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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Eagerly Awaiting my Tax Refund

For various reasons, my tax refund will be getting to me later than normal.  Now there is a huge cost to fix our plumbing, and without fixing this we cannot both wash a load of laundry and take a shower in the same 12 hour period or the water won't drain. But... well the cheap fix is $8,000 and the full fix is $12,000.  So realistically we are not getting this fixed any time soon.  So I am very hesitant to dump the limited tax money into this.

I have an old coffin kiln, already stripped of all the electrical stuff.  It is ready for a rebuild.  I have some bricks. Not enough by a long shot to actually build a kiln. But enough (or damn close) to make the adjustments to this kiln. It will be a cross draft kiln, and will need a flue to be built.  I will of course need burners but I have already bought these.  They are two good burners that can flexably be used for this kiln, as well as others I might build.  I also have two 100# tanks of propane that I have been using for the Soda Kiln, so I have the tanks needed.

What I need is to have the concrete laid so I can have a level concrete surface to put the kilns on.  Now I have also a burner set up for the raku kiln. I was given a very small kiln that I will knock holes into so I can use it as a raku kiln.

Oh the projects. I need better income to pull this together. But it is quickly sliding into aft show season.  I am hoping it is a very good year.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Shop Update

updated the ETSY Shop!
https://www.etsy.com/shop/KickWheelPottery

As always, if you see something on the blog you want, that is not in the ETSY shop, let me know.

Monday, April 20, 2015

RED for Mother's Day...

So, I have fired off the dinner set (missing two pieces that are replacement pieces). So first it needed to be glazed.  I made a new glaze.  Originally I was going to mark out the carved design with black, decided to use underglaze as the black glaze I have does NOT work under anything. It runs, looses color and all that.  Then I put it on and did not really wash it off. I did not want the piece to be too "paint chip" but I was going to use a RED glaze as that is my mom's favorite color.

Now red is hard to achieve, and by using a Mason Stain (so not my usual way of working) allows me to have a RED and have a very sturdy stable glaze.  So with the black accent, I made Mom's Matte Red glaze.

Here Denomy is spraying. She sprayed about 25 different pieces for me. Since we had the sprayer out, we decided to basically spray everything and not just the dinner set.


So a kiln god, to watch over the firing.  He has Japanese Tea Dust, a wood ash glaze I like. Then honey over his horns.

This is the platter I did with Mikki. She painted it, and here is the final picture as it has been delivered. It was for a silent auction for Dream Weavers.




Here is a large platter. Above I used a tea spoon as a reference, here I used a match for a size reference.



Here is a small platter. I did a bottom shot so I can show off the ridges in the rim.  I really liked that look.


Here is a small serving bowl. I did this only with the glaze, it has some variation in color but it is not a lot. I think spraying so it is lighter was a good idea. If I had poured it would have been too paint chip.


And finally...
the dinner set.  So I set this up to show it off. The wine glass is not really a part of the set, but it captures the look. It is a set with a small bowl, think soup bowl. Then a large pasta bowl, and finally a "plate". It is flat so you can cut meat on it, but high edges because I like the look.





So I threw this.  It was with several large pieces of clay, centered and then the next piece added. This allowed me to center pretty hard clay.  I did not weigh this, but I am guessing about 10# or so.


I was told the ETSY shop will be updated by the end of today.
Check out my Etsy Shop.  If you see things posted elsewhere you are interested in, let me know.

See the Blog Update!

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Monday, April 13, 2015

More work

So got some info on a new show.... I have an old fashion schedule so I can see the layout of our shows and such.  Summer is no where near "full" or any such thing. But... with a day job and all that, it is starting to get busy.  Luckily there are two shows where basically my only job is for the three of us to get there, set up our stuff, and then pick it up when it's done!

I should have new things in the ETSY shop here shortly, Angie came and did another round of photos.  I am working on mugs for my day job. I promised mugs over a year ago, and am finally getting to them now.

I am trying to meet with the Museum to talk about the summer program. I have some concerns about how this will all work out. Basically doing a week long sounds good... but how do you get the pieces fired in time to do any further work?

So below are two of the things I threw yesterday.  I did a total of 36.5# in a sitting, this is a new record by 1/2 pound.  the flat bowl is 15" wide and was 7# wet, the other bowl is 13" wide and was 8# wet.



Check out my Etsy Shop.  If you see things posted elsewhere you are interested in, let me know.

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Wednesday, April 8, 2015

And a firing...

So a lot of stuff... ya...

Check out my Etsy Shop.  If you see things posted elsewhere you are interested in, let me know.

See the Blog Update!

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Ok, here are the Bean Pots. This is made from Manzano Clay and is an earthenware clay.  I then did a clear glaze inside but did it sort of thicker, and it came out (I think anyway) really well.



Here area  few pieces from the last post.  They are in Nuka or Tea Dust, two of the ash glazes I have been using. This is a tan colored clay (reclaim) so it looks different than these glazes do on the dark red clay.












Last two in Orange Street



So the community college asked the studio we are running to put on a workshop on Raku. So, it sort of became my baby.  So they will bring pieces for us to fire, but I need five pieces to do some demonstrations on various ways to fire and do post fire reduction.  So here they are as green ware.






And some actual shots of me....