Almost a ten hour day today. The 16 cu ft kiln we loaded with a bisque yesterday had about two hours left to go this morning when we got in a little before nine. We loaded the three large vases , a 22 inch bowl, a couple of platters and the rest of the rice bowls for the internet order into the 10 cu ft and started it. Almost missed the last eight ricr bowls. Had left them under the table by the wheel and somehow didn’t get them into the first bisque.
I started pugging clay and Cindy began wedging and throwing. She threw three more big bean pots today. They look as if they could be keepers. It seems everything we learn to make requires ten or more throws before we get it to look the way we want. These pots are much closer to the style of the old Quebec beanpot. By the end of the day she had thrown the 250 pounds I pugged and completed throwing the show except for mugs, chip/dip bowls, that sort of thing. Tomorrow she will trim, build, and handle then help me with the studio clean up and reorganization, getting ready for the big VIP invasion Wednesday morning. Did I mention we have to be there at 5:30 am? Remote truck arrives at 5:45. The first cut in will be at about 7:10 am.
We unloaded the clay from the truck at lunch time and then I started setting up the front area while Cindy continued throwing. We are rearranging the display/storage shelves, taking down the shipping table and moving a long table from the glazing room into the "front room" for breakfast . We will also have chairs, a couple of small tables, etc for the breakfast area, I guess we could call it the "green room", proper television speak.
We called it a night about 6:30. Long Day. Tomorrow I’ll continue with the set up for the TV show. Anticipation!
nite
Slow day today for us. Kids both spent all day at Klondike Days as it was the last night. Tomorrow they work all day doing a final cleanup and garbage roundup. Gonna be two exhausted teenagers when the day is over. Cindy and I went to Plainsman Pottery Supply , visited with Larry a couple of minutes, and picked up 500 pounds of clay since he is closed Tuesday as well as Monday for the long weekend. He still has no idea on when we will see our new 16 cu ft kiln. He is thinking it could be soon though. We then ran on out to Ikea and picked up an as-is table for use in our retail booth at the show in December.
We headed in to the studio then and loaded the 16 with a bisque load. Making some mugs for the Empty Bowls breakfast session. Had to push the drying quite a bit. Started with a 6 hour hold at 120 degrees just to push the rest of the moisture out of the mugs, then another 2 at 180 and 2 at 200. Don’t want anything blowing up! Bisquing all the internet ricebowls, tea mugs, and sushi sets. Have two nice orders headed to Washington DC.
The rest of the kiln load is the first of the bowls for the August Gift Show.
This evening I did a few minor changes to the web page and we got our applications ready to send in for the Brad Pitt Movie, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". Maybe they need some village potters….yeah, that’s it!
Tomorrow we’ll get the kids off to work (love saying that!) and then we’ll head in for a day of throwing (Cindy) and cleaning (Jim). We are finally supposed to get some hot weather for a few days with no rain so that should help our production schedule a whole lot.
nite
We got the line up for the Empty Bowls Breakfast on Wednesday. Wow! Heather from Win House has done a great job setting this up. We will be throwing pots with the Fire Chief, Randy Wheeler, Darrell Coley from Edmonton police Services, Heather Forsyth, the Minister of Children’s Services, Senator The Honourable Dr. Thelma Chalifoux, Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel, Business Persons Randall Liske of the Fife N Dekel (they’re providing breakfast!), Ian Janacek of the Sutton Place Hotel ( The September Auction is there), Three time Olympic medalist in speed skating Isabelle Charest, Edmonton Eskimos’ Representatives Joan and Allyson, Lesley Paull the president and general manager of Paull Travel, Donna Pochanec from Alberta Education School Improvement Branch, Alexandra Lapko , the Public Complaints Monitor from the Edmonton police Commission, Sandra Danco and Connie Serink from Edmonton WinHouse, and the host from The Big Breakfast, Bridget Ryan..
Needless to say the butterflies are setting in…..how to take these 16 very important people who have never potted before and in 20 minute segments lead them through creating a bowl which we can finish and they can contribute to the Empty Bowls Auction in September. As far as we know, no one has attempted this before.
We start the actual preparation around 5:30 Wednesday morning. The A Channel crew will show up at 5:45. Breakfast and preliminary instruction begins at 6:30. After that momentum sets in and come Heck or High Water the Show Must go On.
Tune in later for more details!
