On the Farm, New Pots, and Motherhood

The farm is in full gear as the weather has heated up and our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is into its fourth week.

 Mike is working on developing beds for permaculture which will enrich the soil with perennial vegetables, fruits, trees, and bushes, and help retain water on the farm.

 We split two of our beehives recently and now have 5 hives if all goes well. We are really hoping that for the farm open house in June we will be able to harvest some honey to sell again this year!

Joseph, Matthew Kelly, and Curry at the front of the kiln.

 Joseph's kiln firing went well and he had a great pottery sale with some beautiful pots. I was pleased with the work I put into the earlier part of this year getting things made and into Joseph's kiln. Here are some new pots for the spring:

Mugs

Vases

Compost Crocks

Wine cups

 I was reflecting this past weekend as I celebrated my first Mother's Day (Hallmark holiday, I know, but it was still sweet), and realized I have a lot of pots in stock and my little person is growing VERY quickly. There's a saying that the first three months of child's life is sometimes called "the fourth trimester" and I believe it. There's still a lot of soothing, cuddling, bouncing, some fussing, and a lot of development for your arms and back with lifting (he's sleeping well though, I promise!). We've just passed the three month mark, but much of my days seems to be spent like this:

Don't get me wrong, I love it! However, it does make you step back and assess things. So, I am going to not push myself to work like a crazy person and fire my kiln in June, but rather get a few things done and in a few other kiln firings with other potters, help to get projects on the farm going/done, and watch my son change daily in front of my eyes! He and I both will be at the Pottery Fair on the Square this weekend at Old Salem, we will have our June open house and pottery sale, and he is at the Greensboro Farmer's Curb Market most Saturdays, so come visit!

Record Kiln Firing

Rim of a flowerpot during the kiln firing

I am quite remorseful that I have not posted for several weeks, and will try to catch you up this week on the craziness that has recently (if not always) been my life.

An exciting recent event was a successful, record kiln firing yesterday at the farm! Not only did we accomplish a single firing (meaning no bisque-firing involved) in just over 12 hours, but almost all of the cones in the kiln reached cone 11.

Cones before they go in the kiln - each is made of clay that melts at different temperatures

Cones in action- the ones flattened have melted, telling me that the kiln has reached beyond
cone 10 (around 2300 Fahrenheit)

The cones give me a gauge for how hot the kiln is, as each cone melts at a different temperature. I usually shoot for cone 10, but reached 11 in nearly the entire kiln! My front left corner of the kiln is usually quite cool, but I have been adjusting the shelves to sit back from the wall and leaving more air space for the heat to move through.

Why, yes, that is clay on a baking sheet, ready to go in the oven!

Once again, I forgot to have draw rings or draw trials made up before we started the kiln. These get removed during the firing so I can tell whether the clay has matured and how far along my salting and slip color is. I ended up baking them in the oven the night before and putting them in the kiln in the morning. This seems to work well to get all of the moisture out of the rings and not have them explode when I put them in the kiln.

Side of a flowerpot

What was different for this firing was that I did a gas preheat with one tank in one firebox starting Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening I added a second gas tank (100 pound) burner to the second firebox. While the temperature at about 4:30 on Sunday morning was around 250 as it usually is, I think the bricks were heated up more, and that ultimately made the firing go faster. Because I foolishly made my kiln walls with two layers of hard brick, I spend more of the kiln firing just heating up the mass of brick. By using the gas preheat, this cut back on how long I would have to spend heating up the mass of brick.

Top of a hanging planter in the kiln

I started salting around 2200 degrees Fahrenheit, and did two rounds of salt about 30 minutes from one another. I did this both because I had a lot of people on hand at the time to accomplish this task, but also that I figured it might help to have the salt in place and get things good and melted for the rest of the firing. 

For a cute factor, a nest of baby wrens decided to try and take flight. They spent part of their day scaling various pieces of equipment opposite the kiln, including an old Farmall Cub tractor (photo above).

I'll have my fingers crossed for the next day with the hopes that everything turns out well! This coming Saturday is the Pottery Fair on the Square at Old Salem, so I hope to have some fresh flowerpots for the event!

Catching Up

 Oh, dear readers, I have neglected you. My deepest apologies. It seems to be faster for me to upload images to Facebook and keep a running commentary there than it is to blog. I will try to right this. Where have I been you might ask? I will tell you of my ventures in photographs.

Anniversary Firing loaded up

The anniversary firing was not a fantastic firing. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but essentially five of my shelves melted, slumped, and broke. The result looked like this:

After the firing

Wonky shelves

I started a blog after this happened, but could not bring myself to put words to my thoughts on what happened. Here are a few detail shots on the breakage:

Breakage

Foaming and breakage

For the most part, many of the pots were salvageable other than the wine cups which held up the entire stack and some dishes which got mushed.

