, which is very hard, shiny, and metal-mark resistant. I gave almost a full bucket away when I did my glaze elimination thing a few months ago, so I could kick myself now. But I am going to make up a test and see how that works as a liner? It could be interesting.