Yesterday I did make the 12 fish platters I had set as a goal. Cindy threw 24 "Mike" mugs for the Empty Bowls Breakfast, then trimmed pots like a crazy woman. Today she handled casseroles, souffles, beanpots….we determined the three beanpots she had thrown so far were not quite right….so they go to the retail show in December and she will re throw them. They need a bigger base…we are trying for a shape very reminiscent of the 150 year old Quebec beanpot we had in the studio earlier. Cindy is working on pulling handles different from anything she has done before. The final look is very important. We hold every piece we make up against a blank wall and examine the "negative space" it creates. It helps us refine the curve of handles, shoulders on vases etc.
Funny, we offered some tips to a potter on Clay art this week about that very thing. She took it wrong…thought we were criticising her work…we just suggested she should look at the spaces created by handles, shoulders, etc, and make sure they please her artist’s eye. She got very offended…oh well, just trying to help.
Today I handled the mugs Cindy threw yesterday, trimmed and sponged some platters and sushi sets I had been working on earlier this week and we called it a day just before 6:00. Late for a Friday.
We’ll work this weekend as the kids are working at Klondike Days through Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow we hope to load a bisque, depending on how drying goes tonite with the humidty the way it is. Must have the mugs done for Wednesday. That means they have to bisque tomorrow and glaze fire on Monday. Cindy has all the really big pieces done for the show. I’ve got some small platters to get done for bread dipping sets, plus need more sushi sets. I’ll probably do those tomorrow or Sunday at the latest.
So ends another day. I’m listening to a little Alvin Lee and Ten Years After on Rhapsody….Cindy has walked up to the corner with John to meet Kaileigh at the bus stop…she stayed late at K-Days to listen to …..wait for it…."Twisted Sister"!!!!!!!!!!…yep they are still around and why she wanted to hear them I’m not sure..but she did………Oh yeah, Avril was here tonight too…Kaileigh does not like Avril….at all….Hey, teenagers, This is my second set and I still don’t understand them….
nite
I’ll start today with a correction. The Empty Bowls breakfast throwing party is a week away on August the third. That gives us a couple more days to get ready, and….(drum roll please)..the mayor of Edmonton is scheduled to be one of the potters. Mayor Stephen Mandel is going to be one of the VIPs atending, as well as the Fire Chief , some of the Edmonton Eskimos and their wives, and possibly others. "The Big Breakfast" morning show on A-channel will be there as well. We should be able to have a lot of fun and create some bowls for the WinHouse auction later in the year. As I mentioned in a post to Clayart earlier this month, we don’t have a lot of money to donate to worthwhile causes but we do believe we should support the community as much as possible. This is our way of helping the Empty Bowls project.
Cindy finished trimming rice bowls and tea cups yesterday then tackled the first of the throwing for the Gift Show Lineup while I pugged clay.We currently have about a dozen finished pieces of pottery in the whole studio so everything has to be ready to show in two and a half weeks and none of it is done. No pressure! Here’s a picture of a few of the bowls she threw yesterday afternoon in an hour and a half.. There is another table with the big stuff on it just out of sight.
Today everything that was thrown was trimmed , handled, and is in the drying cupboard. She threw some more this afternoon , bean pots, souffles, etc. I had planned on making fish platters all day, however Rose from Panache Ceramics called to see if I could repair a couple of her kilns as she is facing deadlines as well. I went there at 10:30, didn’t make it back to the studio until 5 so no platters today. Want to do at least a dozen tomorrow. Images of Canada has placed their first orders for the end of August, so Cristmas is a comin!
The owner of the old bean pot came back by this afternoon. He is in his mid 70’s (guessing)and said the beanpot belonged to his Mother’s Mother. That would make it 150 years old anyway. It was definitely a turning point and inspiration for us to have it in the studio. Our new beanpots will rock, figuratively speaking of course, they will have level bottoms!
Nite
We received an email from Les Haworth with Laguna Clays in Southern California concerning some business we are doing and at the end of his email he included a quote from a person he credits as being his mentor:
“When I was in elementary school my teacher pinned a note to my shirt for my parents to read. It said, ‘Charlene is not coloring inside the lines.’ My parents contacted the teacher and asked the teacher what the purpose of coloring inside the lines was.’ The teacher didn’t quite know what to say, except that the direction she had given was to color inside the lines. My dad told me to color any way I wanted to and when I was done coloring, to draw a black line around my picture." ~~ Charlene Felos
Just when I thought I had this blog program all figured out I started having problems. For three straight days I have written a nice entry, only to lose it. I think I’ve got it figured out. In fact if you are reading this then I definitely have it all under control. There for awhile I thought I just might swear off blogging forever.
