Let Your Inner Monkey....

Let your "Inner Monkey" take care of your "Inner Demons".
Problem solved.

 EBAY LISTING

New Potatoes

Loaded a glaze kiln this morning and dug some "New" potatoes for supper. They will be quartered and rolled in fresh dried herbs and parmesan cheese then roasted in the oven.

Don't Amount To Beans

Title: " It Don't Amount To Beans"

Or : "Do I Look Like Some Kind Of Fool ?"

Inflation is rampant. The tricks the manufacturers and retailers use to fool us would impress Houdini himself. Packages that contained a pound now only contain 13oz. Your favorite national brand of peanut butter indented the bottom of their jars so they contain 2 oz. less.. Most of the ice cream that was a gallon is now three quarts. Some cereal boxes are the same height and width but the depth has gotten skinnier. The list goes on and on.

My "Aha!" moment happened a couple of weeks ago when I purchased a packet of garden bean seeds for $1. When I opened them there were EIGHT seeds. These were not magic bean seeds just plain old Blue Lake Beans from a national seed supplier. It was like a fairy tale (where Jack trades the cow for a hand full of beans)

I suddenly realized that dollar was practically worthless.

So, I made a jug about it. Please note: the bottom is indented so it will probably only hold

3 1/2 quarts instead of one gallon. Hey, that's inflation for you. The dollar is included.

SCORE....My favorite homemade scoring tool

Here is a video showing my scoring tool. The "Outtake" video is what happens when Princess, the pottery cat, tries  to help. Notice the loud purr.

Now with princess's help.
"Outtake"

SPECK-ulation... Cone six glaze speckles

This is how I  use steel wool to make glaze speckles in cone six glazes

CLAY.....Can You Dig It?

Here is part one of what will be three videos explaining how I prospect, prepare and test found clays.
This part is about digging and preparing. The next video will be about testing and the third will be firing. I haven't finished the second and third videos yet but should have them in the next two weeks.

PART ONE

A couple of things I did not mention in the video: 1..Finding a cut or trench in the surface allows you to examine the strata and more easily identify veins of clay. This site has about 18" of sand on top of the clay and the clay layer, being buried that deep, had very little organic material to deal with.

2....Drying the dug clay completely before mixing with water makes mixing a lot easier. Dry clay "slakes"  (absorbs water and breaks down to a slip almost effortlessly). Damp or wet clay won't readily absorb water and is harder to make into slip without more work on your part.. WORK is a four letter word, let natural forces do it for you.

 PART TWO

PART THREE

Leach Potteries Appeal To Help Japan's Potters

The trustees and staff of the Leach Pottery would like to express our great sadness at the recent catastrophe that has beset Japan. The Leach Pottery’s historic and current links to Japan, dating back over a century, are of great importance to us and the friendship we have received from the Japanese people over the years has been unwavering. We have not forgotten the support we received from the people of Mashiko pottery village and members of the Mingei Association in 2008 when individuals collectively donated over £40,000 towards rebuilding our pottery in St Ives and we would like to offer them back the hand of friendship now. 

We are launching an appeal to raise funds for Mashiko which has been badly hit by the earthquake. Mashiko has over 400 studios and kilns, providing the main livelihood of the village, and the recent quake has caused considerable damage to both kilns and buildings. Mashiko’s two main museums, the Mashiko Ceramics Museum and the Hamada Reference Museum have also been badly hit.

Mashiko Town in Tochigi prefecture is located about 60 miles north of Tokyo. In 1923 Shoji Hamada, co-founder of the Leach Pottery in St Ives with Bernard Leach, returned to Japan following the Tokyo earthquake of 1923. He settled in Mashiko with his family where he set up his own pottery, now owned and run by his potter grandson Tomoo Hamada, who attended the reopening of the Leach Pottery following its restoration in March 2008. Shoji Hamada also established the Hamada Reference Museum in Mashiko to display his stunning and internationally acclaimed collection of crafts and ceramics.

