Michael Mahan

Some Glaze Layering Tests

2012-01-19T08:45:00.000-08:00

Here's the results from some tests I did using a black glaze on the outside and a white glaze on the inside of some pieces, with various other glazes layered on top of the outside. The black glaze is a alberta slip glaze with cobalt oxide, hence all the blue showing up. The very runny glazes were layered with a glaze containing about 20 percent lithium carbonate, a strong flux. The picture at the bottom shows the result of Lithium melting down the white glaze inside, bringing some of the black glaze from the rim with it. The bottom picture is actually the same pot as the picture above it.

'Horse hair' Pots

2012-01-14T14:36:00.000-08:00

So, here's my try at high-fired horse hair pots. I have a client who wanted me to give this a try for some sinks. Horse hair pots are usually fired to a low temperature and taken out of the kiln hot, then hair from the tail of a horse is laid onto the shoulder of the pot. The hair leaves behind a dark squiggly line and the smoke subtley darkens the clay above the line.

Below is a picture of some real horse hair I fired a couple of years ago, followed by my try at some "fake" horse hair. The fake stuff hasn't been fired yet, so we'll wait and see what the finished result looks like. I carved the line into the pot with a small loop tool and filled it with a black slip, scraping off excess slip after the pot dried a bit. Then I stained above the line with a black stain, and burnished the pot, adding some terra sigilatta when the pot dried.

Underfired Bisque a Worry

2012-01-12T05:42:00.000-08:00

Medallions and jars

While the first kiln load of awards for the Uwharrie Mountain Run were cooling in my new electric kiln, I decided to load a bisque in the other kiln I have. I fired this kiln overnight and most of yesterday. It didn't reach top temperature, as I believe my elements are a bit worn out. It was supposed to reach 1800 degrees F. but only reached 1650 I think.

The kiln has a safety feature that shuts it down if the temperature doesn't climb a certain amount per hour. I think it would have fired okay if it wasn't such a tight heavy load of small pots.

So, I'm a little worried that if I glaze these "underfired" bisqued awards, the glaze may adhere to the clay a little thicker. So, I've decided to bisque fire another final load of awards in the newer kiln and glaze and then glaze fire this final load with a couple of the underfired awards inside just to make sure they fire correctly.

Luckily, I'm ahead of schedule this year and have the time to do this.

Meanwhile, I've started working on a commission for two sinks for a hotel in Switzerland. The designer for the hotel would like me to make him some "high-fired" horse hair sinks. I'll post on that soon.

Finished some Awards, and a short Film

2012-01-10T15:19:00.000-08:00

Some of this year's awards

The first load of Uwharrie Mountain Run awards fired successfully. I unloaded some of them today and took a picture of a few. While unloading, one of my kiln shelves stuck to all three posts beneath it, and the posts seemed to be stuck to the shelf beneath it. So, I was quite concerned for a while, tapping here and there with my wooden mallet, making a bent piece of copper to tap the posts under the shelf, lifting and twisting the shelf ever so slightly. And finally, I freed it.

I guess I need to grind my posts a bit to clean them up. I've never had anything like this happen before.

Here's a film of me making one of the bowls for the first, second and third-place winners.

Getting Close to First Firing for Uwharrie

2012-01-07T17:51:00.000-08:00

I spent today preparing about 100 medallions for the Uwharrie Mountain Run awards. I'm making about 600 awards for finishers of an 8-mile, 20-mile and 40-mile race across the Uwharrie Trail in Montgomery County. The medallions are for the 8-milers.

The way I decided to decorate these pieces allows me to lay one medallion on top of each of the jars that I made for the 20-milers and 40-milers. I waxed the jars' rims before glazing. Firing a shelf full of just medallions didn't make sense since I'd run out of shelves pretty quick.

The medallions have a recessed area in the center that I carved a runner into. It gets glazed, and the outside remains unglazed and stained with a red iron wash.

So I spent the most part of today sanding and wiping off each medallion, staining each medallion, waxing a small portion of each medallion, and glazing each medallion. I had enough time left this afternoon to start loading the kiln, but I soon realized I needed more pieces glazed to fill the kiln.

I'll be glazing tomorrow, so I can get this first kiln load firing.

I brushed on red iron stain. Mary wiped the stain into
the clay, and then handed me another...and another.

I brushed wax onto one small portion of the stained rim.

The waxed area allowed me to
pour out the glazed once I coated
the inside.

Here I am loading the jars and medallions into the kiln.

A finished shelf of medallions on top of jars.

Where do I put them all?

2012-01-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

Cleaning edges as they come out of the bisque kiln

One challenge of making more than 600 pieces for the Uwharrie Mountain Run in my studio is finding places to put the pots. Participants for the annual race are up and Levi has been busy making more jars, and I had to load the ones we've already made into the electric kiln to bisque fire so I could free up some boards for him to place the newly thrown pieces.

We should be through throwing and decorating everything in the next few days. I'll be glazing and firing a load soon, so I can pack some up in boxes to make room in the shop for more. Every year, I say that I'd like to take a picture of all the pieces together, but I don't think I've done it yet just because of the large number of pieces.

Maybe I'll do it this year.

Levi pulls up a ring of clay on his last jar
of the day.

Celebrating Human Spirit

2011-12-31T08:56:00.000-08:00

Freshly carved runner

I've got a good start on the awards for the Uwharrie Mountain Run 2012. This year's awards are decorated with a simple runner carved into Highwater Clay's Little Loafer's Glory and glazed in a copper green.

I do about 500 pieces for this every year, so I start making them by the end of December. The pieces themselves are a relatively easy form to make. The most time-consuming aspect of the making is writing "Uwharrie Mountain Run 2012" stamping "20 miles" (and 40), signing my signature and carving the runner on each piece.

I still enjoy making them after 20 years. I always feel I'm helping celebrate the human spirit. It takes quite a bit of spirit to run this race. It's a tough trail - up and down steep hills, over creeks, rocks and sticks....

My current workspace

The runners

I like my newest loop tool

Stamp for '20 miles' and 'From the Ground Up,
drill bit for head of runner, small loop tool for
writing on bottom, larger loop tool for carving
runner, and peeler for smoothing down edges of
bottom of jars when they're too dry for finger smoothing

Glazing... and Patience when Potting

2011-12-18T07:10:00.000-08:00

Waxing the bottom of a mug to resist the glaze.

Yesterday was a long day of preparing pots for glazing and glazing and loading the electric kiln for the last firing before Christmas. I always have a few pots promised to some customers this time of year that I try to squeeze out at the last minute. But in order to fire a few pots, I need to fire a whole kiln.

Levi created a wonderful bunch of plates and platters, carving some intricate designs (picture at right) into a porcelain slip on top of a brown clay. I've been putting off firing some of them because they require quite a bit of clean up.

This particular bunch of plates had a lot of nasty sharp edges that needed to be cleaned up before glazing (picture at left). I had tried to clean some up when they were just greenware (unfired) with a little scrubby, but I found myself scrubbing too much slip off the designs.

So, I opted to bisque fire them and carefully clean them up with a bit of sand paper. The problem with sharp bits of clay on pieces is that they can become razor sharp after they're fired to high temperatures, and somebody could cut their finger on a piece.

The secret to getting clean lines when carving is using the right tool and working on the piece at the right time. If the clay is too soft, the tool will end up pushing clay aside while cutting and you'll get sharp edges. If you wait until the clay has dried just enough, the tool can cut through the clay cleanly and you end up with much less cleanup involved.

There's a lot of waiting involved in making pottery, and depending on what you do to a piece before it dries, you've got to keep a lot of pots from drying out too fast. The top of a pot left exposed to air will dry out faster than the bottom of a pot, so sometimes you have to lay a piece of plastic on top of a row of pots to slow down the drying.

You might be mentally ready to decorate a group of pots - or put handles on them - but they're not ready. So, you cover them up for the night, and uncover them in the morning, and wait for them to dry a bit more.

Now, I'm waiting for that kiln to cool, so I can see the results from a day of hard work in the glaze room. I glazed Levi's plates with a blue ash glaze - a light spraying of the glaze on the two plates - and I'm hoping for some dramatic results.

We're Working

2011-12-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

I hope I haven't lost too many readers since the last time I posted. I apologize for the lapse. We're staying busy here at the studio, getting ready to start making awards for the 2012 Uwharrie Mountain Run. I've made several hundred awards for runners of this local race across the Uwharrie Mountain Trail for the past 20 years. We're waiting on the okay from the event's organizers to go ahead with this year's design. I do something different every year.

Some ideas for 2012 Uwharrie Mountain Run

Levi's been busy on a special order for one of his tall vases, so he's making several. We'll be firing them in the wood kiln, as they're too tall for a electric kiln. Levi's been making these tall vases by sections, joining them after stiffening the clay on the bottom piece before adding the top piece.

Levi adds last section to his tallest piece - about 42 inches tall.

Finished piece

My daughter, Chelsea, is home for a couple of months, and she'll be helping out with the awards. Meanwhile, she's been making a few bowls for me, as well as some sculpted birds for the electric kiln and the wood kiln. She also made the little jars in the first picture for prototypes for the award pieces.

Chelsea smooths down the outside of one of her birds.

Stacking a Little Different in Firing #21

2011-11-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

Lots of shino glaze in this kiln load. Levi made a series of pots from large to small, and we decided to glaze them in a shino glaze that we've had success with in the past. With the larger ones, we dunked them on their side into half of a blue plastic barrel filled with the glaze.

We stacked this kiln pretty tightly, and in the very front we decided to stack shelves to the left and right of a couple of big pots in the middle, something we've never done. I'm thinking a lot of the flame will be traveling down the middle of the kiln to start with and around the big pots in the middle.

We'll see how it works.

'Rita' wanted to see the progress.

