A pottery week, a good week

This was taken at my first wood-fire unloading in early July.
The rooster is mine. The angel is Lisby Pollock's.

This past week I sure put my share of hours doing pottery-associated things. Aside from throwing pots and handbuilding a new saltbox lid, I was there glazing—some of my things and some abandoned pots for Harrison Rally Day. There was a group of us there, all volunteer glazing on Friday. I also signed up for the Museum's ceramics class that starts on the 13th and goes until Dec. 1. It will be 72 hours of class time and possibly some independent time as well. There is a possibility that the class will be cancelled because there is not enough students registered. I hope not, my hope is that it will be a nice segue into possibly joining the Potters' Guild next January.

Tim also shot a lot of pots for both Julie and myself. I also got to choose a pot from Julie that Tim received in exchange for his photo services. I really like it and it's now on the living room coffee table. I know it was one of Julie's favorites because she posted the photo of it as a Facebook profile picture. The next three photos are some of those Tim took for my portfolio. Both Julie's pots and the photos looked really
good too.

A sgraffito pot.

I am continuing to produce what appears to be a series of sgraffito carvings on my pots, as mentioned in a previous blog and shown at left. I am still fine-tuning how much black to leave on the pot versus how much white. I also want to come up with another subject pattern other than flowers and leaves although I do like a nature theme. It's also something other than
"my" animals.

Besides pottery, it was also the week to see girlfriends, all of whom I happened to work with at BGSU at one time or another but not all together. Wednesday was dinner with Elaine, Thursday was lunch with Deb and Linda at Aladdin's. Linda and I then shopped a little at Franklin Park. That evening, Bonnie and I walked all over the Farmers Market in Perrysburg looking for a particular CSA farmer who we finally found. Then we had a mediocre Chinese dinner.
A lot of talking, all fun.

Wednesday was my salon day at Soto's. Cut and color plus my first professional pedicure. I could get accustomed to being pampered that way. A pricey day. The very dark green nail polish color I chose was a lot like the little pitcher shown below.

Tim took this great photo of my pitcher. It was wheel-thrown and altered with an applied spout and hand-pulled handle.  It was dipped and sprayed with 2 different glazes. I wish the wall of the pot was a tad thinner.

I am also now getting ready to submit work at Collector's Corner at the Toledo Museum again. It has been probably 12 years or more since I had anything there. I had been very successful (selling regularly) there. It's now a much smaller space so I'm not sure how many, if any, they will take. We'll see but at least it has me thinking about new prints. I also had a good day of sales. Angelwood Gallery sold three prints to one person. I feel like I have a fan.

I am beginning to work on a new linocut of Cheryl Clephane's pug, Lollipop. She gave me 5 photos for reference. There has been other interest expressed in custom dog portrait prints. I thought it might be fun to try. After doing prints of Sam, Kappy and Maggie (some of the best dogs), perhaps it might be a niche market for me.

Today Tim and I went to Ann Arbor. We went to three pottery places—the Yourist Studio and Gallery, the Clay Gallery and the Art Center. The first was the most interesting. Kay Yourist gave us a tour of the whole studio, a really nice set-up, plus I picked up a few tools as well. We also had several other stops including Downtown Home & Garden, a favorite stop of mine, and Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. On the way back, we made a stop at Select Stone and picked up some blue tumbled pavers for stepping stones for between the brick walk and my new potager.

Have you noticed that I started adding links in the gray type to my postings? This blogging is amusing. Happy (no) Labor Day weekend.

A favorite wood-fired bowl that was  fired in
my first Managama kiln firing.

Wood-fired pitchers from my second firing.
( As seen on Facebook)