Studio Saturday

Back to it, cold weather or not; I'm ready to dip the new pieces and get that little kiln going.

When I went in before xmas I was touched to see little surprises on my table -

 and did some measuring and thinking about how to fit the new series of tall pieces into the kiln, comparing them to the shelf spacers -

 Also they have the first part of their data sheets filled out, and photos ready for processing and printing out.

Trying to keep track of things - fresh start! -

 My walk home from the studio took a little diversion past Archway, up the hill to Highgate, where the Highgate Pantry happened to have a poppy seed cheesecake - irresistible - unfortunately it came only in enormous slices...

And back down the hill, home - for a total of over 13,000 steps for the day. Usually the walk to the studio yields about 3,000 steps each way.

This week I did make it in, and dipped some recent constructions. The group on the left is drying in the open; on the right, covered with plastic, to see if this has an effect on the development of cracks -

The "chimney pots" (some are 20cm tall; none have bottoms) are put together in various ways with sinamay, and many were bedevilled by the development of little holes as the clay pulled away from the threads as it started to dry -

Careful dabs of slip on the end of a pointed stick worked some of the time, but some of the time ran down in streaks. Perhaps the slip needs to be thicker, or perhaps the fabric could be doubled, or covered with a different fabric for a different texture? Things to try.

A test firing of the little kiln is scheduled for next week. It involves going in to the studio really early to turn it on, and returning at the end of the day to make sure everything is shut off properly - and not opening the kiln to see what happened. Ah, the suspense!