A Few Tree Vases

2011-11-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

Here's some of my latest tree vases:

Highwater Brownstone clay, red iron oxide stain
12 1/2" tall by 8 1/2" wide, electric kiln, $195

Highwater Brownstone clay, red iron oxide stain
9" tall by 10" wide, electric kiln, $195, SOLD

Highwater Brownstone clay, red iron oxide stain
8" tall by 8 1/2" wide, electric kiln, $150

Hand-dug local clay, natural ash glaze and patina
12" tall by 9" wide, wood-fired, $250

Hand-dug local clay, natural ash glaze and patina
10" tall by 9.5" wide, wood-fired, $195

Hand-dug local clay, natural ash glaze and patina
11 1/2" tall by 8.5" wide, wood fired, $195

Road Trip to Pensacola

2011-11-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

On our way to Pensacola, we stopped at
a rest area in Alabama. Mary connected
to her roots.

Firing #20

2011-10-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

We fired this kiln load in 14 hours, using hardwood at the beginning, pine in the middle and scrap pine and hardwood at the end. We reached cone 11 in the front and cone 8 in the back, maintaining as much of a neutral atmosphere as we could as I had a lot of high-iron local clay in the kiln.

The bottles and bowl above are made from the
clay I got from a friend in Columbia, SC.
Several pieces cracked during the firing, so
I'll be adding something to the clay next time
to strengthen it.

Sneak Peek

2011-10-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

We fired the wood kiln yesterday. Here's a sneak peek at the front of the kiln:

It's been busy here lately, getting ready for our first three-day show in Pensacola, the Great Gulfcoast Arts Festival, Nov. 4-6. My mother and brother live in Pensacola, and we decided to apply to the festival and combine the trip to visit with a trip to work as well.

I've got a lot of local clay in this firing, and several pieces made from some gray clay from Columbia, South Carolina that someone brought me. The pieces to the left and right of the big tree vase in the picture are the gray clay.

We'll unload tomorrow, and I'll share some pictures.

Clay Painting - How to Display?

2011-10-11T09:43:00.001-07:00

For the latest fundraiser for the NC Pottery Center in Seagrove, I was asked to draw, paint, sketch or otherwise adorn a 12 by 12-inch canvas. About 100 potters have been asked to create a hanging work of art like this, and the pottery center is giving them to the first 100 people to sign up to attend the fundraiser, held Oct. 28 at the Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary.

I opted to make my own paint out of some sources of clay I've acquired. I googled "how to make clay paint," and found a sufficient recipe (here) to follow. It uses wheat starch and chalk added to the clay. I had fun mixing it up in the kitchen.

I created five colors using four types of raw clay either I or someone else collected from Seagrove, Ohio and South Carolina, and a white porcelain clay from England. I'm ready to take it to the pottery center for display, but I'm wanting some input on how to display it. Here's four shots, each one rotated differently than the previous shot.

Which do you prefer?

Successful Firing with Local Clay

2011-09-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

This piece was fired next to our side stoking area and got some nice effects from the embers.

We succeeded at keeping our latest firing in the Manabigama kiln away from a lot of reduction, hoping this would help prevent bloating in the clay. We had very minimal bloating, but we did reach nearly cone 12 in the front. We wanted to keep it at cone 10. Most of the clay in the this load is my local clay, high in iron and it tends to bloat at high temperatures and when the kiln has a lot of reduction.

We were very pleased with the results, and look forward to firing more local clay in the wood kiln. It was a slow firing, maintaining a rate of increase of 100 degrees an hour for most of the firing. The kiln didn't seem to want to climb faster than that, even when we tried to.

It was an overcast day, and it's been raining much of this week.

We think we'll continue with the side stoking, but not put a low shelf between the ember bed and the back of the kiln. This seemed to keep the flame from side stoking all going out the bottom exit flues.

More pictures can be viewed at my Facebook page.

Local clay pitcher, natural ash

Enjoying the Quiet

2011-09-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of noise during a wood firing: metal door scraping against brick, the clanging of the metal rake against the metal bracing around the kiln, chunks of wood thudding against the fire grate, popping and crackling of wood exploding in the firebox....

And there are quiet moments. I enjoy both, but I especially enjoy the quiet moments:

5 a.m.

11 p.m.

Firing #19 - Local Clay and Side-stoking

2011-09-26T02:56:00.000-07:00

Lots of local clay in this load

Side-stoking area between Alphi (rooster) and
the middle stack

Got up at 5 a.m. today to start the kiln. Levi and I loaded yesterday, adding a small area between two stacks of shelves to accept small sticks loaded from a small hole in the side of the kiln, hoping for some increase of temperature in the back of the kiln and some ember effects on some nearby pots.

We loaded this kiln with mostly local clay - high in iron. I've decided to fire a little lower in temperature for this firing and try to keep away from a reduction atmosphere in the kiln as much as possible. Reduction - lack of air producing heavy smoke (stating it simply) - likes to produce pockets of gas in my local clay.

I better get back out there.

Hope to see you at the R.D. Mahan Turkey Roast and Kiln Opening this Saturday at our place.

Long Day but Successful Day

2011-09-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

It was a long day yesterday, getting up at 5 a.m. and heading over to Winston-Salem to set up for the West End Artsfest, a one day juried art show. We had a great day in spite of both Mary and I suffering from cricks in our necks. Our pots won a "Juror's Choice" award, a nice compliment with which to end the day.

Festival Co-chair Kathy Stanley presents award.

Check out the limb from a nearby oak tree
that adorned our booth.

I had to get a shot of a fellow artist (wood carver
Bob Stuart) who was resting his "dogs" after
setting up his booth.

Where's the Energizer Bunny?
We drove past an Asheboro dry cleaner business after
stopping to grab some dinner on the way home. I had
to turn around to snap a picture of our bunny. Energizer
Battery Company has a plant in Asheboro.

A Jug, a Mug and a Platter

2011-09-10T07:37:00.000-07:00

We've been building up quite a bit of bisqueware here at From The Ground Up, and we just keep on making pots. I've got to fire again soon.

Here's a few pictures of some favorite pieces we're working on:

Tree jug, local clay - for the wood kiln

Simplicity of form and function - a mug, local clay

One of Levi's platters for a cone 6 electric firing

Checking out another Potter's Kiln

2011-09-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

Donna Craven stokes in the shade of her kiln shed as the
afternoon sun beams down from above.

Levi and I took the afternoon off today and visited Donna Craven during her first firing after a recent kiln makeover. Donna wood fires in a cross draft kiln designed for her large pots. She had some trouble with her arch beginning to collapse after a few firings, and she recently hired a welder to squeeze her kiln back into shape with some heavy metal I-beams.

It was interesting and informative to see her kiln in action, and I also wanted to see how the new welding was done, as my kiln seems to be suffering from a similar situation, but to a lesser degree.

Her kiln is similar to my design in ways, but much taller and wider. You can walk into her kiln. I have to squat in my kiln. She has two side-stoking ports on each side of the kiln. I don't have side stoking ports, which allow a potter to stoke smaller sized wood toward the back of the kiln to help even out the temperature in a long kiln. I accept that my kiln fires unevenly, and load it accordingly.

Donna's selling her pots next weekend at the Potters Market Invitational in Charlotte. You can see some of her work at DiscoverSeagrove.com.

I shot this pictures of one of her helpers stoking,
through two big pots of Donna's.

Pictures of Latest Pots from Wood Kiln

2011-08-29T10:43:00.000-07:00

Much of the ash on the bowls and pitchers was sprayed on before firing. The bowls and pitchers were fired in the back of the kiln this firing.

Two-piece vase with tree stamps,
natural ash glaze

Two-piece vase with lugs,
natural ash glaze

Large coil-built pot with sgraffito
design through flashing slip

Shino-glazed bowls (lower right bowl glazed with
alberta slip glaze)

Shino-glazed pitchers

Flashing from ember bed caused by
stoking through passive damper

More ember flashing

Big Pot Crack

2011-08-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

Clouds moved in and gusts of wind picked
up as we finished firing the kiln Friday
at around 5 p.m., a 17-hour firing.

We took the kiln up slowly this firing. Levi started with gas around 10 p.m. Thursday, and stayed with the kiln until 5 a.m. when Mary took over. I took over about 8 a.m. Levi and I began to stoke a bit more heavily after lunch.

And then we noticed one of his big pots had a big crack right in the middle. Hopefully, it won't fall over and mess up other pots around it. I won't make any guesses as to the cause of the crack until we unload.

I stoked a lot of small sticks into the outside two bottom passives for a few hours at the end of the firing. We reached cone 10 at the back and stoked heavily and sealed it up slowly.

Setting in this Load a Bit Different

2011-08-25T06:12:00.000-07:00

We have two stacks of shelves in this kiln load - one in the very back and one in the front - with big pots in between. I usually place pots glazed in an ash glaze in the back of the kiln as the glaze can mature at a lower temperature, and the back of the kiln is usually two or three cones lower than the front.

But I didn't have any pots glazed in my wood ash, so I chose to place shino-glazed pots in the back. And I set the back shelves away from the back wall more, hoping this will help the pots get hotter in the back. I also stacked a little looser on the shelves, both in the back and the front.

I was reading an Owen Rye article where he says a loosely packed kiln tends to produce an oxidized atmosphere. Well, that's not what I want, either, but we'll see. Levi wants to develop some early reduction (body reduction) thinking it may help with getting some more red on the shino pots.

Maybe, we'll seal up the kiln at the end with a big stoke to create a bit of reduction cooling, too. It will be interesting to see what weather we have tomorrow.

Anyways, here's some pictures of the setting in this kiln:

I placed the bricks on the floor to block
wood from reaching too far into the kiln
as I "end stoke" through the two outside
passive holes.

There's two smaller tall vases behind
the tall vases on left and right.

Kind of open at the top, but not as much as
the picture seems to show. I shot this picture
with my lense at wide angle.

Open at the bottom

Loading the Wood-fired Kiln

2011-08-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

We're loading the wood-fired kiln today, a day after our eastern earthquake, and we'll be firing Friday, a day before Hurricane Irene is predicted to hit the North Carolina coast.

We're loading a shelf of shino glazed pots toward the back of the kiln and decided to spray some ash onto the pots for some added effect.

