Remember when I said I was a bad blogger....? I was right! (again) I missed over an entire month of my updating duties. I suppose that is just because December turned out to be an incredibly busy month, even with only one show. The final count has not been tallied yet, but I think I did close to 35 firings and an additional 15-20 rakus.

I have used this first part of January to get mostly caught up on some orders and to CLEAN the studio (it was getting a bit desperate). But it does feel much better to have an organized space to work in. I also re-built my raku kiln as it got a lot of abuse the past few months. It did a firing today and was much more efficient without the many holes allowing all the heat to escape out.

             Perhaps the most exciting part for this time of year is that I get to experiment. I have a lot of things that I am looking to do; create new glazes for functional pieces, work on new wine bottle shapes, make new pieces etc. BUT what is really awesome is that I am finally going to have time to do some crystalline glaze firings again. It's only been 4 years! since my last firing so it will take a bit of work to get things just right. With Sully working great I will have to get used to how he fires and might need to get him some new parts...but the future is promising.

          I have a feeling the learning curve will be quite steep as I never took notes about what I did so the cobwebs will need some dusting off in the deepest parts of my storage facility to remember how to get some super awesome crystals with my glaze recipes. There will probably be a lot of rejects so for those of you who live in the area it will be a great chance to get some cheap stuff.

 

That concludes this entry. I will try to make it less than a month to pass before my next one.

 

Until next time, stay warm and think crystalline thoughts!