Sunday, August 28, 2011

Life Is Unpredictable

Have dessert for dinner sometimes.

Pineapple Upside-Down-Cake baked in the solar oven.




Saturday, August 27, 2011

A Brilliant? Idea

Another Stroke Of Genius?
‎105f. in the shade. Perfect day for drying my scrap clay. Brilliant idea!



105f. in the shade. Now someone needs to wedge 300# of dried clay.
I guess that would be me. Not so "brilliant" idea.







Clay drying on a sheet of tile backer board.




A rare sight. the 20gal. scrap clay bin empty!



Friday, August 26, 2011

Cleaning Shop.

Studio is shaping up. I can actually see the floor. I had forgotten that the wheel table was yellow.

First pot on the newly cleaned wheel. A classic shape, kinda boring but the raku firing should liven it up a bit.


Test glazes, underglazes and some of the more costly glaze ingredients. The bulk glaze and clay ingredients are in the kiln shop out back.


Princess was upset when I told her that I was going to skin the work table.

Princess is happy now with the newly reskinned table.

Old table skin ready to become the ground for a painting.


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

M. Dauber, Flighty Sculptor.

Here is a sculpture by a local ceramic sculptor. She shares my studio without my permission, uses the clay in my scrap bucket and  never pays a cent for rent or materials. I should say something to her but she's rather flighty and buzzes around the studio all day. Oh well, she doesn't use much material and builds beautiful architectural works and leaves them in out of the way places around the studio.





Actually, this is the nest of the Mud Dauber or Dirt Dauber Wasp. In times of drought, like we are having now, they come into the studio and land on my throwing water bucket and gather clay from my recycle bins. I don't mind. They are docile and they build some great clay works.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

40 Years Of Pottery Tools

Cleaning the studio the last few days. I only do this about every five years. Here is a 40 year accumulation of hand tools. Strange thing is that I have only selected and purchased about 10 of them. The rest have been "donated" by other potters who gave up, left by past students or were included when I purchased a used kiln or bought out someones glaze materials. I only use about 9 of them and most of those are improvised tools or other repurposed objects




I have sorted them (again). 1. There are tools for throwing  2. Tools for throwing I actually use.  3. tools for shaping sculpting and finishing. 4. tools for texturing. 5. back up tools in case I can't find the tool I need at the time. 6. Tools that I have no idea what they would be used for, but they are cool to look at.

It seems weird to me that so many things that are intended for other purposes can be used for pottery but pottery tools are pretty much limited to making pottery. Some tools made for pottery don't even seem to be very well suited for that purpose either :)

Friday, August 19, 2011

Saga Of A Meatloaf

2:00 PM.: Meatloaf catching a few rays in the solar oven. He's slathered in homemade Catsup. Surely this will protect him from the Sun.


3:30 PM. : Meatloaf fell asleep in the Sun. Now he's cooked. Looks a lot like George Hamilton.


4:00 PM.: Meatloaf invited to dinner."What are we having?", he asks."Meatloaf", the host answers."OH NOOOO!", cries Meatloaf.



4:15 PM.: Turns out Meatloaf was a most agreeable dinner guest. "Burrrp!". "Pardon me."

So good that we will invite his "Better Half" for sandwiches tomorrow.



Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Betcha' Didn't Know I Used To Be A Jeweler


Here's a ring I made in 1971. It is cast Sterling silver with a piece of Iron Pyrite
 and a cabachon of Lace Agate.
It's for sale on my wife's Etsy store.


Friday, August 12, 2011

Peach Cobbler In The Sun

Fresh peaches made into a cobbler.

 Cobbler in the solar oven



Cobbler out of the solar oven.


Cobbler with homemade ice cream......priceless!

Say Howdy to Doody

Say ,"Howdy", to Doody. Doody is in a lot of trouble. If he just looks cute and innocent it will be alright.
"The Dog Daze of Summer" series is getting out of hand. Poop humor is the lowest form of humor. Well, potters are the lowest form of humorists so it's O.K







Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Dog Daze (in progress)



"Old Dog, New Trick."
Another dog facejug in progress. I've been making several dogs lately.
The "Dog Daze" of summer are making me crazy.


Monday, August 8, 2011

What Is This

It is actually a batch of Terra Sigillata made from some clay I dug.The clay is deflocculated and allowed to settle for 20 hrs . then the top 1/2 of the slip is siphoned off and the rest is discarded The watery slip is thickened through evaporation until right for use. The screen is there to keep out bugs, rodents. small children and other pests. Terra Sigillata is delicious with pasta and garlic dishes.

Terra sigillata is a very smooth, lustrous coating of clay which resembles a glaze and is virtually waterproof. The name means "sealed earth" and has been used to refer to the Classical Greek Attic black-figure and red-figure painted pottery.

These days, the name terra sigillata is used to refer to an especially fine coating of clay applied to a ceramic piece. For my work only the finest coatings need be applied.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

A Really Homemade Day

A homemade Root Beer float. Made with homemade Root Beer and homemade Ice Cream. Served in a homemade mug made from hand dug clay (dug right here at home) glazed with a homemade ash glaze of ashes from our wood stove from wood we cut ourselves. Then it was  fired in my homemade Kiln.

Friday, August 5, 2011

A Very Weird Day


A VERY WEIRD DAY.... I saw the doctor without an appointment and without waiting! Then, Got mugged at Wal Mart!

I stopped by the doctors office to see if by some miracle I could get an appointment Monday. When I walked in the waiting room was empty and the doctor was just hanging out with nothing to do. I was in and out in just a few minutes. Weird Huh?

I then went to Wal Mart, for prescriptions, where I was accosted by the first person I saw.

I parked in my usual space near the garden section. I consider this my stealth entry and checkout area. Only people who don't really want to be at Wal Mart use this entrance. While still in my truck sorting out my prescriptions and shopping list I noticed a "lady" coming out of the store. She was fumbling with her purse not really paying much attention to where she was going. She walked up to my drivers side door and opened it while still looking in her purse. In my cheeriest voice I said, "Hello".

She looked up, panicked, screamed and started flailing me with her purse. I took her purse away from her then closed and locked my door. I didn't want her to produce a pistol or mace from inside it. After all. this is Oklahoma and lots of women are "Packing Heat" (especially at Wal Mart). She finally realized that it was not her truck. She stood dumbfounded for a few seconds mulling over the events of the last minute or so in her mind. You could actually see the gears spinning in her head. "Oh My God, this is not my truck"! she shouted. "Bingo", I said, while cautiously lowering the window half way. "My purse"! "Where is my purse"? she was searching the ground frantically. "Last time I saw it it was upside my head", I offered. I let her panic a few seconds longer before producing it. I sneaked a peek inside just to make sure she didn't indeed have a gun, then handed it back to her through the half open window. She apologized profusely and was very embarrassed by the situation. "Good", I thought.  We laughed and Parted company. The rest of my Wal Mart visit wasn't nearly as much fun
.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Get A'Long Little Dogies

Face jugs ridin' in Da Dodge. They're headed for the UPS Saloon. Goin' ta meet up with a bunch of other Varmits, Yahoos and Such all boxed up in their finest travelin' attire. They'll all pile into one of them Brown Stage Coaches and go for one helluva ride. They're will be all sorts of bumpin' and rubbin' and pilin' on one-another before their journey is through. Makes me blush to think about it. Makes me a little jealous too. Hopefully they will all arrive intact with no more than tattered and skinned boxes and the memory of bein' snuggled up to one of them fancy Victoria's Secret boxes all 
the way to Dallas.