Summer finally arrived and lasted about a week! We enjoyed eating outside and smelling the phlox and lilies. I think perennials are wonderful for bothering to reappear year after year! My favourite piece from the Shadbolt firing, a large vase, has proved just the right shape to support leggy flowers.
One evening the light was perfect on these pink lilies.
A visitor to Vancouver from Waterloo, Ontario, emailed me after his return to ask if I had more salt-glazed jugbirds. He had found me through my website, thanks to Circle Craft staff and saw a blue jugbird on my blog. By then I had delivered it to Circle Craft so I put them in touch with each other and he is now the proud owner of said bird. It’s so encouraging to have that happen!
I have been working on earthenware jugbirds again knowing that I can get those fired here. At some point I’ll throw stoneware again so that I am ready if a salt firing opportunity presents itself.
Meanwhile Circle Craft has asked that we deliver professional-quality photos of each and every piece that we deliver to the gallery. So Alan and I have decided to try to build a proper light box similar to the excellent one we were able to use in the Medalta Museum. We can claim the expense as an income tax deduction. We’ve already bought white plumbing pipe and Ts and Ls to join them, foamcore to make a lamp support and white screening material to filter the light. I’ve ordered ‘Background Paper Graduated’, black to white, online. We still have to find the right lights and I’m waiting for Aaron Nelson at Medalta’s Shaw Centre to recover from his holiday before I bother him with specific questions about construction details. I then plan to document what we’ve done so that others can use the information to build a light-box of their own.
We visited fellow TriCity potter Myrta Hayes and her husband Jim who’ve built a light-box similar to the plans I brought back from Medicine Hat so we got some good ideas on how to start. One thing is to decide how big to make it and another is what size of paper to order. I will keep track.