Sieving some fly ash from the kiln

Spraying fly ash onto shino glaze

New Stamps on Platters

2011-08-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

I've been anxiously waiting for the opportunity to use some of the new stamps Levi made on my large platters. I got the chance today to make two platters, using a heron stamp and using a "Celtic tree" stamp. These platters are about 25 inches in diameter.

Levi's "Celtic tree" stamp surrounds a triskelion or
triple spiral. I'm thinking I might glaze this platter.

The heron stamp surrounds a triskelion. Outer portion
of the inside is my mangrove stamp. Rim is stamped
with my driftwood stamp. Maybe a red iron stain will
show the details of this platter.

Look what Popped Up in my Clay

2011-08-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

The clay fairies popped up their beach umbrellas to
help celebrate my latest batch of local clay. I love
their color choice.

A Few Tree Pots

2011-08-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

Multi-tasking here.... I've got a customer who wants to purchase one of my tree vases, so I fired several recently and decided to post pictures here and send her a link. These are all made from Highwater cone 6 Brownstone and washed with red iron, fired in my electric kiln.

I use stamps that I've made to create the pattern on the pot when it's a cylinder on the wheel, then shape it afterward.

9 1/2" by 11 1/2" soul pot $250

Same pot from above

8" by 8" $150

6 1/2" tall by 8" wide soul pot $150

Same pot from above

Fun with Plates

2011-08-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

Levi threw quite a few plates of different size the other day and we slipped them with a white clay and decorated them, carving through the white slip. Here's a few of my favorites.

Levi's

Michael's

Levi's

Michael's

Levi's

Cracked Bowl Great for Eggs

2011-08-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

Our newest egg producer found a nice spot to lay its eggs:

A cracked bowl glazed in our Southwestern
glaze pattern is perfect for laying eggs in.

A bit of pine straw makes it very comfortable.

Working with New Stamps

2011-08-06T14:06:00.000-07:00

It's been too long since I last blogged, so I thought I'd share what I've been working on this week, mostly today. Levi made a few new stamps and I tried them on some pots today. I didn't get to all the stamps. This heat just zapped my energy today. I've been working with Highwater's Brownstone for the past couple of weeks. I don't know if they've changed the recipe, but I really like the way it throws.

Here's a few pictures:

Large vase stamped with a "Celtic Tree"

New stamps: Celtic tree and Egret stamps
(You've got to click for a larger picture to see anything.)

You can't fit much in a kiln with big fat pots loaded inside.

Chrystalline-glazed Tree Platter

2011-07-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

Will McCanless and I collaborated on a platter to be auctioned off Nov. 18 during the preview gala of Celebration of Seagrove Potters. I created the platter using slab and wheel techniques, stamping it with my tree stamps, and Will glazed and fired it using one of his stunning chrystalline glazes.

Will and I did a similar platter the first year of the Celebration, but it cracked during the firing.

There's quite a few Seagrove potters working on collaborations for this auction. Visit Facebook here to keep up with the progress some of the pieces as we work on them. There's a collaboration of 10 potters working on one piece. My son is working on a piece with potter Brad Lail.

Celebration of Seagrove Potters takes place indoors on Nov. 19 and 20 with 60 or more potters from the Seagrove area selling their works. There's a special gala preview on Friday night, the 18th, with food, drink and music as well as the popular collaboration auction.

The Celebration of Seagrove Potters is put on by Seagrove Area Potters Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and marketing the historical, geographical pottery community that works and resides in a corner of the Randolph, Moore, and Montgomery counties of North Carolina.

A dazzling platter

20 1/2 inches in diameter

Our first Art in the Park?

2011-07-17T07:37:00.000-07:00

WET!

We got our tent up Friday evening, and once we got inside
and got settled, it rained - all night long.

In spite of a constant drizzle at the show, folks came
by to chat and some bought pots.

Vendors kept an eye on their canopies,
pushing out pockets of water so
customers wouldn't get sloshed.

Collaboration Piece

2011-07-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

After spending the day cleaning pots, packing pots, setting up tents and canopies and stringing up bells, I spotted the collaborative piece that I did with fellow potter Phillip Pollet sitting in a bit of afternoon sun on the sill of my wood kiln's fire hole, where we stoke the wood during the firing. I had set it there to keep it away from the running around getting ready for a show this weekend in Blowing Rock.

I haven't had time to take pictures of all the pots from the latest firing, but I took the opportunity to snap a few shots of the collaboration. This piece will be auctioned off at during the Friday night gala at this year's Celebration of Seagrove Potters, Nov. 18 -20.

There's a number of Seagrove potters working together this year to make pieces for the gala auction. Check out the Facebook page here. If you click the "like" button, you can make your own posts, or you can leave comments.

A Line of Levi's Pots

2011-07-12T17:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a lineup of Levi's current work fired in the Manabigama. The three vases in the middle and the one at far right came out of the latest firing.

Natural Ash

2011-07-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

Wadding separates two pots

Many of the pots I fire in my Manabigama kiln are glazed naturally by my kiln. The finish on a pot is highly affected by where it's placed in the kiln. Put a pot facing the flame and it's likely to have heavy ash buildup. Place one directly behind a pot and the flame's effect will be much more subtle.

I've fired this kiln 17 times, and the surface of the walls are beginning to flow with natural ash buildup. I imagine what it's like to be a pot inside the kiln during peak temperature when everything is in some state of flux. Everything is glowing, nearly white. We're constantly stoking to keep the temperature up. Everything is engulfed in this mixture of gases, ashes and volatilized minerals.

I don't pretend to know the chemical process of what's going on. Early in the firing process, pots in the kiln are dusted with light wisps of ash. Twenty hours later - stoking every 10 minutes or so with Pakistani hardwood from pallets and slabs of pine from a local sawmill - ash has accumulated and melted, molten minerals have built up.

Depending on the cooling process of the kiln, the heavy ash buildup can be shiny or matte. We cool slowly, so we get matte. The heavy ash deposits thin out and create a speckled surface, finally thinning to an earthy orange and copper.

I can't wait to unload the kiln.

The undulating vase is a collaboration I did
with Phillip Pollet for the gala auction
at this year's Celebration of Seagrove Potters.

Ash buildup on the walls

Too Much Oxidation?

2011-07-11T05:03:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid I may have burned off many of the nice effects from firing in a wood-fired kiln when I decided to slow the kiln down for a few hours. This could be a disastrous firing....

Levi and I reached cone 10 in the front of the kiln rather quickly, and I decided to drop in temperature and hold it, then slowly bring it back to where we were in temperature, hoping to build up some more ash on the pots. We stoked less wood and allowed the kiln to cool a bit after each stoke, maintaining a temperature for 30 minutes, then climbing 50 degrees and maintaining that temperature for 30 minutes. I had a container of ash I had collected from the kiln's chimney and spread some on a board and knocked it off into the fire box several times.

Then we fired off the kiln with heavy stokes for an hour or so, reaching cone 10 in the back and dropping cone 14 in the front.

After we sealed up the kiln, I noticed a bowl and mug had fallen together, a shino-glazed bowl and a unglazed mug, so I decided to pull them out. They were white, not red/orange/green like we've been getting.

I wondered if they lost their color because I pulled them out of the kiln and quick cooled them? Hmmmm. What to do? Start stoking again and do a reduction cool? Is everything in the kiln just white with green ash deposits?

I decided to try to see into the kiln with a strong spotlight I have. It was difficult, but I finally spotted a shino-glazed pitcher up front and thought I saw some color. Being totally exhausted from firing all day in the heat, I opted to hope for the best and leave it alone.

But now, I'm wondering if I'll have to refire.

After writing this, I went out again to the kiln and peeked up front. There's color up front, so all may be okay.

A heavy stoke near the end of the firing

Peeking in to try and see some color on pots

Less Shelves for Firing 17

2011-07-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

It's nine in the morning, a clear sky, cool breeze and twittering birds. Levi stoked beginning at 5:30, and I took over an hour ago. We're almost up to between 600 in the middle of the kiln where I have the probe for the pyrometer.

This kiln load is stacked using a minimum number of shelves. We have some tall, narrow pieces and we stacked quite a number of pieces on top of each other, some extending into the opening of another pot as pictured to the right.

I did a lot of this kind of stacking many years ago when I was firing burnished pots in a low-fire underground kiln dug into the side of a hill. I'd fill the pots with sawdust and the effect was dramatic - shiny black where the pot was inside another pot and subtle flashing on the outside with reds and greens.

I feel like I'm creating more opportunities for pots to crack or maybe fuse together, maybe topple over or something in the firing, but I'm hoping for some interesting results with this kind of stacking. We'll see.

A collaboration between Phillip Pollet and I made it into this kiln. It dried just in time to get it. I've got quite a few large pitchers, some glazed in shino, and of course some soul pots, large and small.

This is the front of the kiln with a few
pots nestled inside each other and only
one shelf. We'll pull out the red local clay
pieces at cone 10 or so.

Two shelves a little further back with more stacking.
You can see the collaborative piece to the rear of the
shelf and on the right.

One shelf towards the back. There are three
tall pieces that Levi created behind this shelf.

A Little of Wadding

2011-07-09T06:33:00.000-07:00

Levi and I are loading the wood kiln today. There's a lot of work involved in loading. One task is wadding pots. Wadding is made from some kind of refractory material, and is used to keep pots from sticking to shelves, the floor and other pots during the firing process.

I use two kinds of wadding. One is a 50/50 mixture of kaolin and alumina, which I use to separate lids from the main pot on lidded pots. The other kind of wadding is a mixture of equal parts sand/fireclay/sawdust. I use this to separate the bottom of each pot from a shelf or the floor of the kiln.

Here's a few pictures of me wadding a casserole (made by Levi):

Basic shape of my wad for a lid

I actually glue it down with a basic white glue.

After about eight wads, I place a drop of glue on each
wad and set the lid on top, pressing down lightly.

Finished casseroles

My Shop Cat, BC (Big Cat)

2011-07-04T17:49:00.000-07:00

Tree Platter Cat

Big Pot Cat

Window Sill Cat

Foot Bowl Cat

I think I like Foot Bowl Cat the best.

