My Wonderful, Ugly, Rubber Boots

Once upon a time, in a land not at all far away, there lived a young girl who suddenly, after many years of being home-schooled, had to go to a Real School. She was fairly neutral about this, having long ago learned that adults were prone to unfathomable behavior and her energies were better spent on other matters such as insect collecting, sketching, and keeping a sharp eye on small brothers.

All went well until the weather, as weather does in this land-not-far-away, especially the Northern reaches of it, turned cold and snowy and it transpired that Senior Parent did not intend to purchase attractive boots for her to wear to this Real School. Her dreams of lovely, taffeta-textured boots with shiny buttons and fur trim were cruelly dashed. SP actually expected her to wear, gasp, horror of horrors, rubber boots. The awful farm kind, black with red rubber soles. SP pointed out that many kids wore rubber boots to school. Our heroine pointed out that they were all boys. Talks failed. Negotiations failed. Diplomacy failed. Relations became strained.  An atmosphere of great chilliness developed.

She decided to wear her old canvas sneakers to the bus, a matter of a two kilometer trek twice a day.

It rained. She wore her canvas sneakers.

It snowed. She wore her canvas sneakers.

Further chilliness developed, and not in the atmosphere. SP figured she was having a Learning Experience.

She was. But what she learned was that, if it is wet, then it isn't all that cold, and if it is not wet, then canvas sneakers with two pairs of wool socks are no colder than rubber boots.

Yes, of course, this young heroine was me, and I still well remember changing out of those cold wet dirty sneakers in the school bus. It was years later that I finally began to appreciate rubber boots. I was getting interested in hiking and gardening and needed something to keep my feet dry..... Now I love my rubber boots!

My wonderful, ugly, rubber boots! (I got a new pair yesterday!)

Bonsai Pot

Ok, here it is:

Ugly, huh? Not really! The glaze didn't come out as interesting as I had hoped, but I'm quite happy that it didn't crack or otherwise embarrass me. I was trying to make something that would look like a rock, and I think it does.

All you have to do is imagine it filled with soil, lightly mounded up and mossy, with a wild and windswept tree growing in it......

The other stuff in the kiln was berry bowls. I'm pleased with the strawberries:

And the blueberries aren't too bad:

 

Maybe a little too organized.... but blueberries sprinkled around just look like dots. Hmmmm, dots are easy to paint.....

Joy of Pets

I love my dog. Really. He's a great companion and a fine early warning system. He alerts me to bears raiding the bird feeders and Hydro meter readers requesting permission to come aboard. He lets customers' little children pat him on the head and charms their parents. He adds adventure to our walks by inventing new ways to pass me on the trail without knocking me over by running full tilt into the backs of my knees..... but why, oh why, does he have to roll in things?

Dead things, that is.

And I love my cat too, sort of. Her nickname is Hellcat so you can see why I'm a bit ambivalent here, but really I'm pretty attached to her. She's the aloof kind, so it pleases me that she seems to like me, too. Sometimes when I feel a bit dented by some experience or other, usually involving people, I think, "Well, at least my cat likes me" and it helps. But does she have to drag things into the Studio?

Alive things, that is.

So this afternoon I chased an angry chipmunk all around the Studio until it finally leapt out through the window and escaped. Never mind the screen, it had a hole in it anyway.

Than I washed Kip with soap and the garden hose. Took half an hour and he's not coming in until he's dry.

After that I got out a really weird glaze I have and sloshed it all over a bonsai pot I have been working on. This glaze (and I have no idea what is in it, it's been around the Studio for years and there is only a small bucketful left) fires up a mottled grey/green/blue. Really. But it has to go on unevenly or else you just get plain grey. I brushed it on with a house-painting brush! Nice and blotchy. It'll go in the kiln tomorrow and come out Friday, and I promise, no matter how bad it is, I'll post a picture.

Dead or alive..

Oops....