I’ll try to bring the journal up to date.This week we fired the last of the orders that have to be completed before the Alberta Gift Show in August. Now all we have to do is throw and glaze our complete line, plus some new larger pieces with which we hope to interest galleries,museum shops, and the like.
With that in mind Cindy over the last couple of days through three large platters, 24 inch diameter, and built two more large vases. Those six pieces are planned for the front of our booth at the show as attention getters.This show we have increased the size of the booth to a 10 x 15 foot booth from a 10 x 10 just to accomodate the big pieces.
Here is a photo of Cindy with one of the large platters.
This week we also went in to major declutterization mode and spent two days sweeping, cleaning and throwing away many of the odds and ends that can collect in a studio in four years when you are running flat out without taking a break. A ton of what our Clayart friend Tony Clennell calls "land fill pots".Not good enough to sell but hard to throw away because of the time, effort, and materials that went into their creation. Somehow we waded through them and tossed away a pile of them. We can now work much easier in the studio and it will allow us to get ready for the show as the clock is ticking. One week also until the Empty Bowls VIP breakfast pottery classes! "Time keeps on slippin’, (slippin’, slippin’) into the future." Steve Miller, what a poet!
I also shot a series of photos of how I pack pots for shipment. I hope to add an illustrated section to the How to Make Pottery site soon.
Tonight we are off to the Klondike Days Exhibition to see Jeff Healey perform. Then back into the studio tomorrow, going to pot again!
nite
So we just keep on making pots. Today we got a glaze load in and started in the 16. The last of our orders, so far. Testing a few things glaze wise on the new body to see how they look. We went to see Willie Nelson Saturday night. One word, fantastic. Two solid hours of singing and playing. You would swear the guitar just grew on his body and they were one. We loved every minute of it.
My grandson Justin came in Saturday afternoon and he and Kaileigh went to a good Charlotte concert last night…..not quite the same crowd or musical interests! John had spent the day at the Edmonton Grand Prix and had a blast in spite of the rain.
Cindy calculated she has made over 730 mugs in the last two months. Hopefully that is all for a little while. We’ll be working intensely on the August show from now until it starts. Also have the TV crew in, in early August for the Empty Bowls group.
As Cindy says we’re dancing as fast as we can.
nite
So Wednesday came and went. The ten cubic foot kiln was just finishing firing and starting its cooling cycle when we got to work. Cindy worked on green stuff making sure it was set up to dry correctly while I mixed some clay bodies to build a large slumped platter. Took three tries, wedging between each before I got the slab I needed from the slab roller. We are pushing the dimensions of the slab roller we have to build these platters. Need 23" width of 3/8" clay and the roller is 24" so not a lot of room to spare. Anyway we got the platter where we wanted it finally and it looks good. Now we’ll see how the new body works for slabs. It throws good for large pieces , bowls and such so should work for the slab platters too.
While we were doing that we got our fax contract from Images of Canada, the catalogue sales people. They are going with two of our products for the Fall and Winter catalogue so that is exciting. We filled all the proper blanks and faxed it right back. Curious to see what the initial order will be. We will work ahead of course. I went ahead and ordered more wooden crates. We hope to pick them up the end of August in Calgary.
After that excitement we decided we would go visit Larry at Plainsman Pottery Supply. Picked up another 10 boxes of clay. That gives us a stock of 40 boxes (1760 pounds) so we can throw the show and whatever orders come in for the next little while. Gives us some extra for experimenting too. Larry still had no word on our new kiln.
We ran a few errands and came home early.
Today we went in late as I had to print labels for the latest order to ship to Lake Louise. Then we went in to the studio, unloaded the ten cubic foot, sanded and ground as necessary, (one of the idiosyncracies of the Mountain Mist with Wild Rose glaze is it doesn’t always want to stay on the pot exactly where we want it to. Anyway got them all spiffy and attached the labels, then Cindy and I packed up the pots for the bus.
We shipped the pots then stopped by the Alberta Craft Council Gallery to see if the pots we delivered there three weeks ago were on display. To our disappointment they were not. Seems the manager is the only one who can catalogue and set up displays and she didn’t have time to get our pots out before she left on vacation! As a result our fantasy about Paul Newman getting one of our mugs for a souveneir while he is here for the Grand Prix was dashed. Now we have to hope they get them set up in time for the World Masters Games the end of this month. Over $2500 worth of pots we worked overtime to produce and get down to the shop are all sitting in boxes during tourist season. We are not amused.
