New Pots in the smaller category

I just figured all the new pots I posted earlier were pretty big.  The little ones are beautiful too so I figured you would like to see those as well.  Even the little jar pictured is about the size of one of the mugs.  

Even More New pots!!

I really like the shape on this pot, but the yellow glaze did not turn out quite right, but I figured I would post it anyway.

SUPER salty ash glaze jar.

Large ash glazed jar with some slip trailed flowers on it.

Hope you enjoy the new ones!!  If you are interested in buying one please let me know.

More new pots!!

This is the first grave marker I have ever made.  I was inspired after going to Mark Hewitt's place a while back.  I also made a somewhat similar piece for a fountain that was requested by a man that attends my church.  I will have to post about that some time soon.

nice little ash glazed ginger jar

Another one of my composites.

New Pots!!!

These files are quite big so I could only load 3 at a time.  I have a few of the best ones I will show though.  This one above is a planter.  The salt did a little better than I thought working with the alkaline glaze. 

I have not done much manganese before, but this particular one turned out just the way I wanted it to.  It got super salty and got some nice texture.

I went a little composite crazy on this firing.  I made a whole bunch of them just because I thought they were fun to make.  Hopefully they will sale so I can make some more.

Salt firing at school

I spent the last half of this week wadding, loading and firing pots. Martha, Doug, and I finished salting the kiln at around 12 am. I chose to let the kiln cool fairly rapidly to around 1800 in order to achieve some shiney surfaces. Looking in there at the last minute I could see what looked like some pretty nice surfaces. This load of pots is probably the best lookig load I have ever made and I am extremely anxious to see what they look like. I made the big pot with a coil and throw method and it is around 30 inches tall. I am excited to see what happens with it as well as make some more that are bigger some time soon.


This is the front shelf stack packed to the ceiling. I have a number of clay body tests in this kiln load that I really hope work. If they do then I may be digging a whole bunch of clay very soon. I also have the first fountian I have ever made and designed in the kiln, but you cannot see it on account of it being in the back. It was a request from a man who goes to my church. Hopefully it did not crack.
I start Penland at the beginning of the week after next. I am extremely excited. Especially after seeing all the fun Ron Philbeck is having by looking at his blog. maybe I will make some penland posts while I am gone there. I am going to try and take some good photos before I leave of these new pots that hopefully come out well. I will try and get some of those up here.
Talk to ya later.

Im still making pots

Here are just some of the pots I have been making that I plan on firing at school pretty soon.  I have some different alkaline tests I want to try out.  There are some other shelves behind these with other pots.  I have enjoyed making the composite bottles the most and have been working on my lidded jars a good bit here lately.  

These are some goblets I made for two friends of mine getting married.  I wanted to make one with a dragon and the other with a phoenix which are chinese symbols representing male and female.  I made the rooster cup just because I wanted to and I like it the best.  

Firing at Matt Jones

I had such an awesome time helping Matt and his apprentice Alex fire the extremely large kiln full of pots from Saturday to Sunday.  The picture above is of Matt's son London and one of his buddies shooting bb guns at cans.  Matt's son is the boy in the back.  I had especially fun spending time with London and Matt's daughter Sara Francis.  They are really great kids.  

This is just a picture of Mike stoking.  You can see Matt in the background and Alex's girlfriend Molly opening the door for a good hard stoke.  I learned a great deal about kilns this weekend since the wood kilns I usually fire are much smaller.  Although there were many similarities there were a vast amount of subtle differences I really enjoyed.  

Many people dropped by throughout the day to catch a glimpse of firing.  Mike brought a new puppy with him who got plenty of attention from everyone especially the children.  This was such a cute picture I could not resist putting it up.

It rained pretty much the whole time I was there.  The Jones's have two little ponds that are flooding into one another creating a massive waterfall between the two.  It may seem like a problem, but it seems the kids loved playing in it.  The picture above is of water that is harnessed to produce energy for his glass crusher.  There was so much water flowing that it could not go into the tube fast enough.  We cleaned a number of fairly large rocks out of it to help fix it.  I truthfully need to get on the ball and build me one of those pivoting glass crushers.  Those things are so cool.  There is an old post Alex Matisse did on it a while back.  Check it out here.  Look and you can see the difference in water pressure.  It is pretty interesting.