Don't anybody tell Workmen's Comp, but there was a little industrial accident in the Studio this morning.

I was happily throwing Utensil Jars, the "don't you have anything smaller" size, and was cutting the almost last one off the wheel when, somehow, my knuckles got down on the surface of the plastic bat and the hole in the bat cut the skin right off my knuckle. Since I wire stuff off with the wheel spinning at a good clip, the second hole immediately followed and took the skin off the next knuckle. Oww.

I finished the Jars with gritted teeth and am now sporting a nice new pair of band-aids.

Not a major accident, but it reminds me how easily we can damage ourselves. Just when you think you know what you're doing something gets you. I've used those bats for years (and never liked the ones with the holes, I prefer the other type which has depressions underneath to catch the bat pins) and have always cut the pots off with the wheel spinning and this is the first time I've done this. I did once cut a finger by holding the wire too tightly but that was just me - I was too stubborn to let go because I didn't want to ruin the pot. Don't remember that pot now though, just remember the cut.

And that "don't you have anything smaller" size? Well, everything I make comes in two sizes: too small and too big. So these, which will be about 9" high and 6-8" across the opening when done, will be the 'too large' size. I had fun because I made 6 different shapes and didn't worry too much about the exact size. People tend to buy only one, so it's exact size isn't critical. Besides, they're all going to be too big (or too small) anyway.

We will now have a short pause in throwing activity while the knuckles recover.

Colour Tests

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted!

What can I say, Life has been happening. As it does.

I've been very busy getting my new pottery sale, fireGifts, organized. The hall is booked... the plans are made.... almost half the available spaces are already spoken for.... I'm getting excited! The sale is called fireGifts, as you may have guessed, and will be in the RA Centre, Ottawa over the weekend of Oct. 26-28, 2012. There'll be 40 clay and glass artists. The best, mostly functional, work in Ottawa will be there!

Got a speeding ticket, asked mildly if Ms. Officer was really sure she stopped the right person (she hadn't) and then got a ticket for driving with 'an obstructed windshield' due to having a small crack right under the mirror plus a red paper sticky in the lower right-hand corner. OK, I have to get that fixed anyway, but cheeeezz. And she's still wrong and the red sticky stays.

Ran around every day turning greenhouse and seed-starting-shed heaters on-off, on-off as the weather went from +20C top -05C and back and around again and back again.... we've had a few amazingly warm days, and many quite cold nights. Lots of things are going to bloom with brown frozen tips. Some of the early Daffodils lasted less than one day. This seems like Global Warning, not Global Warming.

Tried hard to fix my kitchen sink drain. It was clogged and I did get that fixed, but then when I went to put it all back together one of the rings that screw stuff together cracked and I couldn't get it all completely watertight. Then I tried to buy a new ring.... and discovered that it wasn't supposed to come off and only had because it was cracked, and the whole assembly has to be replaced. Ok, cue a plumber. I'm not up to spending hours hacksawing and glueing and fitting ABS pipe.

Kept trying to make stock for the coming Market season but I'm not sure I got much done. Luckily Super Helper was here and she did a lot of work testing various glaze colours. I would like a good blue and a good green, but it isn't easy. We used a system I learned years ago in a workshop. It's a bit tedious to do, but is a good way to narrow down what colourants to use and in what amounts.

For those who are interested, here is what you do:

1. Decide which base glaze you are going to use.

2. Decide what colourants you want to test. I wanted to test varying amounts of Cobalt Carbonate with and without Red Iron Oxide, Rutile and Superpax.

3. If you want to test 7 colourants, as I did, mix a batch of the base glaze 7 x 7 times the 100-gram amount. In other words, to test 7 colourants, mix 49 times the 100-gram amount of the base glaze.

