Revelations

Here's my little batch of terra sig, nicely settled out. The plastic box works, but a big glass jar would be better for this amount.

Today was mainly a cooking day - baking bread in the morning and getting all my dinner prep done early, and making beef stew in the afternoon.

I did a bunch of computer work including ordering more underglazes. Jim went to the pottery supply to get me a box of cone 02 cones, so I'll bisque a couple of test tiles to 02 when my terra sig tests dries in a couple of days.

Ron Philbeck has been hugely helpful with some information today, as always. I'm using his clear glaze and Ayumi's white slip which he also uses. Ron bisques and glazes at C04, which I did with my initial tests and he said that he doesn't have to glaze the bottoms of his pots, which was great to hear! He uses Stan's red, an east coast earthenware body and I'm using Laguna's R2, so I will have to test it. Now that Ron has told me what the specific gravity of the slip should be, that is going to save me a lot of  hit and miss testing. I am soooo grateful for his generosity not just today, but with all the information on his web site and all those wonderful videos he regularly puts on you tube.

I got in the studio after dinner just to siphon off some of the terra sig. I got impatient after the first few pumps, and thought that maybe I had the siphon in backwards , so I reversed it - big mistake.  It stirred up the top two layers, so now I'll have to wait for it to settle down. Fortunately I had siphoned off a lot of the water layer first, so it's not too bad; and I did siphon  enough to test, before I muddied the waters.

The Clayfolk show and sale was really wonderful - such a great selection of varied, well made,and well designed work. Since our daughter and son took all my big, soda fired bowls, and I'm a long way from making fresh pots, I decided to order a nice big bowl from one of the potters from Eugene. I just couldn't resist the big rooster painting inside the bowl. Since I had to give up having real chickens a long time ago, I've replaced the real thing with a bit of chicken and rooster kitchen decor.

The Clayfolk show has grown so much since we moved east over twelve years ago. There were lines of people holding their pots waiting in several check out lines, at several tables, to pay for them. Everything was beautifully organized. Throughout the show, they had tables set up as holding areas, so people didn't have to carry their pots around until they could check out. And to make shopping easier, they had plastic baskets with handles for the shoppers at the entrance.

Walking around the show, I got a flashback of  the work I did in years past, working on a committee, and all the hard work getting ready for that and other shows, packing pots, setup and working the show, taking down displays and re-packing etc.etc.; and I realized that I just don't have the energy for that any more, and it didn't feel bad coming to that realization! This is a new, and more relaxed time of our lives and we're really enjoying our time together and I'm enjoying the freedom of living without have to's. but doing what I want, when I want. Life is very good!