For some reason after the shows of the first half of the year, which felt to some extent like an uphill battle, I just couldn’t be bothered with making pottery. The exceptionally warm summer weather certainly didn’t help. Other potters around the web have documented a similar malaise. June Perry mentioned back in August that other potters she knew were also suffering.
Cooler weather, a few people asking me to make things, wanting some pots for my own use and an eye to a couple of forthcoming events have finally rekindled the urge. I got out in the pottery and found a bunch of pots laying around in various unfinished states. I made a couple of bonsai pots for some azaleas which will be desperate for a new pot early next year. There were a couple of dubious pots which I’d kept without meaning to from a day I was demonstrating during Open Studios which I used as tests for new glaze ideas. (Not promising as it turns out.) Anyway, enough to make it worth firing the kiln.
The bottle/flagon was done during that demo day so I just glazed it and we both like it. It holds one and a half UK pints – so I propose to take it to the pub with me next week to bring some beer home. It will be the monthly quiz night, and I arrive after yoga and half way through the proceedings so I usually skip those nights and head straight home.
These jugs also came out well. One of them is just made from some random weight of clay during that same demo day, and the other is to a set size to match two others which are part of an order of three. The order was complete but during Open Studios D sold one of them from the pottery without realising that they were an order. Oops! Still, it was a sale.
This pie dish has been hanging around in the pottery for a number of years. It wasn’t made by me, but by Joe Finch. I organised a Master Day for the Kent Potters Association with Joe demonstrating. This was one of the pieces he made that day, by throwing a circular form and then cutting out two D shaped sections from the base and pushing the sides together. It’s a technique I picked up and adapted for the lasagne dishes I make. I ended up with this piece, and bisqued it. Then it ended up wrapped in a bag to keep the dust off on the top shelf of the pottery. It wasn’t made using the clay I use. On the day Joe had asked if I had an iron bearing slip. I did have one that looked as though it was just iron, but in fact fired blue due to cobalt carbonate content. It also has a tendency to pinhole if applied liberally. Joe would normally apply a chun glaze on the inside and wood fire it to high stoneware, getting a toasty blush on the outside.
Anyway I was fed up with it hanging about and rather than just throw it out I put a chun-like cone 6 glaze on the inside and a creamy speckle semi-matt on the outside and put it in the electric kiln and I’m quite taken with the result. It almost looks wood fired. Sure enough there are a couple of pin holes in the glaze from the slip, but it’s usable. I shall have to find an excuse to make a large pie.
Mike's Pad 