Foot-soaking...er... -washing Bowl

2011-07-02T07:13:00.001-07:00

Foot Bowl in Seafoam Green

I sold one of my foot-soaking bowls to a customer this past week who will be using it during a ritual blessing to celebrate an expectant mother. Friends will use my bowl to wash the feet of the pregnant friend during a ritual called the Blessingway.

Apparently, the woman who called me about purchasing the bowl had talked to Seagrove Potter Tom Gray, a mutual friend, and Tom referred her to me. Thanks Tom. I had two extra foot-soaking bowls that I made for the last order from a hotel in New York City that purchases the bowls for their hotel room bathrooms. So, I was able to glaze one and fire it the same week that the customer ordered it.

Firing Down in Electric Kiln

2011-06-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

While my wood-fired pots have been getting most of the attention on this blog lately, I still fire the electric kiln quite regularly. I unloaded a kiln full of cone 6 pots glazed with a seafoam green glaze that I got from Richard Zakin's book Electric Kiln Ceramics. I think it's called K151 in the book.

A few years ago, I programmed the kiln to "fire down," that is, I slowed the cooling of the kiln from 1900 degrees F. to 1400 degrees. This promotes tiny crystal growth in the glaze and produces a much richer surface on some glazes. It worked a charm on Zakin's glaze, and I love the results.

When I unloaded the electric kiln yesterday, I was surprised to see that the glaze had turned darker than usual, a result of using a different clay body and having the glaze mixed a little thicker than usual I think. The clay is Little Loafer's Glory from Highwater Clay.

This piece blew me away, as I was worried that
the carving might have been obliterated.

Tree Stamp

One curvy line

New Pictures of Latest Work

2011-06-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here's some latest pots from our Manabigama Wood-fired kiln at From the Ground Up:

Click on an image and a "Light Box" slideshow should start. Then click on "next" at the right side of picture. Or just scroll down and click on pictures, then click outside the picture to come back to my post.

Summer Solstice Colors Clay

2011-06-25T05:47:00.000-07:00

Levi and I unloaded the front of the kiln yesterday afternoon, but left the larger pots inside to cool until today. We're delighted with the results - lovely streaks of fuzzy green ash and brilliant soft orange mixed with copper.

Levi fired this kiln load, and I assisted. A tightly packed front and a loosely packed middle and back - in my opinion - caused the kiln to climb quickly once we began to stoke in earnest and climb above 2,000 degrees F. We shut the kiln down about two hours earlier than we usually do, but we managed to get close to cone 10 in the back of the kiln.

Ash buildup was minimal in much of the kiln. Flashing - where the flame actually creates color changes in the clay surface - seemed to dominate this firing.

I'll post more pictures later, but here's three of Levi's tall pots:

It was difficult not to pull these out
yesterday, but we felt they were too
hot to pull out until today.

The tallest of the three is 31 inches.

Back side of pots.

The glass we placed on the large pot
melted onto the floor, so we'll have to
use a diamond blade to cut through
the glass to release it.

First Peek

2011-06-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

This piece is in the very back of the kiln.
I shoved a few pine sticks next to it
through the passive dampers in the chimney,
likely enhancing the flashing on the white slip.

This little vase thrown with fresh clay from our property
was pulled out of the kiln at around cone 10.

Summer Solstice a Hot Day for Firing

2011-06-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

We blew a bit of extra ash into the kiln during this firing.
My daughter holds a board in front of the stoke hole
with a bit of ash deposited on the end, and I use an extractor
fan for an electric kiln to blow the ash into the kiln.

Thanks to Levi's midnight to 5 a.m. shift, we were able to finish up the firing today by 8 p.m., a 20-hour firing. We had three large pots fired green, so we took everything real slow.

WARNING: The following might be too much information if you're mostly interested in pottery and not pottery making.

We had thought we would be firing until after 10 p.m., but the kiln's temperature shot up quickly at the end, giving us a little scare at first.

We watched cone 10 drop in the front of the kiln, and an hour later cones 13 and 14 dropped. It usually takes about three or four hours to get cone 13 down after cone 9 begins to bend. I added cone 14 this time, thinking it wouldn't bend, so I was surprised when I noticed it was all the way down.

Cones (called pyrometric cones) are one of the most accurate ways of measuring temperature and heat work in a kiln. You place them in a kiln so you can see them during the firing and gauge your firing time. Cone 10 is about 2,340 degrees F. And cone 14 is about 2,530.

After we noticed all our cones in the front of the kiln had dropped, we fretted a while about the possibility of overfiring. Certain clays are designed to be fired to specific temperatures, and some of the clay we use undergoes a lot of stress at these high temperatures.

In the end, we decided to stoke until cone 9 was down in the back of the kiln (naturally a cooler area of the kiln because it's furthest away from the firebox). Once again, we essentially ignored the temperature in the front of the kiln to get the back up to a decent enough temperature. One of the reasons, we kept going was that we realized that the kiln didn't actually feel as hot as we normally get when at the end of the firing. I wonder about the accuracy of cones sometimes when firing in a wood kiln. All that ash melting on the cones...

We had some bloating (probably caused by overfiring) in one of the clays we used during the previous firing, so we were a bit worried about getting things too hot this time. We got cone 10 down in the back last time (our highest temperature yet in that section of the kiln). So, this time we shut the kiln down when we saw cone 9 down.

Everything looked good during my last peek into the kiln before sealing it up and going upstairs for some dinner.

Firing Levi's Big Pots in this Load

2011-06-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

We're anticipating some interesting results in our next firing. We loaded three large pots that Levi created. They take up a huge chunk of kiln space, but we managed to get quite a few other pots in the kiln as well.

We'll be preheating the kiln with a gas burner tomorrow afternoon (maintaining a low temperature) and firing with wood beginning around midnight. Levi wants keep the kiln rising in temperature about 50 degrees an hour for the first nine or so hours.

Soul pots rest on top of Levi's special order
rain barrels in the back of the kiln.

The large vase wasn't easy to load.

We placed a planter on top of the large
vase and some small mugs on top of that.
There's actually a pot inside each of the large
pieces as well, and a bit of sawdust in one as well.

Our only set of shelves is in the front.

For more detailed photos of loading the big vase, click here.

Customer Appreciation

2011-06-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

Emma and Kate, sisters who live in New Salem, NC,
pose for a picture while Dad looks in through the doorway.
I was glazing some small mugs for the wood kiln, and I
decided to let the two girls decorate a mug with their finger.
Kate Rose made the mug on the left, and Emma Grace
made the mug on the right. Hopefully, the mugs will
survive the firing and the girls will be back for them.
As it turned out, Emma is left-handed and Kate is right-
handed, and the decorations were done on the correct
side of the mug so they could see the finger swipe while
holding the mug.

Prospecting for Clay

2011-06-17T16:14:00.000-07:00

Chunks of raw clay drying in the sun

I've been walking regularly for a while now - using a trail I created off an old road bed in the back of our property. The old road bed crosses a creek, which is now dry, and I always look at the clay showing through the ground where four wheelers have gouged a trail.

Today, Levi and I dug up some of the clay and brought it back to give it a try on the wheel and in our kilns. We both grabbed a handful of some of the softer clay and wet it down and smacked it together a few times, then threw a piece on the wheel. I think it shows some promise. It's very similar to what I've dug up on another part of the property, but it seems to have some bluish clay in it as well.

We're both hoping that if we keep digging, we'll hit a vein of blue clay. We'll see.

Tree Platters

2011-06-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

These platters are about 24 inches wide. They can be used to serve food and/or to accent a space on your wall. Cost: $350. The trees are individually stamped into the clay using my own stamps. The design in the center is a triskele, an ancient design representing the underworld, the middle world and the upper world, corresponding with the roots, trunks and limbs of the trees.

Electric Peek

2011-06-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

I've never done this before, but it's such a sweet-looking platter.... Here's a sneak peek into the electric kiln at around 600 degrees.

A translucent blue glaze over Little Loafer's Glory,
a fine white clay from Highwater Clays in Asheville.

And here's five bowls using the same clay, stamped
with one of my tree stamps.

New Work for the Wood Kiln

2011-06-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update:

Levi and I are planning on firing the wood kiln this month with three large pots Levi created recently. Actually, they've been sitting and waiting to be loaded for a couple of months now. They'll take up most of the space in the kiln, so we've been making some smaller pieces to fill in around them such as small mugs, soul pots and tree vases.

I spent much of last week cutting and stacking wood, as Levi made pots. I reached a point where I was sick and tired of electric saws and wood slabs and pallet parts and spent a couple of days recently making some large soul pots and a few pieces that customers ordered.

Our next show is Art in the Park July 16 in Blowing Rock.

Four tall pieces Levi made for the wood kiln

Recent work for the wood kiln

Levi brushes a flashing slip on a tall vase

Better Safe than Sorry

2011-05-31T08:30:00.001-07:00

Kiln vent blower, respirator, safety glasses, ear protection.

Methyl Bromide? hmmmmmmm.

2011-05-31T06:02:00.000-07:00

I posted yesterday about cutting up some pieces of pallets that I received from a local pallet recycler, and in trying to figure out where the wood comes from and what type of wood it is, I learned that some of the pallets I'm dealing with may have been treated with methyl bromide - a highly toxic chemical used to fumigate for bugs.

Pictured at left is a mark that is on many of the pieces of pallets that I'm dealing with. PK represents Pakistan. What I thought was HB might just be MB, which stands for methyl bromide.

Pictured on the right is a similar mark that I found online, and below is the explanation for the IPPC (International Plant Protection Convention) mark.

XX - indicates a two letter ISO country code.

0000 - the next series of letters/numbers is the unique identification mark of the wood treatment agent or packaging manufacturer. The number of letters or digits may vary according to each country.

The country code and treatment agent or manufacturer code must be separated by a hyphen.

YY - This indicates the type of treatment, and will either be HT (Heat Treatment) or MB (Methyl Bromide).

The marking 'DB' (indicating debarking has taken place) is no longer used. However, as pallets may last several years, the older style of ISPM15 marking is still permissible.

