The last few days illustrate how my life is a blend of pottery-related activities, household stuff and days when family is top priority. Last Thursday I finished applying terra sigillata to the undersides of all my pots, fast-dried some still slightly damp plates in my convection oven (on 'warm'), loaded the kiln for the bisque firing and turned it on. We'd set aside Friday for…
I finally decided that I had enough new plates prepared for another Raid and I sent the first photo to organizer Mina Totino. So she and her friends Cindy Richmond and Michelle Normoyle came out from Vancouver today. My own work seems to have taken forever to finish but with some new mugs, yunomis and plates now painted, and some more test pieces for the…
One week ago four Raiders were here for the day and, unbelievably, I emptied the kiln this afternoon to see all the finished plates. I had work by Philippe and Mina left from an earlier 'Raid' so I decided to just fill the kiln for the bisque and glaze firings and not make them wait for any of my work to be finished. …
This week's glaze firing contained 48 glaze tests. I am looking for a reliable clear glaze which will be suitable for both my favourite D'arcy's Redart and a white earthenware. So I had made 12 testers in each of: D'arcy's, Plainsman F100, SPS LF06 and Georgie's Wonder White. Of each 12 I left 4 plain, painted 4 with underglazes and 4 with slips and then glazed…
After we'd had a good look at this month's show, From Ashes to Art, at the Gallery of BC Ceramics, we took a good look around the rest of the gallery and Melissa pointed out some of the new artists who've been juried in. Sorry, I didn't get them all recorded but here are some that caught my attention. Amelia Butcher has an intriguing collection of…