We took one more tour by the studio to check on drying then called it a day. Tomorrow we have a full day planned. Going to start cleaning the studio out in preparation for the big TV shoot first of August. Four years of clutter must be eliminated. We’ll see…….
nite
Ok, I finally remembered to bring the camera home and downloaded the picture of the first of our Big Pot experiments. This one is about 24 inches tall. That is a three pound coffee can beside it.
We can only go to 36 inches with our kilns so another foot taller will about do it. Of course we could put a really tall lid on top!
We mailed an order to an Ontario retailer today. We ordinarily ship by bus but this shop specified post. It doesn’t really make much difference to us as either way works. We have had effectively zero breakage or loss with either method. I must admit I have learned a thing or two about packing pottery in the past 5 years. Since neither method provides any insurance against breakage I like to say my packing is our insurance.
Cindy trimmed some pots and assembled goblets, I unloaded the bisque kiln and waxed the pots from it, then Cindy glazed those pots and we loaded the 10 cu ft for firing. I built a slab plate for an order and we called it an afternoon. Kids had to be at an interview for jobs at Klondike Days Exhibition so we quit early and delivered them.
Tomorrow Cindy is going to throw some rice bowls and tea cups for an internet order, I’m going to build some platters and we may even have a bit of play time. Doing some inventing for new looks and ways of doing things.
Should be fun.
nite
I drove in and Cindy biked. Kaileigh is in summer shool for one more week so I have to drop her at the bus stop, other wise I’d bike too! No, really! Well not today because I had to go to Shipper’s Supply. Got ten 16 cu ft bags of enviro pack. Back to the studio and packed up the sushi set for Florida (internet order). Took it down to the main Post Office. The postal guys are all excited. They finally got some new computers. The system they had been using was here when Noah disembarked from the Ark. Slow and clunky. The new system is fast and hopefully more efficient. one side effect of what they are doing to upgrade though saw them trying to get rid of their old stamps. As a result the professional looking parcel I shipped will arrive in florida with 80 fifty cent stamps plastered all over it! I wrote the customer an email to let him know I was not responsible!
Cindy finished up throwing the remaining bowls for the remaining order. The bisque kiln is cooling and we have 100 mugs to load in a bisque Wednesday. I’ve got an Ontario order to pack and ship tomorrow. The mid point of the year when we are "caught up" seems to be right around the corner. By the weekend we should be there.
Of course then it is produce like crazy to get the pots ready for the wholesale show, build a new booth, install the new kiln when it arrives, be ready for the "Empty Bowls" tv shoot, and look at getting the second DVD on the go.
I did get pictures of the first of our big pots but left the camera at the studio so I’ll post them here tomorrow for sure.
Thunderstorms tonite….good sleeping weather.
nite
Cindy and I rode our bikes to the studio and back today. Put handles on the 100 mugs she threw last week and loaded a small bisque load in the 7 cu ft. Started it firing.
The weekend was relaxing pottery wise. My two girls and my four grandkids showed up around 10:30 Friday morning and we took off for the rest of the day and yesterday. Had a housefull for lunch and a good though brief visit with the kids. They headed out mid afternoon and we went into weekend mode.
Took John and Kaileigh and watched the Revenge of the Sith at theatre in West Edmonton Mall yesterday. Had not been there for awhile. Forgot just how busy it gets in the Summer.
We are just about caught up with all the orders and are looking forward to the next phase. We have to get stock ready for the August wholesale show, and get the studio cleaned up and set up for the Empty Bowls television visit in early August. Hope to have the new kiln in by then. I also have to get the booth finished for the wholesale show as we are expanding our display to 15 by 10 feet and it is currently just 10 x 10. We also want to play a bit with bigger pots. I still have to get a picture of the three piece vase Cindy threw the other day. it is drying nicely and should be ready to bisque fire by the end of the week.
Should be an interesting though short Summer.
Well here it is Thrusday and I’ve got to catch up again. Yesterday I started sanding and preparing pots for shipping and Cindy started throwing mugs. I went in to the studio just to see how the kilns had behaved and then came home to the office to print tags and shipping labels. Larry from Plainsman phoned to say our clay was in so right after noon I headed over and picked up another 30 boxes of clay plus some chemicals. The pot mobile didn’t even break a sweat with the added ton of cargo. The old "Exploder" would have needed two trips and been on his knees! I left Plainsman and went by Specialty Packaging for some two cubic foot boxes. Back to the studio and carried on with prepping the order for Lake Louise. Cindy finished the clay she had pugged with a little over 90 mugs and a few bowls. We decided to call it a day. Thunderstorm in the afternoon had lowered the temperature some so easier sleeping.
