A Good Salting

Salty mug!

My most recentkiln firing yielded good results and a good salting. I was pleased with most of the pieces.

Here is what the kiln looked like when I loaded it:

And here is what it looked like after it was fired:

Most of the other firings I have done with this kiln have resulted in the bottom half of the kiln being drenched in salt and the top being dry. This time, I closed the damper when I salted and allowed the salt to fume within the chamber. It made a huge difference!

New flowerpots!

Good salting for the crocks

Decent results with the cobalt. Need to make a new slip.

And although the weather was not fantastic, I did go out this past Saturday while Hurricane Irene was blasting the coast and participate in the Preserving Our Heritage Day at Cedarock Park. Even with the iffy weather, there was a decent turnout of participants, musicians, and attendees! I had fun doing a little demonstrating and talking about pottery manufacturing.

Demonstrating pottery at Cedarock Park

Debut of the Crockery!

I am quite excited to finally have a good batch of straight-sided crocks! The kiln firings from last week yielded some spectacular results!

After cleaning and pricing the pots last week I took a few crocks down to the Liberty Hardware Store in Liberty, North Carolina. Rhonda, one of the owners, put them in the front window! So if you're passing through Liberty, be sure to see the crocks in the front window!

My very first sale this past Saturday at Old Salem's Pottery Fair on the Square was one of my favorite crocks. This was one of those pieces which is hard to part with because of how great it looked. It had such good orange-peeling and the cobalt had hints of blue along with the darker variations.

Oh, that orange peel!

This summer I plan to make some crocks with lids as I personally know how handy those are when making sauerkraut and pickles! First thing for the summer though is a large batch of compost crocks! I have been scheming some new designs and modifications for a while now, I think it is time to get on the wheel!

Preparing the Larder

I've been going through the pantry lately, playing the game of "what can I cook with what I have leftover from canning last summer" before the growing season takes off! In doing this, I've been thinking a lot about pickling and storage crocks.Making crocks also gives me the opportunity to play with my new stamps, which I am incredibly excited about. I made positives of the molds I made a few weeks ago, hoped the clay was set up just right, and went to town.

Positives of new stamps

Finally getting a small stamp with my studio name on the bottom of my pieces!

Trying out just the last name since I've been stamping just the first name for a long time

It's taking some getting used to in order to make sure the lettering is on level and in the middle, but I keep reminding myself of the many pieces I've seen stamped with letters and names that are backward, upside down, or misspelled!

I like how the handles look, and I enjoyed the opportunity to decorate with cobalt again. Spending time with all of the pieces at the Ackland exhibition gave me some inspiration for designs. The crocks that are pictured are to hold roughly two gallons, and were made with about fifteen pounds of clay each. Since making these I have made some one gallon crocks, and hope to make some smaller 1/2 gallons as well.

I'll be curious to see how the painted cobalt withstands a wood/salt atmosphere. I think I might try to fill a slip bottle and decorate that way

Handles are such a good place for running and placing glass!

I'll never claim to be a painter, but I think I can do plants and flowers decently

This is one of those instances where I had done a rough drawing of the cobalt design, and then it evolved as I made it