Firing in Seagrove

What do I think of when I fire a kiln? I think of the video above, the giant plant from Little Shop of Horrors saying "FEED ME SEYMOUR!"

 I did a firing with Anne Pärtna of Blue Hen Pottery yesterday down in Seagrove.Anne has a Bourry Box kiln, so it was a nice change of pace to fire something different from my own, and different from many of the other wood kilns in the Seagrove area.

We salted later in the evening and shut the little beast down a little after 10:00 pm. From the view through the bourry box, things looked really good! We'll see this week!

Anne salting the kiln with a salt solution

And you can come see for yourself next week at the Old Salem Pottery Fair on the Square!

Recent Happenings

It seems like the time between firings and shows is a chaotic tornado that is hard to recover from! I got back to the pottery wheel after the Catawba Valley show and had another firing recently. I'm getting ready for my first show with the Whimsical Women in Chapel Hill.

Pots stacked up and ready to go

Pots after the firing

Due to a few mishaps in this firing I'm hoping to do a joint firing with another potter in a few weeks to be ready for the Old Salem Pottery Fair on the Square.So it was back to the clay yesterday!

Parts for mugs and vases

Parts for coolers and compost crocks

Happy Spring!

Not all Glamor

Sieving slip

Making pottery is certainly not all glamor. I've been trying to get back into the routine of making pots after the Catawba show for another kiln in a few weeks. This has required some additional messy prep work.  I had to make up some slip for decorating the rims of my pots. Glaze making and sieving clay and materials is probably one of my least favorite tasks!   What's that stick in the photo above? Why, it's what's left of a sponge brush, but it works pretty well for getting globs of clay through the sieve! Make-do is so much more entertaining than buying new or using what may seem practical.

Finished decorated dishes

Post-Show Blues

 For the past few months I have been busily prepping for the Catawba Valley Pottery Show. Firing the big kiln beast every month has been a bear!

This most recent firing was one of my best. The photo above is what the kiln looked like when I loaded it.

The photo above is what it looked like when I opened it up. At first I thought it was a little heavy on the salting, but I am pleased with the results.

Getting ready for a show is like riding a roller coaster. There's the buildup of exhausting excitement and nervousness for not knowing whether the kilns are going to turn out. There might be a few great turns that put butterflies in your stomach, and then the final show you have been prepping for is like the end of the roller coaster, that final decline, with an abrupt stop at the end. You watch your pieces go home like the people leaving the roller coaster carts, and then it is completely over.

It was all worth it to see my pots all sitting together and going to good homes. Most of my highly decorated blue dishes, mugs, and flowerpots disappeared at the show! So I suppose I don't have the blues after all, I'm just left with my brown wares.Thank you to everyone who has given me moral support in all my crazy endeavors, to those who came to the show, and to the potters who kept me company and gave me breaks! I am looking forward to next year and another big roller coaster ride!

Kentucky Stoneware Meets Colonial Williamsburg

Antiques Forum representing the Summer Institute at MESDA

 Yours truly had the pleasure recently of presenting at Colonial Williamsburg's Antiques Forum on the topic of my Summer Institute project I worked on last summer with the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA). My research last summer revolved around these three pieces of stoneware pictured below in the collection of the museum.

Isaac Thomas churn, dated 1836. Courtesy, MESDA.

 The first two pieces were made in Maysville, Kentucky. Above, is a large stoneware churn in the shop of Isaac Thomas. Not one of the earliest Maysville pottery families, but the Thomas family may have been the longest in production and had ties with other pottery families of the area. Below is a piece made in the shop of brothers John Wood and Ezekial Wood. There are few pots that I have turned up yet to be identified or marked as being made by J&E Wood.

Crock made by J&E Wood, dated 1845. Courtesy, MESDA.

 Below is a simple crock with an illustrative handwritten note across the top reading, "Made by Geo.(George) Swingle Junr./Mrs. E. Cups/June 9th 1827/Vanceburg, Kentucky". If only other historical potteries wrote the details of the dates and places on them! George Swingle, Junior is a harder case to crack for me, as no other pieces than this one have been identified as his manufacture. The dates of his pottery production are not known, but this piece is the earliest known dated piece of Kentucky stoneware. Very exciting.

Image of SW Pennsylvania potters transporting pots via flatboat. Shaltenbrand.

 Aside from talking about the production points (which I hope to share in a future blog post) and the possible uses of the pieces (all likely kitchen-related), one of the greatest aspects is the movement of the pottery made by these potters. I should say that while this may apply to George Swingle's work, it is not known for sure. So, I refer this bit to Thomas and the Wood brothers. It turns out that one of the Wood brothers was a flatboater. Pictured above and in detail below is an image of Southwestern Pennsylvania potters transporting pots via flatboat. One of the early transportation devices along the Ohio and Mississippi River, materials were transported from Kentucky down to New Orleans and beyond.

 Prior to the development of the steamboat in the second quarter of the 19th-century, those who went by flatboat from Kentucky returned through the Natchez Trace, by foot.

Steamboat with pots lined up. Shaltenbrand.

 This is a great image of a steamboat with pots stacked beside it for shipping. The steamboat allowed travelers and merchandize to travel down river and up river.

 While I have not located any pieces of the Wood brothers further South, I have come across pieces made by Isaac Thomas, specifically for merchants along the Mississippi River. Frontier capitalism at its best! Below is a piece made for a merchant A.L. Yeiser in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Another piece I have seen reads, "Bayou Sara, LA." I hope to find out more about these connections down the Mississi

This project has gone beyond just the Summer Institute, and I am pursuing further research which I hope to find a chance to share soon!

Snowy February Firing

Snow on the ground in the early morning

I may have complained a few times yesterday about the cold weather we had for the kiln firing. However, I was reminded on several occasions that it is better than the blazing hot days of August!

Kiln mostly loaded up

I loaded the kiln last weekend and kept it warm during the cold nights. I think this also helped with drying things out and perhaps making my temperature ramps go more smoothly.

Fluffy snow on the trees around the farm

 The snow fell fairly consistently all day yesterday. It was that lovely, fluffy snow that sticks to the trees. It was refreshing to step out and feel the snow on your face after being in front of a firebox!

Firebox opening

With a nice hot kiln and hot fires by late morning though, you could forget about being cold! Here are a few photos from the tail end of the firing peeking in to see some of the pots:

Decorated mugs

Decorated mug behind glowing cone pack

Special Thanks to Pottery Making Info

 With things so rampant and crazy I failed to notice that my wee blog was given an honorable mention in the category of Top Pottery Blogs of 2012! My special thanks to Pottery Making Info for this, it's always great to know there are readers out there and that my blog is seen as informative. Other runners up included Dan Finnegan, Paul the Potter, Hatchville Pottery, Art by Fuzzy, and The Rabbit Muse. In the ten Top Blogs of 2012 were two potters I know, Doug Fitch and Ron Philbeck. It is nice to see so many potters recognized for the hard work that  it truly is to keep up with social media along with potting, and for them to share the ins and outs of their work.