I’ll be hawking my pots at the Maker’s Market Holiday Fair in the Mill Valley Lumber Yard Saturday, December 8th. It will be the first time I’ve done something like this. Curious to see how it goes!
The next day, Sunday the 9th, our 2nd annual Wheelhouse Open House and sale is happening—featuring pottery contributions from all us Wheelhouse potters. We will be co-hosting the party with the Mill Valley Potters Studio, who is arranging for the amazing Theo Ellis to provide food and bevvies. yay!
What a difference 1000° makes! Same clay body (stoneware); same glaze (Amaco Northern Lights); different temperature (and duration obviously—because it takes longer for the kiln to get up to temp). The cylinder on the left was fired at 1930, and the vase on the right at 1830.
The cylinder was never supposed to amount to much. After bisquing, I was going to toss it because...boring. But in the interest of raku research, I slapped some glaze on there and fired it up with Ellen's pieces. Glazed worked out! but still... boring-ish, so in the interest of basket weaving skill-stretching, I played around with the cylinder form. (Cylinders are hard). And just for the heck of it I added a raku-fired ring with a few pine needles stuck through it. Now we're gettin' fancy!
My studio-mate Ellen Nadeau messed up her back during last month's raku-a-rama, so on Saturday the two of us had a mini do-over. She and I (mostly she) cranked up the bigger of our two kilns and loaded it up with some of her sculptural forms.
We fired to about 1940° (cone 04-05ish) instead of the cone 06ish 1830° that Brett goes for, to see if our glazes would melt a bit more smoothly. We also cracked the lid briefly before we were done for a quick boost in oxidization, and loaded our 2nd and 3rd loads while the kiln was still at 1000° (rather than waiting for it to cool down). All in all, the results were much improved. I will post some before and after of my own pieces once I have the pine needles woven onto a couple of them. In the meantime, here are Ellen's
Looking forward to another long, fun, potentially crazy-making-but-instantly-gratifying (or not) day of fiery firing and frosty beer drinking in the Wheelhouse Garden.
YAY! ANOTHER RAKU DAY!!
SUNDAY, JULY 15TH
Thanks to Brett Crawford for knowing what he's doing, and for agreeing to herd us cats thru the process.
Starts at 10am - goes to dark.
