All Right! First Glaze Firing!

Due to my recent move I spent the weekend kiln firing rather than fighting Hurricane Irene! Very thankful it was not as bad as it was hyped up to be...thats usually the case. Hopefully everyone fared as well as my friends and family!

I recently ordered some new glazes......slowly one at a time I am getting these 5 gallon buckets. I am so grateful that I can just dip! I HATE HATE HATE HATTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE glazing so being able to just dip is SO AMAZING! On top of that, I put together this mixer and wow......I highly recommend it! Usually on glaze mixing day, I spend most of it laying in bed waiting for my arms and back to stop throbbing. This day I spent the afternoon making work! Here it is in action:

 

And heres my first nice bowl from the new studio. Something very very gratifying about making big bowls!

 

Goblets and (espresso) shot glasses! Thats the bark carving I've been loving. The mugs with this carving are very fun too! I think it fits with the Colorado vibe. People here love natural things, like trees!

Some new glazes in action......

 Proof of test tiles! I've only done this once in my life, in the class this summer. The inspiration from that convinced me to go ahead and do it again since I've got some new glazes, very worthwhile! Found some cool ones and some that I thought would have been cool weren't. So nice to have a jumping point for future work!

Oh Colorado!

So MFS Ceramics is slowly getting going again. A lot of changes have taken place.


First of all, getting used to the Colorado air has been .....challenging. DRY AIR. For the love of all things cute and cuddly puppies, will I ever learn that everything is ready to trim about ...2 seconds after you throw it? I mean its not 2 seconds but if you leave something not totally covered overnight, its almost always too dry to trim the next day. Its made for some frustrating days!

Second, I got a Giffin Grip! It is amazing but I just wish everything was tighter. It holds but I feel like for the pieces that are not totally centered, they like to wobbly obbly a little bit. Still a great thing to have and trimming bowls has been nothing but magic.

Third, my style is evolving by leaps and bounds. I was focused on making nature and tree inspired work which has been really fun and I should continue in this direction. I've also started what I am calling mod-esque. Big exaggerated shapes and strange alterations! Both are challenging. Once you start creating a style you can't just throw whatever. I'd really like to be able to sit down and say today I am throwing things that look like trees or today I am throwing things that look like IKEA. Some might say this is a bad idea but I'm going for it!

Last, I was lucky to score an awesome part time job which allows me to also pursue ceramics, Never thought it would happen again after graduate school but apparently I have really good karma. No idea where it comes from.

Yay!