Sabrina Comes Into Her Own....

So in the midst of all the make-dry-fire-glaze-fire to get work out to sell... I have not had time to fire off Sabrina the soda kiln.  I set some pieces aside, had a free enough weekend and fired her off.

If you look below you can see the pieces I am talking about.  Sabrina has had some changes. Below are two burners, part of a Ward Burner System. Now in the past I have fought propane not having really as much as I needed. The issue is not having not sufficient propane to burn, but rather propane freezes up. As it gets colder you use and lose more gas. So if you can have a much larger bottle (when firing for long periods, so grilling does not have this issue) you use less gas. And, the tank doesn't freeze as fast.  So I bought two 100# tanks.

I then added a side burner. In this firing I started the firing with the lower burners. So I used the yoke and had a 100# tank and a 40# tank.  When I started reduction at 800*C for body reduction, I added the side burner which had the other 100# tank.

Now, prior to the adjustments the kiln would stall around 900*C or 1000*C.  Also, it took quite a while to get there. So I could get ^6 about 10 hours, always shutting down in the dark.  There were cold days in the past that I only got ^5 but was ok with that.

Well, this got me to ^6 by 5 hours. I usually only check every 30 min and due to this I did not throw the kiln into glaze reduction till much later than usual.  So, my Shino has suffered for this.  Next time!! and umm... it got to ^7 by the time we ended it!

So I called in my help, about two hours earlier than planned.  We added tacos of soda through the side burner and then sprayed.  This means we had more soda on the lowest shelf.  No Duh, but next time we will spray twice as much and focus mainly on the upper level.

Attempted to down fire, but it was not enough for the iron saturated glaze. Thats fine, it was an experiment anyway.  I was ready to open in the morning... but I had to go to work.  By the time I got off, it was dark. So I waited an additional day to open the kiln. So this morning me and my partner opened it today!

Here you can see all the pieces at the top, only the cup is mine.

  So here are my pieces. Now I have not sanded the wadding off. On the bowls they were exposed to soda openly, so not real smooth surface. The bakers were placed lip to lip so the inside was not exposed to soda. I like how the Nuka came out. But as noted, the Shino is not right.  You can clearly see what was on the lowest level and therefore the most heavily soda exposed.

Below, this is Nuka.

This is not glazed, just a lot of soda.

This is what bone does with reduction and soda.

The splash in the middle is bone glaze, the rest was soda exposed, I had this inside pointing up.

This was fired on the side!

Nuka on the outside, a bit thin.

Here is a dragon head and then a lady made by Mikki.  Not sure what caused the black.

This is a bird house, traditionally glazed but the reduction and soda changed the ^6 oxidation glaze a great deal.  Nice marks on the roof I think.

Neema does sculpture, and lately had done a series of masks. Showing eyes, cheek bones and nose, which are typically how we identify a face.  She used three different clays (I think), none glazed.

Well the computer only loaded this pix of Jessies and none of Kwrens.... bleh.

Lessons?  Well.  Twice as much soda sprayed. Will focus mainly on the upper kiln.  Will slow down the firing, I would like 8 hours and allow for a better glaze reduction.

Soaking the sculpture was the right move.

My Gallery Opening

So I was the First Friday Artist for the community studio
"Funky & Functional" was the name of the show.  I had a full kiln load fired that was stuff for the show.

And then, with lots of help, the gallery was set up.  Since a lot was dinner sets I thought to do it as a place setting. Since selling a place setting of four has been unsuccessful, I have moved to single place settings.  See if those move better.

And I cooked and bought food and made Sangria

End result?  One of the most poorly attended first friday I have been to at Cup & Bowl.  I had, by my count, I think two sales....
Very disappointing, especially given how much better sales have been at all the art shows.
Well the next day was off to Soda firing and then next weekend off to another art show!

Storage Jars....

New greenware storage jars, created for specific christmas gifts. And them some Garlic Roasters.

So here are the garlic roasters.

This is a salt pig, not totally happy with it.

And finally the storage jars.

Hit The Ground Running...

I made what I could in the limited time.  I loaded the bisque today, that is just enough time to unload in two days, glaze, and fire off the glaze kiln. All in time for First Friday.

I am the featured artist. So I tried to pull together some new work. I am also playing caterer for this gig. We will see who all comes. I admit the people in my life (really only a few exceptions) have tended to not really show up to any of these kinds of things.

Fingers crossed for lots of sales!

Inventory shelf at home below. These pieces have not been taken to art shows. Not a lot of stashed pots, but I have some different stuff in the kiln.

Three Art shows since my last post. None were great sales, but none were bad.  As usual, it was the three of us doing the art shows. The tables show all of our stuff.

Trip to New Mexico and a purchased some glaze materials, this nice small screen for test glazes, and then stems for wine glasses made out of cedar.

Here are the storage jars drying.  Currently they are in the bisque load.

So after the first friday, this upcoming saturday, I am firing off a soda firing at home.  I was finally able to get larger propane tanks.  Rather than fighting the 40# tanks and fighting the freeze ups, I now have two 100# tanks.  I did some modifications to Sabrina. I will post pix when I actually get the firing going.  I am not sure that I really have enough pieces to fill the kiln, but I can do a smaller load.

I am also making a few glazes. Right now a new one, Nuka.  Joel Cherrico created this, it is version 33.  Nuka is actually a high fire glaze (think ^10-^12), so this is an adaptation to make it happen.  I am also planning on making a larger batch of my general ash glaze, this time making it blue.  And finally some MD Shino.

Next in line... more storage jars. Tea pots!! Garlic bakers, Chicken Bakers, and then a stash jar with a breaking tray.