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