Sitting in the shade on our North-facing patio on a perfect sunny Saturday morning, waiting for my glaze kiln to complete its overnight firing, I realize that it’s been one busy week! But TriCity Potters, your tiles are in this firing so I plan to take them out of the kiln tomorrow.

Here are some events in a potter’s life from the past week.

Last Saturday saw Alan and me taking a drive South of the Fraser river. We stopped in at Greenbarn Pottery Supply to stock up on clay, glaze chemicals and a couple more underglazes. Then we did a Staycation thing, we continued on to Fort Langley for lunch, antique shop browsing and a visit to the Fort. The complex has really changed since Alan was a park guide there one summer back in the sixties. We were slightly astonished at how commercialized a National Historic Site has become – a cafe and camping tents within the stockade of the fort? A stroll on McMillan Island completed our afternoon.

Sunday was spent trying to finish painting all the jugbirds on hand, didn’t quite. Several goals here, a wedding present, something slightly fun and big for BC Potters ‘Put a Bird On It’ next week, and a selection of jugbirds for Circle Craft (who phoned to ask for more colourful fellows). Also I have decided to take a brief solo trip to England to visit my brother and sister again in late September so I emailed Jeremy Waller of Primavera. Yes, he’d like some more English birds and perhaps some more exotic birds too. So I plan to make a puffin, eagle, parrot and whatever else I have time for in three weeks!

Monday’s alarming event was my being interviewed by Skype, audio only, by Paul Blais for ‘The Potters Cast’. It’s a podcast that you can listen to on your computer, presumably by potters working in their studios. Paul has interviewed potters from around the world. He asked me to explain how I got involved in a life in clay, about my process and any advice for other potters. The podcast will be posted next Thursday Aug 28th so I’ll put the link here. So now I will have had far too long to worry about what I said, but I hope some will find my journey interesting.

That afternoon I painted my most recent big bird and have decided to accept Helen Weiser’s suggestion of making it the colours of a ‘Purple Gallinule’ from Florida. So he’s bright blue and green with a red and yellow beak! You’ll see it soon.

On Tuesday I painted the last jb, terra siggged all my work and loaded the bisque kiln with all the TriCity Potters’ tiles and my jbs. Then I slab-rolled F100 earthenware clay and made up a selection of oval plates and my largest platter form ready to dry for a painters’ ‘Raid’ on Friday.

Wednesday, time out to buy groceries and enjoy an afternoon visit with our son Steve and grandson Caleb. Just perfect! And the bisque firing ended.

Thursday was the day to carefully weigh out and mix up a new batch of my Deb’s Clear cone 04 glaze and apply new wax resist to the base of all the bisque-fired work. Two things here, one, I’ve found it important to allow the freshly-mixed glaze to sit overnight for a smooth coating and two, I discovered that leaving the wax resist to dry also overnight made it behave much better resisting glaze. Thanks fellow TriCity Potters, Brigitta Schneiter for suggesting that I leave the wax thick and not dilute for easier application as I had been doing, and Eliza Wang for reminding me of the need to leave the wax to become really dry. Only thing is, it put off firing the kiln for another day!

Friday, yesterday, the Raiders were here 9.45am to 5pm, but I was able to do all the glazing with the wax resisting beautifully!