Time to make some egg cups

My husband found our first, though small, egg from one of our chickens. A day, anyone who has raised chicks into full grown chickens, eagerly awaits. I remember the day when "the incredible edible egg" was good for you. Then, later, it was reported to be bad for you ... something about cholesterol. Then, they were good for you again ... something about omega 3. I like eggs, more so now than when I was younger, so I am looking forward to many more eggs from our variety pack of chickens...2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Barred Rocks, 2 Americanas, and 2 Brown Speckled Sussexs, one of which turned into a rooster! So, naturally I thought I should make a set of egg cups. That got me to thinking back to about 30 years ago, (that sounds so old) when traveling in the Alsace region of France (that sounds so rich), I bought several slipware decorated stoneware egg cups. Before I even knew what stoneware or slipware or for that matter, an egg cup was, I just knew I wanted to take them home. Like most souvenirs, I briefly used them before making room for them in my china cabinet. Wasn't much of an egg eater back then but they made great souvenirs, evoking great memories of that trip. Now I look at them with a different set of eyes, wondering how they were thrown and fired and turning them upside down looking at the color of the bare clay bottom and the absence of a foot ring. These will go back in the china cabinet soon, but the ones I make will be for the new eggs. They say not to count your chickens...etc but I haven't heard anything about not counting on eggs.

Critter and ferns

Took a ride to Little Cottonwood Canyon to see if there was any relief to be had from the heat. It was a little cooler in the mountains but not as much as I had hoped. This little critter was peaking out of his burrow right off the parking lot to the trail head. Looking for snacks I imagine.

I've started collecting fern leaves for use as a resist for pottery again. Since it is so easy to google a plumber or a business phone number, lets say, this is the only reason I keep phone books around these days. .

Back at it

A few pieces to get started after being away.

I have been slow to get back into blogging since I've returned from my travels but I'm finally back at it. My plan to share some of my photos is delayed due to the lack of a "back-up" plan. About 2 years ago, when my computer's hard drive suddenly failed, there was good news and bad news. The bad news was that I lost about 100 photos :<  The good news was that about 2000 photos that I also lost on that computer were backed up on another hard drive. That was a close one! So before I upload, I need to immediately back them up. I don't have a good procedure for that though. Is a thumb drive a good enough back-up? Photos are coming, but so is Christmas. Just kidding. It shouldn't take that long! (With this heat wave and fire danger, winter is sounding real good right now.)

Alpine, Utah fire. Winter can't come soon enough for me.

Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC

Look at the size of this ancient urn. It's well over 6 feet tall and with such a narrow base in relation to the height and width!

Glass bottom bowl

The glass was blistery in the bisque firing but evened out in the ^5 glaze firing. The dark glass I used is not as successful as the lighter colors which show more pronounced crackling. A friend of mine had used  blue glass shards from a vodka bottle in her pottery bowl and it melted into a beautiful cobalt blue pool that was more translucent. Got to get me some of that glass for next time round.

Just in time to leave

These are the finished carry-on pots that came out of the kiln just in time for me to pack in my travel bag. These little pots which I throw on the wheel off the hump are actually harder to throw than a normal sized pot. I have to use tools to do some of the work that my fingers would normally do. And it seems, especially with these two particular pots, I would just look at them as I was working on them and they would go out of shape. So I was relieved that after glazing, the lids still fit. The pots will have to stand on their tippy toes to be an inch tall. Again, maybe useless but oh so cute.

Tiny, tinier, tiniest

These are the tiniest pots I've ever made that have lids. They are 3/4 of an inch tall. These are two of my collection of carry-on pottery that I made for my trip. I'm liking how the glass I placed on an indentation on the lid, pooled and crackled. A friend of mine started using glass pieces on her pottery after working on pottery during a stained glass class. (We share the large workshop room)  Now a few of us are using glass also. Trial and error will teach me how many shards of glass should be in an area to fill it completely. The lids on these two had just enough glass to run over the edge to make a light colored ring without dripping. I seriously doubt I could do that again but I will try.