So, I'm trying to figure out if it's safe to use these pallet pieces to cut and burn in my wood-fired kiln. I've found some online posts in firewood forums saying to stay away from it as a fuel source, or at least where gloves and a mask when handling and cutting this wood. I've found a similar post where someone says the wood is only fumigated, not impregnated with a chemical, so it should be okay.

I know there's a pallet-burning kiln at the Energy Exchange near Black Mountain, NC. I wonder if anyone there has knowledge or experience in dealing with methyl bromide treated pallets.

Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill.

"Quick' Canopy for Cutting Wood

2011-05-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

Cutting wood in my Quikshade canopy

Yikes, it was a scorcher today. I got hold of some great pallet wood today and spent most of the afternoon cutting lengths of some kind of very hard wood into two pieces. I've used this wood before for firing my wood kiln. My source says it's from Israel I think. I can't remember. I'd love to know what kind of wood it is. Some of the pieces are very dense and heavy. Picture at right shows a stamp, PK-001 HB and some kind of symbol possibly.

Anyway, I don't have a sheltered area to cut wood, so I set up my Quikshade canopy and made myself a work station. I set up a fan to keep the sweat to a minimum, but it also served to keep the sawdust from blowing into my face. The chop saw I use is very old has no bag to catch the sawdust. I tried buying a bag, but it didn't work. The sawdust just clogged up.

Levi is currently making soul pots for both electric firing and wood firing. We have some of his larger pieces that we want to fire in the next wood kiln load, but we need some smaller pieces to load around them.

We'll be firing sometime this month. Keep in touch.

Thanks.

Slideshow of Pots from Wood Kiln

2011-05-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

Hope to see you at the Pottery Fair on the Square at Old Salem tomorrow (Saturday, May 21, 10-5).

Bloating....

2011-05-20T05:25:00.000-07:00

The wood kiln is unloaded, and while we got some fantastic orange-red shinos, we also got some fantastic bloating on some pieces - more than I've ever gotten in a load. Click on the picture below and you can see some of my boats, caused by gases expanding in the clay body and not being able to escape. Could be we overfired the clay. Could be we reduced (lack of oxygen) too early.

Much of the bloating is in my local clay, but this is the first time we've seen it in a clay we buy from STARworks, Okeeweemee 10 (a darker local clay mix). Most of the bloating in the STARworks clay occurred in the front of the kiln.

We reached cone 10 in the back of the kiln, the highest we've gotten the back of the kiln so far.

I'll be taking some individual shots today as I clean up the pots, and share them on the blog.

Another Teaser

2011-05-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

A quick peak after taking some bricks out of the front
of the kiln shows the three large bowls up top. I hope
some of you will make it to Winston-Salem Saturday for
Pottery Fair on the Square at Old Salem, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Sneak Peek

2011-05-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

We fired our Manabigama wood kiln Tuesday, and it was a great firing with cloudy, slightly windy weather and a full moon. I glazed quite a few pieces with a salt shino, and from the first peek into the kiln, everything looks great. The firing took 13 1/2 hours.

We'll unload tomorrow afternoon, and then we'll be packing up for a show in Winston Salem - Pottery Fair on the Square - on the grounds of Old Salem. Nearly 30 potters are exhibiting in Old Salem Saturday, May 21, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Click on the link for a list of the potters.

I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow. I'm more excited than usual to get this firing unloaded as I've got quite a few larger soul pots and bowls and a lot of shino glazed pots. Shino glazes are extremely sensitive to the atmospheric conditions in a wood kiln.

Bottom of front stack. The tree casserole got some nice
ash. Mugs on right are shino glazed. Mug on left is my
mustard brown glaze using local clay and gerstley borate.

Shino glazed soul pot and mugs on the next shelf up
and a large serving bowl with tree motif above that.

Pyrometric cones inside the kiln bend to indicate the
temperature inside the kiln. This picture was taken through
a passive damper at the back of the kiln close to the end of
the firing, when temperatures are well above 2,000 degrees F.

Pottery Tour Tapenade

2011-05-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

Olive tapenade in a wood-fired shino-glazed bowl

Claire Ruggles, director for the Northern Moore Family Resource Center in Robbins, made several delicious recipes including this tapenade which was served to participants in this past Sunday's pottery tour, a fundraiser for the center. The dish was delicious, as was the pesto cheese loaf she made.

I demonstrated making my large tree platters and Levi showed everyone how he carves trees through a white slip into the dark clay body on some of his vases. It was a great afternoon.

Ted, our resident turtle, even came out to see what all the fuss was about. You can see him in the lower right corner of the picture at the right.

Also in the picture are my brother and his daughter who graduated from Duke law school this weekend. It was a busy weekend.

We ended the day by eating some fantastic pizza made by Levi, which included an olive tapenade topped pizza. It was a great weekend. Thanks to all the volunteers that helped out with the pottery tour. Six other pottery shops participated in this year's fundraiser.

The Week in Review

2011-05-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Sorry I haven't been in touch lately. I am fighting a cold right now, but we've been busy. Here's a few pictures of what we've been up to this past week:

Levi is working on a special order for two
rain barrels for a customer.

Here's five pieces that I made from my local clay
for the next wood firing. Trees were carved through
a flashing slip.

A participant of the Arts Festival of Historic Rosedale
in Charlotte this past Saturday shaves a part to a
handmade chair he works on. We had a good show,
selling lots of soul pots, wood-fired tree vases
and other items.

May 7 Art Festival at Charlotte's Historic Rosedale House

2011-04-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

We will be bringing some work to the art festival at Historic Rosedale in Charlotte May 7. This is an intimate show of less than 20 potters and artists under one outdoor tent behind a neat old three-story home built in 1850 by Archibald Frew, a merchant, postmaster and tax collector.

The day will include period costumes (left), demonstrations and tours of the house and its wonderful gardens.

If you're nearby, please come and visit. Below, are some pots I'm currently working on that might make it to the show.

Large pasta bowl and casserole with tree motif,
waiting to be fired in wood kiln

Soul Pots that will be glazed in my Southwestern
glaze pattern and fired in electric kiln

Chocolate Bread and Butter, fresh coffee... and lots of pottery

2011-04-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

Shelves and tables under the overhang, the night before...

Today was spent cleaning shelves, tables, floors and pots from the latest wood firing. We've got some really nice pots on the shelves, many wood-fired, but quite a few of my popular southwestern glazed. The weathermen say it's going to be rainy and stormy tomorrow, so if you don't want to drive in the rain, come by Sunday. It's supposed to be a clear day Sunday.

Hope to see you this weekend. For breakfast, we'll have freshly roasted organic Columbian and Robusta coffee and chocolate bread with chocolate butter, scones with cream and blueberry jam; lunch, leek and potato soup with lima beans.

Here's a slideshow of some of our latest pots:

2011-04-14T17:11:00.000-07:00

Local clay pitcher with flashing slip

We unloaded the kiln today and in spite of the mishaps, it was a good firing. I took a lot of pictures, and I'll take some more tomorrow, but for now, I'll share my favorite from the firing (above). The pitcher is thrown with local clay that I dig on my land. I get a lot of bloating in the clay, but every now and then I get a piece that works, like this one. The white flashing slip is a recipe from Ben Owen which includes some King's Mountain clay.

Levi's big pot got some nice flashing

It gets hot when you climb into a 270-degree
kiln to unload the pots

Sneak Peek

2011-04-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

Who knows why the shelf on the top fractured. Could have been a crack when I got the shelf. Could have been cracked during handling and cleaning. You can see the corner down on the floor. I'm thinking it's resting on that bottle, but maybe not.

Let's hope the kiln god (at right) I placed in the foundation of the kiln during construction did his job.

The pitcher and jug on the top shelf didn't fall, and I'm planning on a careful extraction of pots on that shelf when the kiln cools. No reaching in and grabbing a pot off the top shelf until I can get inside and support things while I grab those pots on top.

There's some nice ash drips on the two bottles on the floor. I hope they're all right.

Two Mishaps in Kiln

2011-04-13T05:38:00.000-07:00

Small vase extracted from kiln

We had to pull two pots from the kiln during the firing. One had gotten knocked off its wadding and was resting on another pot, the other had gotten knocked over by a post that had fallen from a top shelf after a shelf apparently fractured.

So, I'm feeling disappointed this morning because I know the fractured shelf is resting on some nice pots below it. The mishap could have been worse. The shelf could have collapsed and pots could have tumbled. And there's always the possibility that things could still fall.

I discovered the fractured shelf late in the firing after the last stoke. After flames had subsided enough to allow me to see pots, I pushed the stoke hole cover over a bit and looked inside. I saw some nice ash deposits on the bottle up front which I had placed on its side, resting on wads topped with seashells.

I saw a plate that I had leaned on its side against the wall. It looked intact. At the far left, I saw a post sitting on top of a small bottle which had fallen over. My stomach sank.

Photo at right shows the post that fell and the pot it landed on. I'm not sure where the bowl is that was above the post.

It all makes waiting to see inside that much more difficult.

Stirring a stoke

Shelves are Stocked but we Keep on Firing

2011-04-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss keeping up with my blog. I apologize. It's been hectic around here, getting ready for shows, kiln openings and at the same time working on a second order for foot-soaking bowls.

The Celebration of Spring kiln openings is this weekend. A majority of the potters around Seagrove are stocking their shops and organizing special events for the weekend. We're firing the wood kiln tomorrow, and I've been firing soul pots, mugs, creamers, sugar bowls and vases in my southwestern glaze along with the foot-soaking bowls in my electric kilns.

Levi and I loaded the wood kiln today - lots of cereal or soup bowls, some pitchers and quite a few small vases with trees sgraffitoed into a flashing slip that Ben Owen turned me onto. The slip picks up some nice color from the flame. And I place the trees toward the back of the kiln to keep them from being obliterated from ash.

We've got our first large pot in this kiln, one that Levi created using a coiling method. It's 27 inches tall by about 16 inches wide, taking up nearly a whole stack of shelves in the kiln.

