Oops

The illusive cones now sealed behind the bricks

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and a thought rushed through my brain, "Brenda, you forgot to leave an open brick to see those cones in the front!" After a pause this thought was followed by, "AGAIN!" Bricking up the front of the kiln is usually at the end of the day, likely just before dusk, and I tend to rush it. This is not the first time I have not left a peep hole to see the cones in the front of the kiln. The cones in the bottom left of the above photo are now invisible until I open the kiln. I suppose, on the bright side, they will still tell me whether that corner made it to temperature!  C'est la Vie. At least I remembered to put the tube in for the lower pyrometer. Another "oops" for this week was discovered when I was loading the kiln and I saw this on a flowerpot:

Upside down "stoneware"

I have been waiting for the day when this made it to the kiln stage. I've accidentally stamped upside down while demonstrating, and have chuckled over more than one piece of historic ceramic with upside down letters or names, but did not even realize I had done this until it was getting ready to go in! If you want some other great "oops" stories, check out Radiolab's show on other "oops" situations.

My Stamp Confession

My 'usual' stamp

I have a confession. I forget things, lose things, and generally sometimes wonder where the hours go. A few weeks ago while getting back into the studio after "Dish Camp" I realized I left my "Liberty Stoneware" stamps (lower case) in New York. Bummer. This revelation made something dawn on me. As I turned to my drawer of stamps, and resorted to using the all caps "LIBERTY STONEWARE" stamps, I thought about what historical potters did in these instances. I'm positive they forgot things, broke things, lost things, and also likely generally wondered where their daylight hours wheedled away to.

The stamps I resorted to in my haste

Many people who write about historical pottery and potters often pinpoint certain stamps, decorations, designs, etc. to "transitional" points in a potter's career, to an "early career" or some other term designating roughly when they think those designs or stamps were being used. I try to stray from using the term "transitional" for many reasons, but when I had to get out my other set of stamps out, I thought, "why wouldn't other potters have done the same thing?"

Another time when I tried something a little different with the numbers

Why wouldn't a potter perhaps have a whim to revisit an old design, use a different stamp, or perhaps use an old stamp if the other broke or was misplaced for the moment? Why do we have to make their careers so black and white through the motifs, stamps, decorations, etc.? Categorizing a potter's work may be helpful in some respects, but I have to think that they would chuckle a little to watch us so diligently try to categorize their lives. Forms change, I understand that, but the criticism of the stamps and the decorations drives me batty sometimes. Fifty years from now (with the hopes I'll still be making pots in fifty years) I will likely not remember when I did or didn't use one stamp or another, when I tried something new, or put a little different twist on a design, and now with my own kiln and my pots looking more coherent and similar to one another, how will anyone else know when I did one thing or another?

Prepping new kiln posts for the firing

In other news-- it's kiln firing time again! Loading it up and firing this weekend!