June 7, 2003

I can't think of a much better way to spend a birthday weekend than making pots out in the yard. This is the start of a new series using earthenware and commercial underglazes; something I picked up last year at a workshop by Ron Meyers at the Appalachian Center for Crafts.

In my own mind, I'm famous for starting things and, with all the good intentions in the world, letting them linger on the "to-do" list endlessly, so I told myself after the workshop in June '02 that I had a year to get back to this clay and glaze technique... surprise, surprise: it took me a year to the day! (And I still haven't posted the photos from that week in Tennessee yet - good grief.)

This technique is such a big change from c10 glaze firing, and even different than soda, in that all the decoration happens at the green stage. More immediate, the forms are still fresh in my memory, and I get to think in color before the firing; it all adds up to a really exciting new field to explore, like stumbling into an unexpected clearing out behind the barn...

ready to get to work

the backyard studio

teabowls drying in the sun

ready to trim feet

working in series

a freshly trimmed foot ring

my old lockerbie kickwheel gets some use

trimming on a pad of clay

tools & water bucket

greenware for the soda kiln

earthenware pots with base coat of white slip

ready to decorate

sloppy underglazes pallette (more fun that way)

loose brush strokes

i've been paying a lot of attentions to the bottoms of pots lately - why not make them interesting?

the whole shebang

one board of teabowls finished

another view

some of these turned out quite well, given the lapse of a year in since I last tried this

ready to fire