Old & New

Antique base with brand new tops. LOOK at the colors! They’ll be brighter with more contrast when fired.

I’ve just added a small handful of new molds to my antique collection. The main additions to my shop repertoire will be coffee mugs and wine goblets. You tell me often that I need more mugs, and I’m really excited to add more slipcasting technique to the process. I’ll have two sizes of mugs, and they’ll definitely be unique!

I also found a fun new vessel shape that I’ll be attaching to an antique base to make wine glasses. It’s the same base I’ve been using on the baby head wine glasses while I was waiting for the goblet tops to ship.

The butterfly is just an antique soap dish. Or ashtray. There are a LOT of old ashtray molds out there. Slip casting was popular during the smoking era. I call them “cat dishes” now.

“Thing” is a new mold, thanks to the popularity of Wednesday, (and officially called a “zombie hand” by the mold maker) and I’ll make most of them into succulent planters, because how fun is that! Interestingly, it’s the worst mold I’ve ever worked with, but totally worth it.

And the antique frog? Well it really has no purpose other than I absolutely love it. It just sits there. I can’t help but pour it any time I’m making other stuff. It’s hard to find bigger molds of, well, most objects. This one will fire about the size of a bullfrog. I also have a couple of box turtles that will be life-sized. Even the mugs are hard to find large enough to be of use. The bigger one I’m doing is one I had to make myself. Making plaster molds is another whole process that I avoid when I can.

It’s hard to see at this stage but I added some blue slip to the black and white marbling. I can’t wait to see the final color when it fires.

New mug bodies

Antique frog mold. It’ll be glazed nice and glossy. And/or blue. The eclipse shadows were just starting to change the afternoon light in this picture.

A one-of-a-kind planter. There’s a doll-head in the back. (I had an extra one and had to attach it to SOMEthing).

You can see the turquoise blue clay in the marbling of the frog. As I worked on these during the light of the eclipse, it got cool and the mourning doves sang.

Slow drying in the kiln room. It’s getting crowded. I’ll start loading tomorrow.

A couple of planters and larger mugs slow drying under plastic.

Extra slip gets drained from the mug molds into home-made tile molds for unique designs.

Slip casting requires a lot of finesse and finishing work. And space. I went through ten gallons of slip on this round. Fortunately I ran out until I make more, which is good because I have no more room.

Antique cherub mold in the back. Not entirely sure when I’ll stick on top of it yet.

Lighter Later

We finally replaced the last lingering boarded-up window of the building. It’s been on the list since the beginning, but we were a victim of supply-chain delays, and my own six-year prioritizing. But it’s in now and the light coming up the stairwell in the mornings still catches me by surprise. Now that it’s done, I’ll get back to tiling that wall it shows off…

This season was crazy busy! My very prolific class session ended before December, but December was mostly taken up with kiln loading and shop customers. As always, we thank you so much for your continuing support of small business during the holiday season!

This last week I’ve been working on getting the studio ready for the next session. As COVID is on the rise again, I’m going back to clearing out as much space as possible and putting back the extra sanitizing measures.

Let’s collectively cross our fingers and hope that all goes well. Also, please get vaccinated.

A Hopeful Fall

As this beautiful Fall season lingers, our hope for a better year strengthens. Returning customers are coming in with sincere relief that we made it through the pandemic and are still in business.

Our current class session is underway with our core group of regulars along with some energetic new beginners. We’re operating as a fully vaccinated studio in a region that is doing well overall. For that we are grateful.

We’ll also be branching back to community arts this year, bringing back some of our own in-shop events and planning for some bigger outdoor venues. By the way, if you’re local, please vote in our town elections: I’ve had a very encouraging conversation about the town supporting Main Street events in our parks again. Community is important and we WANT to bring you good things!

For our part, this week we’ll be hosting our impromptu Open Chamber Rehearsal Series with a fun daytime recorder trio (Thursday 10/28 2-5pm). Please stop in and enjoy!

Summer Break

Thoroughly spoiled by farmers market bakery cookies. I have to find a winter fix now.

