The firing finished off early today, all cones very hot! We're both pretty wiped out but at least there's nothing to do but wait for it to cool a few days! We finished loading the kiln in a record time by 3 pm yesterday and started the firing right away. This made our 'shifts' with the kiln much easier, and we finished up around 4 today! It's a better way to end the 24 hour firing, rather than the way we used to end up doing, starting at midnight and firing nonstop til the next midnight. It's the same hours, but something about ending it that late in the day makes me more tired! 
I shot this picture in between stokes right as the sun popped its head up over the mountain around 7 am. Here's to a happy firing!
All set! The wood kiln is clean and ready for loading. Will and I will load the kiln on Wednesday, start the preheat in the evening and carry on the wood stokin' through til Thursday evening. This one's a 24 hour haul!
After everything is glazed, (and it finally is!) the usual routine for me the past three years is packing it up to take to whatever or whom-ever's kiln I'm firing them in. I've gotten quite used to the drill, packing loosely with lots of bubble wrap seems to not disturb the glazes. And I always take a cup or two of those glazes to 'patch' the pot in case some of it gets chipped on its journey around the windy mountain roads. Since most of my work is half slipped and half glazed, I don't tend to have that many casualties.
Still glazing!
It's that time again. Going through the stuffed cart of bisqueware and starting the glazing. It was fun to see these plates that I made a few weeks ago again and glaze them. I'm excited for them, just hope they don't warp too much in the wood kiln!
If you're in the area, don't forget the opening reception at Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia. The exhibit displays a diverse selection of work from potters from the Asheville, Bakersville and Penland areas. The opening reception is this Saturday, April 24 at 5-7 pm.
Today was a varied day in and out of the studio. I finished up some pots that I had slipped, made some more pitchers, fired a bisque kiln and cleaned up my glazing area to start glazing pots. These carved cups are going to be glazed all over again with green, like the last batch I did. I kept a few of my favorite ones from that firing around in the studio so I could muse over them for a while, and I'm liking them!
Bloodroot leaf
I think my favorite form to make as a potter is a vessel for pouring, like teapots, pitchers and ewers. I like the challenge of creating all of the parts that come together to make an intriguing form. 
But the wood kiln will be cranked up soon for a couple of firings in a row, the first of which to start the end of next week. I've just about made enough pots to put into both of these firings that I am sharing with Will in his wood kiln.
I was wrapping things up at the end of the day in the studio and noticed the reflection in my water bucket at my wheel! The wrap up time = it's a good time for reflection, going over what I got done in the studio that day and what I'm going to do the next day. Then I move onto a walk with the dog, porch sitting, yoga, and dinner. Not bad for a day's work.
bloodroot
trout lily
hosta leaves 
I fired off a small kiln load of mugs and bowls the other day in the small electric kiln that I converted to a soda gas kiln. This time I glazed every inch of my pots that went into the load, which is different for me. Usually I leave a large portion of the pot bare with flashing slips for the soda kiln. But it was fun to get some colors out of the kiln. 
These green mugs are quite different for me, the red is from the uneven reduction and then you can see it goes into a 'teal' green where the soda blasted that side of the pot. Can we say Christmas colors? It's an unpredicted thing that only happens to a few of them in certain spots in the kiln. A little flashy perhaps, but somehow I like it a little bit. Just not for all my pots.
I like these mugs above. I used a yellow titanium glaze for the top portion and a copper glaze around the bottom carved sections. Some of these mugs were sent off to the Hambidge show in Georgia. It's nice to have a few different colors to mix into other pots.
I just made these two oval serving dishes kind of accidentally, although they have similar elements to a pitcher tray I did recently. At first I threw the oval ring and was going to make these low vases for flowers. I had one in mind that I saw of another potters work that I admire. So somehow I was going to attempt one in my own way. Although once I was trying to work on it, I got completely stuck in trying to find my own version because I had this particular one stuck in my mind so strongly. I always have made a huge effort to not copy other people's work directly. I admire and look at other potter's pots all of the time but try to not to absorb it completely. In the beginning of my learning, I was copying other pots I saw, but I was learning so much in that way. Then I branched off in my own direction, or at least I have tried to. I do know that some inspirations and things get in there indirectly, because that is natural, of course it's going to happen a little bit. But usually it is a small detail, like the angle of a rim or something, and I try to put my own choices into my pots, instead of someone else's choices. This vase form that was stuck in my head was preventing me from seeing it any other way. But I wouldn't let myself just copy it.
So, the pieces just kept sitting under plastic for a few days, and I was procrastinating what to do with them. Then I somehow got the idea to make an asymmetrical cut in the rim. So it has since evolved into a oval server or tray, not a flower box at all! I had fun working out the small details with some different shaped handles and a minimal texture.
Teapot by Terry Gess
Carved Plate by Emily Reason
Yes, this is a picture of dirt. But for a potter like me, getting my hands outside in the real dirt is extremely satisfying. I've been 'treating' myself the past few days (with amazing weather!) by stopping work in the studio every late afternoon and practically galloping outside to do some yard work. To most this might not seem a treat, but during winter I long for these warm days of fresh air and these days I have to lock myself into the studio with serious self discipline in order to get some work done. So at the end of each day with the last hours of daylight, I've been out weeding my garden beds, turning my compost pile over and preparing the soil for planting.
I often make these extremely small pots above that serve as great kiln fillers in between all of the bigger pots. I think of them as small bud vases. The intimate scale of them is fun and playful. The two new V shaped forms on either end of this lineup was eye catching to me, so I tried a larger version of the same form.
The odd thing, though, is by changing the scale to a larger vase, I feel that the pot lost its energy and feeling that the small three and a half inch pot has. This happens to me when I change the scale of my teapots and make larger teapots. All of my teapots are intentionally small and for serving almost 2 cups of tea, made for tea time with just you and your teapot. I often enjoy this intimacy and connection you get with smaller pots. Although it needs something, I think this vase form will be one I'll keep working on, in the larger form, just to see where it takes me. While I was working on it, I had it upside down and realized that would be another form I'd like to explore. I think it's interesting when ideas come through the process like this. Ideas that you wouldn't have sketched, visualized, or thought of perhaps. Instead new ideas bounce from one to another. Before you know it you are down another path.