Dinner at the Reynolda House- Old Salem Landscape Conference

Liberty Stoneware vases as centerpieces!

My biggest worry in the firing was a group of vases I made specifically for Old Salem to put on the tables at the Landscape Conference at the end of September. The vases were for sale, with a small card on the table, and it was funny to be sitting at a table and have someone realize I was the person who made the vase!

Pickling crocks with weights

I presented at the Landscape Conference on historical methods of pickling and preserving and the ceramics used. There were such great presentations and a great crowd of people.

Wild horses on Corolla Beach

View from the top of the lighthouse

 The Farmer and I escaped for a few days to Corolla Beach. It was our first vacation in about three years!

Stuffing the deboned chicken

Cooked chickens!

 I learned how to de-bone a whole chicken, which was quite a fascinating experience. What made the experience even more exciting was watching this video with the speaker's fantastic French accent.

View from conference lunch in Edenton

Many of you may know I work part-time with an historic preservation organization which leaves me with a somewhat erratic schedule for pottery (and this blog, consequently!). I had the opportunity to attend Preservation North Carolina's conference in Edenton, NC.

Inside NC's oldest house

It thrilled me to no end to get to go in North Carolina's "newest oldest house"- a 1718/1719 house recently discovered in Edenton.

  I also had the chance to see archaeological material from several houses. The image above is German stoneware excavated from the original courthouse in Edenton.

The oldest section of Blandwood Mansion in Greensboro

 I thoroughly enjoy working with the interns I have recruited for this semester. I am constantly reminded how much I enjoy teaching, counseling, and working with students or just those who love to learn. I recently had the chance to take the interns on a field trip to Greensboro in order to see the Greensboro Historical Museum,

Among all of the chaos and travel there have been brief pauses, like watching the orb spiders at the farm.

Old Salem Pottery Fair on the Square

This past Saturday was a great day at Old Salem in Winston-Salem for their first Pottery Fair on the Square.

It was so good to visit with the potters, meet new people, and see some of the curators and staff members from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts. George Washington was visiting Salem in the 1791 Moravian world surrounding our little square of potters. He did not actually come over to see any of the potters, but we got a glimpse of him a few times. I told a customer that he would likely not have a lot of interest in my pottery as he rather liked Chinese porcelain, although he may have been supportive of the domestic production of ceramics.
It was sunny, and the weather was great until about 1:00 when it started to get pretty warm. I broke down and bought an iced drink and a popcorn from the food vendors next to me. I had resisted the smell of the popcorn all day until the afternoon!

My other half took a break and I was envious of him while he napped

Rumor has it that there will be another sale next year!

Sneak Peek

Peeking into the top of the kiln as I unbricked the door.

I unloaded one kiln and picked up the pots from Sid Luck's kiln last night. I thought I would post a sneak peek for what is going to show up at the Pottery Fair on the Square at Old Salem in Winston-Salem, North Carolina tomorrow! The large cobalt decorated dishes I made turned out really well, but I am only going to tease you with that and will post the photos of them later. Enjoy!

Pots coming out of Sid Luck's kiln always remind me why I love wood firing so much!

A few of the clay bodies turned out a little creamier than I was hoping, but they still look pretty good.

This crock is going to be one of those pots that is hard to part with! the orange peel on the side is just amazing.

Busy Weekend

Part of Friday was spent loading a gas-fired salt kiln. I was wondering whether I would get everything in when I unpacked the car and put it all on the table:

Pots spread out on the table always looks like there are so many more than there really are!

Luckily everything except for a few bowls made it in.

I was rather awestruck by the cicadas which were on everything though! Apparently the 13-year or 17-year cicadas are out and about, and were REALLY loud! They also kept flying into the kiln and crawling around on everything. So I had some winged company when I was loading.

Cicada on the kiln brick

On Saturday morning I went to the Carolina Clay Guild meeting in Greensboro. Elizabeth Boles did a fascinating presentation on one-stroke brush painting. As I told another potter, it's like someone watching a potter make a piece, it looks so incredibly easy! I may give a few of her pointers a try. And I, having not really done a lot of underglaze painting, have never tried things like gum arabic to carry a slip for trailing or painting. So I may give that a try too.

Elizabeth Boles presenting one-stroke brush painting

Saturday afternoon was spent helping Sid Luck get things glazed, and I ended up having to leave before the loading took place. Sunday afternoon was the firing, which is always nice. I had some great conversations with several of the other potters there, and with Sid, of course. I'll post the results of the firings later this week!

Jason Luck, Sid's son, above the kiln and Paul, who has been working with Sid for a few weeks, in front of the kiln

Also, the Pottery Fair on the Square sale at Old Salem Museums and Gardens is next Saturday, May 21st from 10-5:00. There will be quite a crowd of potters from across the state there! It should be a lot of fun!