Well, end of summer anyway. September is a break month. And also my favorite month of the year. :) Good weather, refreshing days.

What am I working on?

Pottery for starters. I have a bunch o’ stuff I need to finish glazing, and then I will be running the glaze kiln with that and the end-of-session studio pots. So, much goodness coming soon.

Studio accoutrements: We’re trading out some studio space by phasing out one of our clays and adding a cool new damp-box, which is just a fancy way of saving a small percentage of over-dry clay projects. I bought a new retro refrigerator for our lounge so I will be converting the old mini-fridge into my own damp-box. (I work with a sort of small-production style that gets limited by how much space I can store each phase of the project, and have been frustrated with over-flowing damp boxes).

Sprucing up another wall: Because physical labor renews my psyche.

Making wine: Because wine

Tie dyeing: Because it’s fun

Getting in shape for my other job: Because we might have our season this year

I keep a secret hidden stash (in a damp box) of little critters ready to stick on pots that seem to need them.

A mild mystery why a glaze I use changed formulas, but I don’t mind the shinier version at all.

Dropped Babies: Well, only one was actually dropped, the others just dried too fast and lost their handles or eyeballs. I can’t sell the repaired ones, so ALAS! I have to keep them. :)

On my to-do list for quite some time: Trying some new stain colors for the marbled clay vessels. Everything about clay is messy…

This is a home hobby, and NOT a part of our business, so if a bottle shows up after-hours, it is coincidental and part of my lunch bag from home. De Chaunac is a French-American northern grape variety and my first wine-vine to wine.

Post Pandemic

5.5 ounces to a small head. Who knew?

So if you’ve been hanging out with us, and still are now that the world is opening back up, you know that this past year was a peripheral project finishing year. I worked on necessary projects, I did some fun ones on my wish list, and basically caught up on everything. This summer (right now) I am getting to some long-necessary maintenance and am having all of the brickwork on the building finally re-pointed. (It took me a while to find a good brick guy who was affordable).

With other social venues now available for our studio members (and me), this month I am returning to my former schedule of two-months-on for classes, one-month-off for me to work uninterrupted. Not that I look on the studio as an interruption: Far from it! I enjoy it immensely and it’s always difficult to force myself to take the time off. BUT I find this time absolutely necessary for my brain to reset, re-evaluate, and above all, re-invigorate. Right now in particular, I am mentally fatigued from the endless studio safety regimen of cleaning, spacing, masking, etc. When we return in July, we’ll be operating as a fully vaccinated studio and can start to relax a little.

So now as Al the Brick Guy works outside (His title for himself and as I have him listed in my phone contacts), I’m getting ready to make things! What, you ask? Well what do you think?

I will be continuing my journey into slip cast beauty and slip cast fun. You crazy people have been buying the baby heads (and the pretty mugs!) so that will be the first thing on the list. I decided as I work that I would stream old Star Trek series, because you may have noticed the Borg influence on the mugs… And I’ve watched just about everything else this past year.

Also, eBay keeps listing more of these vintage chachkies molds. I just ordered some frogs.

New this round will be a couple of (normal) salt and pepper shakers and a new baby planter base

The nightlight is particularly horrific

This former “renovation” is FINALLY gone! Along with its wasp collection. I saved one small mud dauber nest to fire (potters fire everything).

Sooo clean! (Gutters and that last boarded-up window are in the works). The window sash are for when the train sprays herbicide for track maintenance. Our fig trees are LOADED with figs.

Sooo clean! (Gutters and that last boarded-up window are in the works). The window sash are for when the train sprays herbicide for track maintenance. Our fig trees are LOADED with figs.

(A little reminder of where we started)

I went old-school (cheap) on the sign! I had the bracket, wood, and paint in the attic

Less formal, more fun

And a new rain barrel to replace the old leaky one

It my have taken two tries on the height… Trains are big and I have no depth perception.

The balls are old birdhouses cleaned, spray painted, and Lucased. #lucasprints