Hope we and the rest of the potters who are participating in Celebration of Spring have a good turnout. Maybe we'll see you there. Mary's making chocolate bread and leek and potato soup. I'll be brewing some of my freshly roasted organic coffee for the early birds. Our shelves are stocked with pots.

Levi carries his large vase out of the shed to load into kiln

Front of the kiln

Behind the front

A little further back

And the back

Come see us in Hickory (or Seagrove)

2011-03-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

Booth Layout in Hickory

Mary and I are manning the booth in Hickory Saturday, while Levi is home in Seagrove watching the shop. Stop in and see us.

Hickory Show Saturday

2011-03-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

We're packed and ready for the Catawba Valley Pottery & Antiques Show this Saturday at the The Hickory Metro Convention Center (Exit 125 off of I-40). Hope to see you there. Tickets to the show are $6 per person/ 12 and under $2.

We spent today coating our shelf system with a new layer of polyurethane, unloading pots from the Manabigama wood kiln and sanding, cleaning and packing the pots. It was a great firing. And a great day.

We're setting up for the show Friday, and then we'll attend the Friday night preview. The main show is Saturday. For more information, click here.

The sanding and cleaning station and shelves drying
in the sun

Pots lined up ready for packing

Sneak Peek

2011-03-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

It's hard to tell from the angle of the photograph if
the jug on its side slumped enough to attach itself
to the floor of the kiln. I hope not. We'll see tomorrow.

Firing complete in record time

2011-03-21T18:09:00.000-07:00

It felt like a great firing today. We started at 6:30 a.m. and finished at 7 p.m., the shortest firing yet, reaching cone 9 in the back. Here's a few pictures from the day:

I can't wait to see what this jug looks like, glazed in
shino and fired on the floor of the kiln right next
to the firebox. Drips are natural ash.

Bark bags. We stuffed these bags full of
bark and tossed them in every now and then.
Bark has a lot of minerals and such that can
produce some nice flashing on pots.

Amy Peseller from New Jersey helped
us out firing the kiln today. She was a big
help. She collects feathers, so I gave her a
feather from "Red," our Old English rooster.
Amy's taking off Friday to hike the Appalachian
Trail from Tennessee to New Jersey. She's modeling
our "moon gloves."

Colors of the day

Firing Wood Kiln for Hickory Show

2011-03-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

Duster seemed unimpressed with
all the pots placed on their sides

This past week has stressed me out, finishing up the making of 45 foot-soaking bowls, throwing some small pots to fire with the foot-soaking bowls, re-making six more foot-soaking bowls to replace the ones that cracked during drying and then glazing and loading the wood kiln in preparation for the Catawba Valley Pottery & Antiques Show.

Levi is away this weekend, so Mary and I loaded the kiln today It's chock-full of soul pots that Levi made while Mary and I were away in Ireland last month.

The jar on the top shelf wouldn't quite fit
at first, so I set it on wads, on its side,
then I thought better of it, lowered the
shelf below it a tiny bit and made it fit.

When in Doubt, Don't

2011-03-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

Silhouette of a foot-soaking bowl

Every now and then an opportunity presents itself to examine the interior of a wall on one of my pots - like when a pot cracks, like the one above.

I'm currently finishing up a commission for 45 foot-soaking bowls for the Andaz Hotel on 5th Avenue in New York. Levi and I have been making them since I got back from Ireland the end of February.

We've been working on a tight schedule, trying to get them all thrown and assembled (they're two-piece pots), and still have enough time to load and fire our wood kiln for the upcoming Hickory show the last weekend of March. A few days ago, I decided to transfer 10 finished foot bowls from one workshop to another workshop where my electric kilns are located in order to make room for making 10 more.

Bad decision. Five bowls developed cracks during the drying.

In general, any pot undergoes a lot of stress from start to finish, and its my job to coax it along as best as I can to keep it from cracking. With deadlines, my job becomes more difficult as I weigh possible outcomes of cutting corners and pushing pots toward completion faster than I'd like to.

When I'm making decisions influenced by deadlines and such, I usually refer to a maxim I learned from a friend a long time ago: "When in doubt, don't." Some people say to "listen to that small, still voice" that is creating the doubt.

These latest cracks may not have developed had I not fired a bisque kiln overnight with the exhaust fan off, allowing my workshop to heat up too much. I'm thinking that was the straw that broke the pots' backs. But then, if I hadn't moved the pots into the workshop for another day....

Foot bowls at rest in the first workshop

Back to Work and Rhubarb Pie

2011-03-04T05:15:00.000-08:00

Levi and I work side by side on top sections of foot bowls

After three weeks of being away from clay, I started back to work with my son as we began work on filling an order for another 45 foot-soaking bowls for a boutique hotel in New York City - deadline, April 8.

Mary and I got back from our trip to Ireland Sunday. Basically, I took Monday off to recuperate and started working on the bowls Tuesday. Now, Levi and I are attending the North Carolina Potters Conference in Asheboro this weekend, so we'll get back to the bowls Monday.

I'm planning on firing the wood kiln once more before the Catawba Valley Pottery & Antiques Festival in Hickory March 25 and 26. Historically, Catawba Valley is known for its alkaline (ash) glazes, so I'm thinking I'll glaze quite a few pieces with a glaze I formulated using rock dust, ashes and local clay.

The picture at right is glazed in my ash glaze.

___________________________________________

Ireland 2011
___________________

Rhubarb pie

Mary's mother always cooked a dessert for us. On our last night there, she cooked a rhubarb pie from rhubarb she had frozen after the last growing season. With a dollop of cream on top, and a cup of tea, it was delicious.

_____________________________________

My new Workshop in Ireland

2011-02-24T13:10:00.000-08:00

My new "Wellies"

Layout of building

Mary and I have purchased a 23-foot by 10-foot metal building for making pots in Ireland, and I had some great weather today and yesterday while setting up the foundation. I'm hoping for some good weather in the morning to finish spreading a couple of tons of rock. But tonight's planned traditional music session at Power's Pub might lead to more sleep tomorrow morning.

Sorry I haven't blogged more, but my access to the internet is limited.

More after we get home Sunday, unless I get a chance to post again from here.

Woodfire Workshop in Ireland with Marcus O'Mahony and special guest Phil Rogers

2011-02-16T03:22:00.000-08:00

Marcus O'Mahony and his three-chamber wood kiln

Want to come and experience the lush woods and crisp rivers and streams of the Knockmealdown Mountains while attending a two-week workshop on wood-firing in Ireland?

Marcus O'Mahony is hosting this workshop in June of this year. Cost is 1,250 euros (that's about $1,600) and includes accommodation and some food. His guest tutor for the two weeks is Phil Rogers of Wales who was a lecturer at the 2009 North Carolina Potter's Conference in Asheboro, NC. Rogers has taught and lectured throughout the world.

For more information, click here to visit Marcus O'Mahony's website.

"People who come here don't want to leave," Marcus said.

O'Mahony's stone workshop

Moss-covered trees on Knockmealdown Mountains

Lismore Castle, just down the road from the pottery

Accommodations on left, workshop and kiln shed

Day away from Limerick Leads to another Potter, and the Sea

2011-02-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

So, Mary and I hit the road this morning and headed toward Doolin, a small port town in County Clare where you catch a ferry to the Aran Islands, and where you can also catch some great traditional music.

On our way, we stopped in Corofin to see if we could trace my Irish roots back further than 1729 when apparently Thomas Mahan (McMahon?) came over, but the lady behind the desk at the heritage center in Corofin said records weren't kept that far back.

So, we decided to stop in at a pottery shop directly across the street where Yvonne McEnnis (left) has been making functional pottery for the past 30 years.

Her modest workshop, inside an old thatched cottage she renovated, was filled with mugs, teapots, creamers and bowls simply glazed and decorated. She was getting ready to do some slip-casting of some larger pieces when we walked in.

When she heard I was from Seagrove, NC, she was excited. I asked her if I could throw a pot, and she decided she wanted me to throw a utensil jar. Perfect, I thought, as my son Levi and I had just finished throwing several hundred preserve jars for the Uwharrie Mountain Run before Mary and I came to Ireland.

So, here's pictures of the first pot I threw in Ireland, followed by some more Irish birds and a short film of breaking waves at the base of the cliffs around Doolin in the afternoon sun. It was a perfect day.

Cheers, and Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Wedging in front of the old fireplace

The clay was some very fine dark clay

I managed to throw the shape even though
her wheel was very different than I'm used to
and I didn't have my usual tools.

I don't know why I'm attracted to the black
birds of Ireland. I'm not sure of the name of these,
but they looked lovely against the blue sky. Maybe
it was the blue sky I was in love with.

Some Snapshots from Ireland

2011-02-13T05:03:00.000-08:00

Having no internet for a few days, I reverted to pencil
and paper and drew this elm tree behind Mary's mother's house.

A rook finds the top of a telephone pole an ideal spot to catch some early morning rays. Rooks are similar to crows but have a larger bill that has bare white skin at the base.

Some unfinished pots by Marcus O'Mahony, who we visited earlier in the week. O'Mahony lives at the base of the Knockmealdown Mountains and fires many of his pots in a three-chamber wood-fired kiln he built himself.

Moss blankets the limbs of trees at the base of
the Knockmealdown Mountains.

Eddie Lenihan, author and storyteller,
shares stories of Irish fairies, hungry grass, pisogs
and other t'ings at Powers Pub

Neatly pruned apple trees at The Apple Farm in Cahir

Foot-soaking Bowls Again

2011-02-04T08:53:00.000-08:00

Rounding over the edge of a 'foot bowl' with half a cd

Five down and 40 to go - foot-soaking bowls that is. Yes, I have another order for them, from the same client as before. So, as soon as we return from our annual trip to Ireland, Levi and I will get busy.

If you don't remember, or are new to my blog, click here for a refresher on making foot-soaking bowls. Last summer, we made 195 for a new hotel in New York City.

Levi and I made five this week to get a head start and to refresh our memories of making them.

