Red Wing Lime Kiln and Booth Picture

Lime kiln in Red Wing, Minnesota.

Nice looking red tent really made the pots look nice and earthy red. Next time I do another art fair, I'm going to get one of those nice white ones everybody else had, but this time around I kept the overhead costs low and borrowed this Mac Tools tent from a friend.

Volc Frit

I just got a few free bags of volcanic frit from a potter in Richfield, about 10 minutes from my studio. 150lbs in all, so I hope with some testing I'll get it working for some cone 10 glazing. As I had no idea what the composition of the stuff was, I called the company on the bag, Calvert Corporation in Norton, KS, and thankfully they were still in business. They provided me a chemical analysis and melting point, so that should help, and also that it's very fine meshed material compared to what they've been screening these days. Later.

Eagan Art Festival

I wanted to let you know that I will be having a booth at the Eagan Art Festival this weekend. It is a free admission festival with ample parking, a variety of food, music and entertainment, and I will be selling my pottery too.

Here are the more specific details:

Saturday, June 21: 9am-5pm

Sunday, June 22: 10am-5pm

Eagan Community Center Festival Grounds

1501 Central Parkway

Eagan, MN

For more information, please visit http://www.eaganartfestival.org/ or contact me.

Let me know if you might come, and I’ll look out for you.

Pottery on the Avenue

Hi,

I was out on my swinging bench yesterday, the day before Father's Day, and a lot of folks stopped by. Everybody in good spirits with the wonderful weather. I displayed my work on a few sawhorses with wooden boards, pretty simple. A young potter named Caleb Olson (spelling?) stopped by, and I showed him around my studio - which I think he thought was cool. He works out of Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis teaching youngn's in the 12-year old to teen age group.

Sold some pots, beautiful weather - except the tornado siren went off at 10pm which was a bit scary, and met some more locals.

On tap for this week: making some large, hanging platters with interesting designs, loading and unloading the kiln for the Eagan Art Festival next weekend, and testing some new glazes. Happy Father's Day if that applies.

Peace.

Work in Progress

As promised to you faithful readers - is just one person reloading my page several times (?), Patricia is that you?! I have some pictures finally.

From left-to-right, a set of 5 soup bowls, a half dozen 'drinkers' for the kitchen, some dipping dishes in the foreground stacked 5 high, a few spoon holder vases behind that, and finally a set of four dinner plates. All-in-all a good batch, waiting to dry for the kiln.
Test tiles for a cone 9-10 glaze firing. These have been bisqued already.
A few casserole dishes, and a marbleware bowl.
A few large-bellied vases, and a 23" wide bowl on the far right.
It seems like many bloggers have posted their scrap pots - mine go in this large red bucket, which I'll add my throwing water too. You wouldn't believe all the good stuff that's in the throwing water that many potters throw out! I add a little bit of grog and bentonite plus a few other tidbits to make the reclaim that much easier to work with, in fact the reclaim clay is a treat to work with - nice and soft clay that can be thrown super high and wide if needed.

I know, I know

I said I was going to have pictures to share yesterday, but I need to delete some off of my computer first. So, later today.

Last night, I trimmed some excess clay off a set of bowls, and will do the same tonight for a set of plates. I'm getting ready for the Eagan Art Festival in a few weeks.

In early July, I need to make another stop to my clay supplier for more materials; here's a list I came up with so far:

Kentucky Stone, 50#'s
Goldart, 50#
Frit 3124, 10#
Nepheline Syenite, 25#
Frit 3195, 50#
Low-fire Red Clay, 500#
Chrome Oxide, 1#
Black Copper Oxide, 1#
Custer Feldspar, 50#
Dolomite, 50#
Redart, 100#
A few mason stains to splurge on maybe (?). I like mixing these into slips.

Just a start, but I haven't been there in awhile. I like to stock up for a few months. I have my own pug mill, so I can always recycle the scraps and make more clay in the studio.

In other news, I'm planning to take my wheel out on the Avenue again this weekend. Probably just on Saturday, as it is supposed to be the nicest of the two days. A few pots will be for sale. 10am that day I'll get things rolling.

More later. Peace.

I'm back

Hi Everybody,

My hiatus from blogging has ended, and I look forward to posting some new pictures later today.

I've been working on a few things:

1. Glazing earthenware pots. I'm now out of this red clay, but will either purchase more or look into making my own. I have one formula that I've been using that works great, but the manufacturer, Continental Clay is a mere skip away.

2. Throwing stoneware pots. I've been working on pitchers, sets of bowls and plates.

3. Test tiles for the stoneware, with cobalt, rutile, and iron oxide additions.

Kind of a boring post overall, sorry, but will make it interesting later - so check back.