MASHIKO EARTHQUAKE APPEAL

You can donate to the Leach Pottery’s Mashiko Earthquake Appeal in any of the following ways:
By phone – call with you credit or debit card details on 01736 799703

By post – send a cheque to the Bernard Leach (St Ives) Trust Ltd. (marking the back of the cheque ‘Mashiko Appeal’. Send to Mashiko Earthquake Appeal, The Leach Pottery, Higher Stennack, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 2HE

By internet – donate through your Paypal account julia@leachpottery.com – please add a note clearly stating ‘Mashiko Earthquake Appeal’

If you are a UK taxpayer you can Gift Aid your donation by including the following information: Your name, address and postcode and confirmation that you wish the Leach Pottery to treat your donation as a Gift Aid donation. This simple act will allow us to claim a further 25p for each £1 donated towards the appeal.

Dragon Breath Finished

Here is the piece after glazing and firing. Glazes, underglazes and Iron Oxide  were used to finish the sculpture/jug.

For Sale On Ebay

Dragon Breath (In progress)

After a night of partying, A dozen Margaritas. and spicy Mexican food you wake up next to your
"Significant Other". You turn to face them and say, "Good Morning". As you watch their face melt you realize that you have that dreaded DRAGON BREATH!
This jug was made from 4 thrown and altered stoneware forms. He stands about 19" tall right now but will end up about 16" when fired.

Lets Talk Turkey

I looked outside today and spotted three beautiful wild Turkeys. They posed for a few pictures then exited through the Daffodils.Their feathers are iridescent  when they walk in the sunlight.

A Wee Kiln For A Wee Price

Here's a small kiln I picked up at the scrap iron dump. I repaired a couple of wires and IT WORKS! I fired my mini jug for OTC challenge in it. It was made about 1940. Has a pyrometer and a nifty red pilot light.

It might have been an enamel kiln or jewelry casting burnout oven. It's tiny but it's good for glaze tests and small stuff. Has a cool rotary switch with porcelain knob. The pyrometer works with the new thermocouple I had on hand. It was made at a time when you could actually take things apart and repair them.

 I paid$ 1.50 for it.

A Little Skull Juggery

Mini Jug.

This month's OTC Challenge was to make the best "mini" jug you can.
(The OTC Group is a group of face jug potters that sell on ebay.)

The jug was handmade from stoneware clay then raku fired. He stands about 1 3/4" tall , 2" front to back and about 1 1/4" side to side. He is initialed and dated on the bottom. I reckon he'd hold about a thimble full of liquor (plenty to get my wife tipsy).

Click for ebay listing

Jug Of Souls

Some people claim that the purpose of the early Face Jugs in this country were to scare the kids so they would stay out of Pappy's Moonshine. I don't necessarily believe that but I do believe that the contents of those jugs snared the spirits of many people through the ages.
52 hopeless souls (one for every Saturday night of the year) encircle this jug, forever bemoaning their fate.

For Sale On Ebay

 Made from thrown stoneware, sculpted by hand, glazed with my Cobalt blue ash glaze, and high fired in my homemade kiln, to 2300f.

The faces were pushed out from the inside then carved and sculpted.

THE BLIND ORACLE

It seems to me that we get most of our news from "Blind Oracles" these days. Some guy is paid big money to stand in front of a camera and tell us what someone else tells him. He hasn't a clue if the info he passes on is true but he is paid to be convincing in his delivery so the public will believe he's telling the truth.

For Sale On Ebay

Enough Already

More snow today on top of snow from earlier this week on top of ice from before that.
Luckily the studio is only a few feet from the house and the wood heater keeps the house toasty.

Snowplace like home

Fresh Bread

I baked a couple of loaves of Honey Wheat bread today. The temperature outside never reached 20F. The aroma of fresh bread made the house a lot more cheerful.

JUG OF SOULS

Why sculpt  just one or two faces on a face jug when you can have 45?
Faces were pushed out from the inside then modeled.
I think I will rub it with cobalt and sponge off the high points and glaze with a clear glaze.
Hopefully, the faces will appear to be floating up from some dark, deep place.