For the last few weeks I've been concentrating on making enough stoneware pieces for a soda firing. I finished making slightly more than the allocated two cubic feet of ware in early October as I wasn't sure how much I'd see after cataract surgery on Oct 4th. All went well and within 24 hours I was astonished to see bright blue, and whites that I…
In a comment on yesterday's blog Lynda asks me to explain why I might like to re-fire a couple of pieces in an upcoming soda firing. Most of the time the heat, flame and soda combine to give interesting, pleasing surfaces all around the pots when the kiln has reached its top temperatures.. in our case cones 10 to 12. Flashing slips can produce orange…
In the previous blog I showed photos of most of the work that was fired in the Shadbolt Centre's Vault Kiln for eleven enthusiastic members of TriCity Potters. There's lots of good colour resulting from a variety of sprayed flashing slips. Some folks thought things were rather grey but that is something to learn about and use or avoid in future firings. Some slips are…
Yesterday morning, as I enjoyed my morning coffee, I watched Jonathon Bancroft Snell opening parcels of pots, filmed by Brian Cooke. It's extraordinary to be able to see and hear reactions and find out how my pieces survived my packing. Meira Mathieson, who has been showing her work at Jonathon's for many years, had also sent a box of new work. Now that…
It's almost two weeks since the exciting day when I returned to Shadbolt Centre to collect my sixteen pots from the latest soda firing. By the time I arrived almost all of the pots had been claimed and my pieces were arranged on a separate table for me. Safety precautions are important so we were given specific time slots to be there. I wore…