Back to the Drawing Board

I haven't glaze fired pots since April last year, and its been making me nervous. Im normally all into atmospheric firing. Salt, Soda and Wood. However until Salty is repaired I'm in a place where I tell my professors about how excited I am about the challenge, and on the other hand I say nothing about how irritated I am about how its not been repaired ;). I've got my fingers crossed. 

I've been making some casually gnarly stoneware pots and some clean porcelain that make sweet music. Though I must be honest about how little time I've spent in the studio since this heat wave hit, we're in a big steel box with no air-conditioning, slow going. I've got my fingers crossed for cool weather.

This last firing had a few really good pots in it, but for the most part they were the kind of pots that will end with a long drop and a sudden stop into the dumpster. Back to the Drawing Board. Luckily I've got more firings booked for this week to try and get it right so I've got my fingers crossed. 

 I'm running out of fingers to cross 

Luckily this weekend theres a wood firing with the Second year class that I'm going to follow. it'll be a hoot. 

Plumb Tuckered

Into week 3 at school and I'm already starting to feel concerned about how I'm approaching my work.  The gears have been turning and I've been thinking that the 200ish production pots that I've made since classes started wasn't a valuable use of my time. I love them for testing and sketching out my ideas, but my focus was more on them than my larger more considered work.

Interestingly enough I went to that scary place Toronto for Fan Expo before classes started and a guy who claimed to be a monk gave me this and asked for some money. He walked like a monk, talked like a monk and dressed like one too, well golly gee he must be a monk and I'm a sucker for giving my last dollar away to someone who needs it.  Perhaps I should of payed more attention to it.

Now I'm back onto my large guys in preparation for something big that's brewing in my head. Thought I should take out this book from the Library to help me get through this confusing time.

 

Eh, one more thing. Here's a link to a song that I like to jam to when throwing. Cheers, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkkIwO_X4i4

What Would Ben Doon Do?

I'm back into the swing of studio production and the thought it starting to stir about where I will keep all the things that I'll be producing. See I'm a maker, last year I was very lucky that a studio space was provided for me even though I didn't have any studio classes. Trouble was that I always felt that it was inappropriate for me to make as much as I wanted. So its been one week since my now studio heavy classes started and I've already used more than 200lbs of clay and mixed ten new glaze tests. 

See the thing is that I'm Canadian educated and English trained, which makes me a freight train in the studio, the uncomfortable part for me is telling the world what I'm up to and how I do it. See it stops me from being in the Flow of my making, not denying the quality of how important it is to slow down, have a cuppa tea and some biscuits and wright a little whats on about the work. 

This blog is a required weekly assignment for one of my Thesis Classes. I'm required to include a minimum of: 

3- Images of whats going on (work, recipes, a firing schedule, stuff), 

Written Content about my goings on and whats going through my noodle of a brain

as well as 1 Link to something related to thats going on.  

I think I should tell you of Ben Doon, a potter who greatly admire. See Ben Doon is an educated man, Ben Doon travelled the world in his youth, Ben Doon saw many things and decided that people in love with things, Ben Doon lives in seclusion in a converted mill on a hill about a glen in Scotland, Ben Doon has no need for worldly things, Ben Doon makes potter from locally sourced materials that he then trades for the things he needs, Ben Doon makes his own Whisky, Ben Doon is a potter, Ben Doon is very well read and believes in science, Ben Doon suffers no fools, Ben Doon has no time for BS. When I'm working in the studio, I'm always thinking to myself,

 "What Would Ben Doon Do?"