I guess it’s light posting until I get cruising in the studio again.  I’m still shooting images from the firing and trying to get everything uploaded for our new website….I promise it’s coming. 

Not as bad as the rest of the East Coast but it’s still pretty hot.  I’ve got the A/C running in the gallery and the lights off to cut down on the heat output.  There doesn’t seem to be that much activity in town today.  I guess everyone is either at the beach or hanging out trying to beat the heat.  I’m definitely going to be making an adjustment when we get to Austin.  

Here are 3 reduction fired pieces.  The vases on the left are the triangular vases that I tried for the first time.  I think I may try them by squeezing the base into shape next time….I’ll post that when I try it.  The platter has some slip underneath a celadon glaze.   I’m excited to play around with that combo again.  The platter is 15.5 inches across and the vases are 12 and 15 inches tall
Here is another setup of the reduction fired ware.  The triangular vase is about 16 inches and has a Temple White glaze and Willy’s Helix on it.  Here are the steps I used…

5 Glaze the piece with Helix
Here are some mugs up front with white slip, sgrafitto and then a celadon glaze.  The pieces behind are salt-fired slipped bowls with a shino liner glaze.  

And here’s the biggest difference in the whole gallery….A big Tile-6 and black salt-fired piece, some Avery Slip and black tumblers and some really shiny Copper Red bowls.  I haven’t used a Copper Red in about 6 years so it was pretty weird unloading them.  The bowl on the left was at the very top of kiln and the red always does better in the middle but I like the variations on it.
Enjoy what remains of your weekend and wish Brandon well on his nuptials.

Sorry it took so long….I’m pleased overall. I used a lot of a new celadon glaze that came out with less of a green and sheen as I had hoped but I think it came out well. Like any firing…just not quite what I had pictured. I think it may need a thicker coat next time and it seems pretty stable so I’ll try that next time.

The reduction kiln has such a different feel from unloading a salt kiln that I think it’s going to take a little while to absorb the information. I think that this firing is going to lead to some really good ideas for next time. I’ll discuss more of that on my next post but I’ll start with some pictures with what I consider to be successful.

some cups, mugs and a lone juicecup/shotglass
here are a few jars that I’m really happy with.  They all have cut feet and the two on the left have a squared bottom with the briscoe technique that I grabbed off of Ron’s blog.

Three more successful jars.  
Here’s a platter/serving bowl that has a lot going on.  Not quite sure what I think yet…the drips may be too much.  I need to think about this one.  There is another serving dish behind it that came out really well.  I used the latex wax resist on both of these.  

I’ll shoot some “real” photos over the weekend and get them posted.  I usually spend a great deal of time photographing my work…pics for the blog are just a little bit rushed.  

Absolutely gorgeous day on Cape.  The kiln is cooling and the shop is closed so I took off on my motorcycle until Evangelina got home from Yoga.  We played tourist and rode to a great place for lunch and ended the ride with some ice cream from Sundae School.  

But it seems like a day of rest.  I’m used to firing day meaning getting ready to spray some soda in the kiln, dump some salt in and wait while it works it’s way through the kiln.  There is no up close and personal feeling with this firing.  I’m not getting the sprayer right in through the ports.  I’m not watching the pots glow and see how things change when the soda and water are introduced into the kiln.  This seems easy….almost cheating….if I don’t think of the huge amount of work that went into getting the pots in the kiln in the first place.

I meant to post some more last night but that didn’t happen.  I tried this morning but somebody broke blogger.  I think it must have been all of us potters clicking through from site to site to see what everyone is up to.  More likely though, it’s all of us clicking through the lefty blogosphere to catch up on the never-ending yet almost over primary season.  Regardless of how blogger got broken, we’re back….and on Saturday someone stole my Obama yard sign….again!  

Pilots are lit.  It’s time for a quick bite to eat before I get the mains on.  It was a long day but worth it.  It started with a bike ride with Javi and Ale and it ended with actually getting the kiln on.  In between was a visit from Katie and Brandon on their way to go surfing and a fundraising dinner/auction for Autism Speaks.  I have pics of a whole bunch of stuff but I need to get out of my glaze covered clothes and get some grub in my belly.  

I always forget how long glazing takes.  I thought since I was firing a reduction kiln and not wadding everything for wood or salt it would move along a little quicker.  It could be that I made a lot of pots this cycle.  I may even have enough to fire again with a pretty quick turnaround.  I’ll know more tomorrow when I load. 

Yesterday as I was prepping to glaze I took a quick look at my kiln.  One of arch bricks had finally broken in half.  It had been hanging on by sheer will power during my last big bisque.  Of course, I hadn’t checked it until yesterday…smart move.  I quickly called Bailey Pottery and they shipped off some fiberbond cement that arrived today.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to load up the kiln over the weekend like I had hoped.  It’s the first real repair that I have made to the kiln.  I’m glad it went so smoothly.  Here are some before and after pics….