4. Divide it into 7 equal amounts. (SH eye-balled and then weighed.)

5.For each of the additions you want to test, multiply the percentage you want to try by 2 and then by 7 to get the amount to add to each of the containers from step 4. I wanted to see what 1.5% Cobalt Carbonate would do, so we added 2 x 1.5 x 7 or 21grams of Cobalt Carb to container #2.  Container #1 was left with no additions, containers #3 to #7 contained, in this case, 42 grams of Cobalt Carbonate, 56 grams of CoC, 70 grams Red Iron Oxide, 112 grams Rutile and 112 grams Superpax.

6. Divide each of the 7 containers into 7 smaller ones. We used plastic cups. Number them as you see here.

7. Get matching test tiles ready, numbered as shown.

8. Now place one cup labeled #1, one labeled #2, and so on in a row at the top. Dip tile #1 in cup #1, #2 in #2 and so on.

9. Now pour a second cup labeled #1 and a second cup labeled #2 together. Pour back and forth a few times and stir to mix well. Dip tile #1-2 in this cup. Now do #1 and #3 together, then #1 and #4 and so on. This is your second row from the top. Keep going until you have all the combinations done.

Here's what you get: In the top row are all the tiles with double the amounts of colourants you wanted to test. The second row down is each of these mixed with an equal amount of the base glaze with no colourant, ie the actual amount you wanted to test. The third row is #2 plus #3, etc. Now if you like one, you just check the number on the back and you know what colourants in what percentage gave you that result.

Of course we tested 3 base glazes, and tested all the combos on two different clays. No point in not overdoing things!

This set of tiles is about the best of the lot. My usual base glaze on my usual porcelain clay. I really like tile 3-5, but it isn't blue, it is green! Tile 1-6 is nice too and will be worth more testing. As for blue, I'm still not happy and will have to do tighter more controlled tests around 3-6 and 3-7. I'm looking for a lively but not eye-popping blue.

Now, next week, can I please make some pots???

Maple Run Studio Tour

Well, the Maple Run Studio Tour was last weekend. I was a guest at a Chris van Zanten's glass studio. I really enjoyed seeing all the glass - lots of bird feeders hanging all over the yard! but I could have done with more visitors. People came in little bursts, as they will, but I had enough time to do 8 Killer Sudoku puzzles..... not a good thing.

Attendance at this Tour seems to be dropping each year. And everyone on it is working as hard as ever to make it a success. I can speculate about possible reasons - the looming federal and provincial budgets, the high price of gas, people more and more squeezed for time, fewer artists on the Tour this year, cold weather, craft buying fatigue, younger people not interested in 'old' crafts, competition from indie crafts..... the fact that it is getting harder and harder to advertise an event..... whoa, that's a lot of possible reasons!

I'd be interested to hear about other Tours - was your attendance up or down, sales up or down.... any ideas or suggestions for us?

Let There Be Light..... and other Studio Shenanigans

Last week one of the fluorescent lights above my work table quit. Ah, I thought, how lucky, I have a spare tube. Not so lucky..... it didn't help. So a quick trip to the local home renovations emporium for more tubes. Still didn't work.

It was a bit dim in the evening, trying to paint pots with no overhead light.

Back to the home reno emporium. This time I bought a whole new fixture.

This morning, Super Helper and I replaced the old fixture with the new one. Turned out the old one was just hung from the ceiling with butterfly hangers. I had always sort of assumed that ceiling lights were attached to some sort of actual wood inside the ceiling but apparently not. Then it turned out that the new fixture wasn't quite the same as the old one (naturally) so we would have to make new holes for the butterfly things. But one of the new holes would be too close to the hole where the power cable came through. Long story short, it took a bit of measuring and drilling and breath holding and duct tape, but finally we got the new fixture nicely up, installed the new tubes, turned the power back on, and WOW, we had LIGHT!

We did the Happy Dance!

Just so you don't think that is the only thing we've accomplished lately, we did finish some cute little teabag holders and soap dishes in the shapes of birds and fishes. Also lots of glaze tests, but I'll tell you about them in a few days once they are all done. Here are the little dishes - quite a departure from my usual work!