Tree Vase, wood-fired

2011-01-30T18:58:00.000-08:00

This vase was fired in our wood-fired kiln during the last firing. It was up front where it got some heavy ash and flame. The finish - some blue clay from Ohio that a customer brought me - was brushed on thinly in two coats. There was so much happening on this pot that I thought I'd try to film it rather than take pictures. The front of the pot where it faced the firebox is quite glossy. The opposite side is a satin finish.

If you've got the bandwidth, I'd suggest watching it in a higher resolution by clicking on the play button and then changing the "240p" setting to at least "480." Or try 720HD and then click the lower right icon for full screen mode. Let me know what you think.

The vase at about 2300 degree F.

Lots of Pictures of New Pots

2011-01-29T15:18:00.000-08:00

Levi and I agree that this last firing is one of the best if not the best firing we've had so far. We fired the kiln in 13 1/2 hours to cone 13 in the front and cone 9 in the back. We didn't lose any pots to cracking, and we got a lot of nice ash and flashing throughout the kiln.

Here's a few pictures of some of the pieces:

porcelain slip/sgraffito

shino

My local clay with rock dust ash glaze

Testing out a new flashing slip

Sneak Peeks

2011-01-28T06:21:00.000-08:00

Here's a few shots from the front of the kiln, through the stoke door and from the above the door near the top of the kiln where we took a few bricks out to let some heat out. Temperature was around 500 degrees this morning.

We seemed to have knocked the bowl on the left off its wadding while stoking

Soft Rain Better than Snow during Firing

2011-01-27T06:58:00.000-08:00

Heavy smoke after a big stoke late in the afternoon

We fired the rest of the awards for the Uwharrie Mountain Run Wednesday. Firing started at 7 a.m. and we finished up at around 8:30 p.m. That's 13 1/2 hours, maybe our quickest firing yet. I preheated the kiln with a gas burner overnight and turned up the gas in the morning, adding small sticks from hardwood pallet scraps (Italian in origin) and then larger pallet scraps under the grates.

We took it easy up to about 1,000 degrees and then stoked heavy for the rest of the firing. Cone 12 was flat up front and cone 9 was down in the back when we stopped stoking. The picture at right shows a couple of pieces at the end of the firing just inside the kiln. It turned out to be a warmer day than forecasted earlier in the week, with soft rain instead of snow.

Seagrove Potter Phillip Pollet helped out toward the end of the firing.

Here's a little video of Levi stoking Wednesday afternoon, shot from the balcony of our home:

New Pitchers and a 'Kettle-inspired' Handle

2011-01-21T13:54:00.000-08:00

I've been working on some six-pound pitchers this week, and a new type of handle (shown in the picture below) inspired by my wife Mary's tea kettle handle.

I added a small pad of clay on the inside of the handle,
which makes for a firmer grip when picking up the pot.
I also added a little lug on top of the handle, which Mary's
tea kettle did not have, but when I grasp the handle the lug
really helps.

I'm not sure about how the new handle looks.

This is a new shape I'm working on. I don't feel I'm
that good at this type of handle, but I felt the pitcher
would function best if its handle was near the pots
midsection and close to the side of the pot.

This handle is a little further down
and a little further away from the pot,
I like the other one better.

I think the shape of this pitcher's top portion
calls for a handle pulled off the pot.

I finished pugging my scrap clay today as well as working on the pitchers. Mary and I are going to Ireland for three weeks beginning February 6. Levi will be watching the place for us and making some great pots. When we get back Levi and I will be working on foot-soaking bowls again for another order. Only 45 this time, instead of 200.

We've got a show in Hickory the last weekend of March and then the Celebration of Spring in Seagrove in April. Geez, it's getting busy around here.

RIP - Rock

2011-01-20T05:54:00.000-08:00

One of my more peaceful times spent in the workshop was when I centered a leather-hard vase on my wheelhead then set the flat side of my small burnishing stone to the surface of the stiffened, semi-moist clay. Sitting at my wheel, breathing easily as the afternoon sun beaming through the window displayed the radiance of aligned clay particles forming underneath the smooth stone. Slowly raising the stone up the side of the vase, then down again, flipping the stone over to use its convex shape to reach into the curve of the pot's neck, flipping it over again and lightening my pressure to work the lip of the pot smooth.

I knew that stone as well as the unsighted knows a lover's face. I think about holding it against a pot and I experience that moment again, like a smell-awakened memory.

I loved that rock.

Good and Bad News

2011-01-19T16:01:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting something to blog about, but I'd rather have had a different kind of experience to write about. I found my burnishing stone. I've had it since Mike Ferree - pottery instructor at Montgomery Community College - gave it to me back in the 1980s. I lost it last year.

It turned up in my clay mixer/pugger, a Peter Pugger. I was mixing scrap clay (pictured at right) today, and during the last load of the day, I stepped away to check some pots in another building while the mixer was on.

"CLUNK..... CLUNK!"

"Oh, &%^*," I said and ran to shut the machine down. I dug out all the clay by hand and didn't find anything. I dug some more in the far recess of a corner and found what I thought was a piece of glass, or maybe a piece of fired pottery. I found a couple more little pieces, set them aside and then I turned the pugger on again, and it clunked again. So, I turned it on and off quickly until I heard a scraping. Then I found something larger wedged between a blade and the side of the pugger. I took a piece of 2x4 and forced the blade backwards until I could dig out the larger piece, brought all the pieces into our house and washed them.

That's when I knew I'd found my burnishing stone.

Now, I've got to take apart the pugger and clean it well, and probably throw out that last batch of clay. I might have to grind off a sharp little ding on the pugger blade as well.

Pretty rock, isn't it?

A Big Pot by Levi

2011-01-13T16:31:00.001-08:00

For Christmas, I got my son Levi a wooden anvil and paddle for making large coiled pots. Today, while I was making some special order pots and loading a bisque kiln, he finished up a large pot that he started yesterday. I guess this means I'm going to have to give it a try as well. I actually ordered two anvils and paddles, one for me and one for him.

I'll share more pictures of the process when we get better at it. But from the looks of the pot below, Levi's getting the hang of it. He estimates he used about 50 or 60 pounds of Grogewemee 10 from STARworks Ceramics.

Firing One of Awards Unloaded

2011-01-12T18:16:00.000-08:00

Awards: 8-milers, 20-milers, 40-milers and winners

I've been doing awards for the Uwharrie Mountain Run - a challenging, winter single-track trail run of 8, 20, and 40 miles in central North Carolina’s Uwharrie National Forest - for 20 years, and this year the organizers wanted to celebrate the 20th year with something special. So, I decided to fire them in my wood kiln using clay from the region around the Uwharries made at STARworks Ceramics in Star. The clay is called Okeewemee 10.

Dave Elam of Chapel Hill, a runner who is volunteering instead of running this year, brought by a bit of downed wood from the trail, and we added it to the kiln at the end of the firing Sunday. About 500 people sign up for the run. That's a lot of pieces to fit into my 25-cubic-foot kiln. We didn't fit them all in, so I'll be firing again soon.

We fired for about 18 hours, from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m., using pine and oak, and the dogwood from the trail.

A grouping of this year's awards

A Few Cracks, but Pots Look Nice

2011-01-11T12:43:00.000-08:00

A look at some of the pots up front

I don't know what it is about firing in the freezing weather, but the last two loads we fired we had freezing weather. Sunday's firing went well, except having a few pots up front crack, and a little trouble getting the back of the kiln up to temperature. In the picture above, you can see three wads at the bottom middle of the picture where a stack of two larger preserve jars stood. These cracked, so I decided to pull them into the firebox early on. We also had a couple of smaller jars crack up front and one of the lugs on one of the larger jars pop off.

I pushed the large jars into drying on time before we loaded the kiln, and this may have contributed to weakening the bonding of the lugs onto the jars. I'm hoping the rest of the larger ones haven't lost any lugs. We'll see tomorrow when we unload. Also, I may have been a little overzealous with the fire early on when I started firing.

I am usually pulling out a few pots at this time in the cooling process. I managed to reach one 20-mile award from the front of the kiln. The picture at left shows the runner side of the piece that I pulled out which was facing to the left when in the kiln, so that most of the ash hit to the right of the runner and I got some nice flashing on the left side of the runner.

It seemed appropriate to take a picture of it on the ice.

Here's a little clip of Levi doing a stoke near the end of the firing. If you watch, notice the smoke after he puts the first log in. That's his glove burning.

Loaded and Firing

2011-01-09T03:36:00.000-08:00

I borrowed Mary's little stool for loading

With wind gusts throwing the temperatures down into the teens, Levi and I loaded the kiln yesterday. Most of our energy was spent wadding the hundreds of different sized preserve jars that we created for awards for the Uwharrie Mountain Run the first weekend in February.

We got into a groove: squirt glue here,here,here,here... plop a wad here,here,here,here... At one point in the afternoon, I spent an hour unloading the last of the pots from the electric kiln and glazed the bisqued pots, while Mary took them over to Levi to do more squirting and wadding.

We did not get all the pots in the kiln. So, we'll be firing some more soon after this firing. It's 6:47 a.m. now, and I'm tending a slow fire in the kiln, just beginning to add some wood on top of the grates.

More later.

Front of the kiln

Five Hundred Pots - Will they fit?

2011-01-07T15:26:00.000-08:00

Back of the kiln is nearly filled

Will I be able get all 500 pieces for the Uwharrie Mountain Run into the kiln? I think it'll be close. Levi and Mary spent the afternoon making "little bitty" wads of fireclay/sand/sawdust to place between the smaller jars while I cleaned shelves and posts. Then we all worked together to start loading the kiln. Levi wadded and put together two pots. Mary carried them out to me, and I placed them in the kiln.

One last bisque load is finishing up right now in the electric kiln, so we're cutting it close as usual. Firing day is Sunday. I wanted to have a day of rest before firing, but that doesn't always work out.