This morning got to the studio and immediately unloaded the big guy. Everything was marvelous. It was an interesting kiln load as it represented the finishing odds and ends for several orders. As a result we had several of our glazes in it. Here is a picture of a few of the items on the table just to give you an idea:
The two 20 inch sinks are terrific. Everything "sang" for sure.
Rose from Panache was happy to hear the news and sent her employee over to pick them up. If she got the holes cut in them as planned one of the sinks is probably in her customer’s bathroom tonight! They had been waiting awhile as the kiln gods did not smile on our first attempt.
I packed up the Lake Louise and Jasper orders and Cindy finished throwing goblets and packed up the pots for the Legislative Assembly Gift Shop. We got an internet order for a deluxe sushi set and I happened to have one sitting in consignment at one of local merchants so when we took the pots to the Legislative Gift Shop and the two bus shipments we swung by and picked up the sushi set. Northern Lights glaze. Very distinctive.
After all that running around the day was finished.
My kids are in town tomorrow so I’m not sure how much work we’ll get done. It will be good to see all four of the Grand kids though.
Gnite.
So here we were with two kilns cooling and 30 degrees plus on the thermometer in our part of town. Do we know how to plan or what? Actually unloaded the 7 cu ft and the 16 cu ft and reloaded both and put them on the clock again. The 16 is doing light glaze load which includes a couple of 22 inch sinks for Panache Ceramic Industries here in the City. They must be delivered Thursday as the Plumbing Gods have decreed it is so. Also pots for the Alberta Legislative Assembly Gift shop. They should be delivered this week as well. Pulled some beautiful pottery out of the kilns today. 40 mugs and 2 tea pots for Lake Louise , and many beautiful bowls and platters for various clients. The Mountain Mist and Centennial glazes are especially nice. Also did a test firing on our new clay body. Looks really cool….
Cindy assembled the pieces of our first attempt at "big" pots, an exercise in throwing in pieces, and it looks good following assembly and trimming. I’ll try and get a picture tomorrow. She’s going to try adding coils and throwing continually as well. Also threw a couple of 24 inch diameter (green) bowls to try the new body. It looks good, feels good, and throws good….now if our glazes fit and it vitrifies properly we have a winner.
Tomorrow I’ll be shipping the Lake Louise order and an order for one of our Jasper clients. Cindy is throwing an order for one of our Canmore locations. More mugs!…
Hot tonite…hope we can all get some sleep…..
jim
So I got distracted! I’ll try and catch up with the highlights. The beanpot owner showed up and decided he liked the first lid we did best, even though it was not like the old design. We had made a domed lid like our casseroles. Just goes to show I guess that you can only second guess people so much. We however really like the whole style of the old pot and as I showed you before have incorporated the pulled handles and flat lid into our bean pot. Cindy is still not entirely happy with the top flange or neck that the lid sits in but the next one should be perfect. Here is a picture of the glazed pot in Northern Lights. This one is at the Alberta Craft Council Gallery Shop:
We went ahead with our firing and glazings as scheduled and delivered the pots to the Alberta Craft Council Gallery Store on time. They should be on display some time this week. We took Canada Day and Saturday off then loaded two kilns with glaze loads again yesterday. We have decided we are going to make some larger scale pots for gallery displays, etc. and so have been working with a new "large pot" clay body. Cindy threw the parts for a 24" vase today and threw a 24" diameter shallow bowl as a warm up. The new adjusted body looks as if it has a lot of promise.
When we got home from work today we had an email from a couple of potters working in South Africa all their lives. They began as studio potters and for the past 28 years have made their livelyhood as potters. In the past few years David has began to throw large pieces. The attention to total appearance and finish is terrific. What is the most amazing is to see David in pictures you would never believe he could throw all the huge pieces he does. Cindy and I have talked about how a true craftsman in any field must have mastery of his medium before he can truly create art. David obviously has that. He works with the clay rather than fighting it. Only that way could he do what he is doing. See the work of David Schlapobersky and Felicity Potter and while at their site take time to read some of the stories of their life.
Tomorrow for us more of the same . Cindy will be mugging for another order we just got. A really muggy Summer! My two daughters and all my Grandkids are going to be in the city for a visit on Friday so we hope to have everything organized where we can take most of the day off to visit them!.And so to bed……….