A lifetime of work

Well, it turns out the Professor was truly a professor. He taught himself how to make pottery when he found some clay on the banks of a river when he was in the service. Turns out he was a natural and he wound up teaching pottery on the wheel and sculptural pottery at BYU and at the University of Utah. Clay became his life's work even though he had a degree in engineering. I was thrilled to get a chance to see his work and was awestruck when I saw how much there was. At this point he needs his own gallery! Many, many moons ago, I studied illustration in school but never took a clay class...not a one. So I am pleased by the irony of the situation.... that I have come to the center to teach but I am learning so much.

Utah clay

I made a mini (2 1/4 tall") and a micro mini pot ( 3/4") to test some Utah clay. A gentleman, who I shall call the Professor, brought some to the center for me to try. The clay starts out a light brown, but fires to a very attractive warm tone. He's testing a bisqueware piece with some cone 5/6  glazes to see what happens. He has fired his clay up to cone 3 but not past that. I hope it makes it.

Bisqued it

I know this is not a very exciting photo but this is a documentation of my first bisque firing at the Draper Senior Center. It's all digital and so amazingly easy. It is even set-up with an Enviro vent and shutters that mysteriously opened to the outdoors when the temperature climbed over 1000 degrees.

Here are the finished pieces. The bowls have a nice ring to them when tapped and nothing crumbled. I definitely have to make some large notes to impress upon people who may find themselves wanting to open the kiln at the wrong time, how dangerous that could be for the pots....and them too. Those numbers flashing on the digital display are not the time of day....ie: 1230!!!

Full Circle

When I first started to learn on the pottery wheel I needed every bit of concentration I could muster. In fact, I couldn't talk and use the wheel at the same time. At the beginning, I dreaded someone coming over to look at my pot on the wheel, spinning away on the bat, to say, "nice pot" because as soon as I looked up to say, "oh, thank you" I would mess up....lose center, gouge the side, pull it too thin...my control and the pot would be lost. Several years have past and I find myself able to chat up a storm and make a pot. In fact, I have come full circle and am the instructor at the above center in Draper. It is a beautiful, brand new multi-use senior center. Instructing someone to make a pot on the wheel for the very first time is awesome. The views out of the window are awesome as are the people running this place. I was going to take some exterior photos of the water feature and the exterior of the building but I was afraid my camera would freeze up at 0 degrees. At the moment, I do believe it is my turn to shovel since we are in the middle of a snow storm. Can't let it get too deep or I won't be able to move the greatest snow on earth off my driveway and sidewalk!

A different kind of shino

Here's the mug glazed. I used c.w. plumb on the inside and lip, Mayco shino on the body with an overlap area just below the lip. I am really liking that overlap area. The Mayco shino has potential but I am not sure whether I got enough on there to see it's full potential. I am comparing it to Coyote shino which has more of cream breaking to rust and less brown.

My Perfect Handle

I've made a few mugs over the last few years attempting to make the perfect lip, perfect handle and perfect extra large size without the extra weight.  I call my heavy mugs  "hurricane proof". You'd be packin' heat if you carried one of my mugs around full of hot coffee!!! I feel I have succeeded with improvements with this one, however. The handle, since I wanted it thin could not be pulled...at least I couldn't pull it and get the thin results that I wanted. So I took a strap of clay that came from a thrown bowl. That did the trick. It didn't take long for the strap to be the correct firmness in order to apply without cracking. Of course this is Utah and "dry" is our middle name. I did take a chance and glaze it with a brand new glaze and glaze combo. mmmm new glazzze....I couldn't resist. I'll let you know if that was a wise choice on Wednesday.

Tea light stand

Just a little tea light stand I made to give a bit of height to those short candles. It's about 3 inches high and wide. I figure this would be good for votive candles also. I am working on a set of 3 with various heights...a designers bunch! The glaze is c.w. plumb with a slathering of a green glaze on the top half, which interacted nicely. Happy New Year, by the way. It's been a very cold one so far with night temperatures of zero, daytime highs of 20 degrees and snow on the ground that is refusing to melt. When this past summer was so unbearably hot, I promised myself that I wouldn't complain no matter how cold it would get this winter ... so I am not complaining. Just stating the facts  :>  brrrr  Hope it's warmer where you are.