More pots waiting to be wadded

'Lugging' Jars

2011-01-05T16:07:00.000-08:00

Work station for adding lugs onto 5-pound jars

I spent most of yesterday afternoon adding lugs onto 16 five-pound jars. I enjoyed changing the shape of the lug in subtle ways, and I wondered how I would use these lugs if I was actually using the pot to store food in. Would I grasp the lugs from above with my fingertips, or would I cradle the jar with my hands below the lugs?

I still pull my handles by hand. The picture at right shows three straps that I pulled and placed on a ware board to be used for lugs. I like using handles that I pull myself as opposed to using an extruder. I get a sense of satisfaction - "job well done, Michael" - when I look at all the pieces together after finishing the work and see the uniqueness of a pulled handle (or lug).

So here's a few pictures showing how I create lugs on these jars:

Finished jars

And if you still haven't seen enough about lugs and jars, here's a video: (I set camera to exposure lock when sun was behind clouds and it caused the video to be a little bright)

Tuckered Out Today

2011-01-03T19:33:00.001-08:00

Jars for 20-mile runners cool off in the electric kiln

I threw the last jar for this year's awards for the Uwharrie Mountain Run today, and I was exhausted. Sixteen six-pound jars shouldn't make me feel exhausted, but I think it's all the smaller pieces I've been throwing for the past few weeks, and the stamping, signing, loading, unloading, moving, cutting wood and other tasks associated with making this many pots. Or maybe I'm getting too old for this kind of production.

I'm grateful to have my son helping out. He threw a lot of the smaller pieces, and he also cut up some of the pine slabs. And my wife has been a great help as well, cleaning bottoms, stamping and signing "20th Annual Uwharrie Mountain Run" on the bottom of pots. And she keeps us well fed so we can keep going. Mushroom soup for lunch today.

I'm looking forward to Sunday when we plan to fire all the pieces in the wood kiln. I'm not sure if they'll all fit, but if they don't I still have enough time to fire another kiln load. The race starts the first weekend in February.

I'll be adding lugs on the larger pieces tomorrow and loading more smaller pieces that have dried enough to bisque fire in the electric kiln. I hope the larger pieces will dry quick enough to bisque fire Thursday, so we can load Friday and have a day of rest before we fire Sunday.

I'm liking my new camera. Below, is a film of me throwing one of the large jars. It's shot in high definition, but you may have to change the setting (click on "360") or view "full screen" (click on bottom right icon) to see it in HD.

I really like the Okeewemee 10 clay from StarWORKs Ceramics I've been using for these pieces.

A Little Video on Compressing a Rim

2011-01-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

After making a couple hundred smaller jars and 50 or so of these larger preserve jars with a thickened rim, I'm finally feeling like I am getting the shape down. I like the thickened rim better than a rim that was just folded over.

Below, is a video of me compressing the rim, and the photos at right show one of the 1 3/4-pound preserve jars that I'm making right now. The video is shot in high definition, which is available at the YouTube version of the film.

New Camera, New Rims on an Old Shape

2010-12-30T17:37:00.000-08:00

My first picture with my new camera seems to lack some detail, but it could be the lighting or my lack of familiarity with the new camera, a Canon SX30 IS. My old Canon S3 IS finally bit the dust after falling off the roof of our car several months ago.

Anyways, the picture above shows four six-pound preserve jars for the winners of the this year's Uwharrie Mountain Run in February. Levi and I made 210 3/4-pound jars, 195 1 1/4-pound jars and now I'm finishing up 95 1 3/4-pound jars while Levi is away on a trip up north. I'm also throwing 18 jars like the ones in the picture.

The shape of these is a traditional preserve jar that I used to make for Humble Mill Pottery (Jerry and Charlotte Fenberg) back in 1985. I'm adding lugs onto the larger pieces. I think I like the third one from the left best.

I can't remember where Jerry found the shape, whether it was a photo or a pot he had. I think it was a photo. I've searched online and in many books that we have here, and didn't find a piece that was similar. I'll have to ask Charlotte Fenberg if she remembers the shape. Maybe my rendition has changed over the years.

While searching books and online, I saw a lot of jars that were either ovoid in shape or straight up and down. It's a difficult shape for me to get it just right. I also worked on getting the rim a bit thicker than I usually do. The pot on the left in the photo above is how I usually do the rim (just fold the clay over). The other rims are compressed to create the perpendicular lip, which would traditionally serve to tie off a covering of some sort. Brenda Hornsby Heindl of Liberty Stoneware sent me a link to a YouTube video showing how to cover a similar preserve jar with the bladder of a pig.

I'm planning to fire all these jars in my wood kiln, stacking some of them rim to rim. I am thinking the larger pieces need a more substantial rim to survive firing them rim to rim, so that has lead me to alter the way I am making the rims. I actually like the thicker rim. I'm still working out the technique to make the new thicker rim. I'm sure there's a trick to it. It's just not something I learned to do.

Hopefully, I'll be blogging with more pictures once I get this new camera figured out. There's so many options to choose from when taking a picture with these new digital cameras. Sometimes, I miss my old Pentax 35mm.

Here's a picture of "Red," our Old English rooster, taken with the new camera, and tweaked in Photoshop:

Uwharrie Mountain Run Awards on Schedule

2010-12-22T15:13:00.000-08:00

We finished up the small preserve jars for the 8-mile runners in the Uwharrie Mountain Run, and we're onto the next size for the 20-milers. It's a great help with Levi throwing pots. I took advantage of the warm weather today (50s) and cut up some pine slabs for the firing. We plan to fire all the awards Feb. 9, using some wood gathered from the Uwharrie National Forest.

The preserve jar shape is ideal for stacking in the kiln. With more than 500 awards, there'll be a lot of stacking in this kiln.

We need 210 of these.

Here's Levi working on the awards for the 20-mile runners.

Here, I'm making "logs" that will be sliced into 1 3/4-pound balls of clay for the 20-mile awards

A board of 8-mile awards drying

Keeping Busy

2010-12-19T15:28:00.000-08:00

It's time again for the Uwharrie Mountain Run awards. I got the go ahead for this year's design, and I started right away making 3/4-pound balls of clay for the jars for the 8-mile runners. We'll be making more than 500 pieces.

This year, I'll be loading all the awards into my wood-fired kiln, stacking them rim-to-rim, maybe three high. This traditional preserve jar shape should stack well in the kiln.

Here's a couple of large vases with tree decorations. This is my local clay with a porcelain clay brushed on the outside. The trees are carved through the porcelain. Again, for the wood kiln.

I moved these three large tree platters into my workspace near my electric kilns to help them dry completely. I'll fire these in the next electric kiln firing.

Tucked into the corner of my glaze room are a variety of pots waiting to be bisque-fired and loaded into the wood-fired kiln.

These are some sweet bowls that Levi made for the wood kiln. They're stacked two-high, one inside the other right now.

Coffee Obsession Leads to New Product

2010-12-17T07:56:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit obsessed with my coffee. I buy organic green beans and roast them myself in my i-Roaster. I used to use a french coffee press to make my coffee, but after breaking two of the glass containers for the press, I gave up and started making "cowboy coffee," brewing in a metal stove pot and pouring through a metal sieve. But I'm always left with mud on the bottom of my cup, and my last sip of coffee is often spat back into the cup. I have a big electric drip coffee maker, but it's too big for just one person. So, I finally made a coffee carafe out of clay and ordered some Chemex filters, the kind used in those glass carafes where you pour the boiling water manually into the top of the carafe. I brewed my first cup this morning, and it worked like a charm, making a wonderful cup of coffee.

I'll be selling these in my shop.

The twine is made of hemp and insulates
against the hot surface for comfortable pouring

Full of hot coffee and ready to pour

Ninth Firing: Some of the Pots

2010-12-12T07:34:00.000-08:00

Firing number nine. We seemed to get more ash buildup and more sheen on the pots in general. Levi did a lot more stirring in the firebox between stokes, and we think this might be one reason for the increase in ash buildup and sheen. Our firing time was very similar to firing number eight, about 16 hours. Levi prefired the kiln the night before we fired for three or four hours up to about 500 degrees F. As usual, we stoked with more hardwood until we opened the passive dampers (partially), at between cone 7 and 8 in the front of the kiln; then, we used mostly pine. Our pine this time was fresher than last time.

I do wonder what the results would look like had we allowed the kiln to cool naturally. We chose to stoke heavily on the last stoke and seal the kiln up slowly. I glazed a few pots with my ash/rock dust/red clay glaze and the glaze turned a very matte green with a very velvety texture. Many of the unglazed pots in this load developed a light sheen on areas that didn't get a lot of ash buildup. Flashing was more subtle. Cone 13 down flat in the front. Cone 8 (bottom) and 9 (top) in the very back.

A tree jar, unglazed with nice ash buildup fired on top shelf in front, Okeeweemee 10 clay

Tree Bowl, glazed inside with 'Purple Haze', unglazed outside, fired on floor next to firebox, StarWhite 10 clay

Tall, skinny pitcher glazed on top with blue ash glaze

Ovoid jar thrown with my local clay, glazed with rock dust/ash/red clay glaze

Large jar by Levi with shino glaze over local clay

Lidded jar, unglazed and fired on floor in front of kiln, Grogeeweemee 10 clay

Four carafes, left one glazed with rock dust/ash/local clay glaze

Tall, thin pitcher made of local clay and glazed with rock dust/ash/local clay glaze

Bottle, Aurora clay

Tree jar made with Grogeeweemee 10, unglazed,
fired on top shelf next to firebox

More Ash Buildup this Time?

2010-12-10T08:27:00.000-08:00

A couple of quick snapshots of the inside of the kiln after unstacking a few bricks from the door:

The two jars on top are glazed only on the inside. Clay
on the left is StarWhite. Clay on the right is Grogeeweemee,
both from StarWORKS Ceramics.

Piece on the lower right is a Ben Owen piece made of
porcelain. Jar in middle is Levi's made of Grogeeweemee.
Bowl on bottom has Kottler's glaze inside (I'm not sure
I like the effects the ash has on this glaze). I love the natural
ash buildup on the pot to the right of the jar.

We seemed to get more ash buildup in this firing, at least in the front. I'm expecting more flashing in the shelves behind the front.