was a real nail biter. At 4am, 10 hours into the firing, I realized that I had not gauged my propane reserves properly, when I looked at the tanks and realized that they were only about 1/5 full and covered with a thick layer of ice. I immediately put the water hose on them to melt the ice and keep them from freezing again, then I chewed my nails until 8:30 am when I could finally call the gas company for fresh tanks. They arrived just after 9am, and good thing to because I only had about 2 inches of fuel left in the tanks at that point.
The firing ran a total of about 18 hours, which is fairly normal for this type of firing, and most things came out ok, with a few exceptions:
I’ve gotten pretty far behind keeping up with the blog, falling into the bad habit of making small posts to Facebook. One of my areas of increased effort over the next year will be to work more on maintaining the blog, and getting it more integrated with other forms of social media. Trying to keep track of them all is like trying to herd cats.
I had made one promise to show before/after pictures for a couple of pieces, the first of which is the slab/paddle built sake chiller w/ feet and lugs:
raw unglazedFired piece, Chosen Karatsu style glaze. Matchbook for scale.Underside detail. Fired on shells, feet not touching the shelf.Glaze detail
The other thing I’ve been working on since early this year is getting a usable kohiki/clear glaze combination, because for some reason a lot of customers have been requesting white work. They have also been requesting black, so I’ve been working on getting a reliable semi matte black glaze. Mission not quite accomplished, but I feel I’m most of the way there. Here is the kohiki I’ve come up with and I am happy with it:
Kohiki cups. Cup on the left is unused. Middle has been used a bit, and right has been used a lot. The patina is beautiful in my opinion, and the fineness of the crackle is something I’ve been wanting for a long time in my work.Various guinomi from 2015, mostly from the fall firing. Guinomi make great gyokuro drinking cups.Seabirds on white.The other thing I have started doing is Japanese kana inspired brushwork, except with English. This cup is decorated with vertical English writing, a Goethe quote I like: “Whatever you can do, or think you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” One of the other said: “Don’t be a dick.” These were more popular than I had anticipated and are currently sold out. Definitely making more!
Here are some of the pieces with the new black glaze. It seems to look best thin, and as with most glazes looks nicer over interesting wild clays rather than processed clays.
Type 1 semi matte black Katakuchi with black lacquer repairs.Type 1 semi matte black dish.matte type 2: two black glazes layered, makes a fatter glaze surface.
Just a short post of some pictures from the studio sale this weekend.
The other thing I have started doing is Japanese kana inspired brushwork, except with English. This cup is decorated with vertical English writing, a Goethe quote I like: “Whatever you can do, or think you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” One of the other said: “Don’t be a dick.” These were more popular than I had anticipated and are currently sold out. Definitely making more!
Seabirds on white.
Kohiki cups. Cup on the left is unused. Middle has been used a bit, and right has been used a lot. The patina is beautiful in my opinion, and the fineness of the crackle is something I’ve been wanting for a long time in my work.
Various guinomi from 2015, mostly from the fall firing. Guinomi make great gyokuro drinking cups.
I had to make a batch of slab plates after the fall wood kiln firing, because every one of my slabs cracked in that firing. Turns out the clay I used was high in silica, and didn’t agree with the long wood kiln firing. The silica turned into cristabolite, and all pots made with that clay experienced shivering, or cracking, no matter what glaze they were paired with, and across a range of temperatures.
Forward a few weeks, and I’m frantically trying to get some replacement plates fired because this weekend is the fall open studio event, followed by an exhibition in Nagasaki during the first week of Dec.
For the most part this firing went well, aside from the fact that I exploded my large platter. Drat.
Sploded plate. Miraculously it is in one piece (sort of).
The exceptions to the one piece thing…
oval slab plates, a few with small cracks
Square slab plates
small slabs with 4 types of ash glazes intermixing
I have been working on coil and paddle pots these last few days. This is a sequence of photos from a jar I made today. It’s not very big, probably about 36 cm across.
A lot has happened over the last month since the Karatsu pottery festival, mostly cleaning, shelf building, and shifting things around in the studio in preparation for the open studio event which happened this last weekend from June 19th to June 21st.
In rough chronological order, here is what has happened in May:
Plates formed over wood slabs of various sizes
Paddled slab plates en masse…
We got our garden planted and our first Jalapenos soon followed!
This year’s small Jalapeno crop. Not many, but it’s a start.
Another type of crop: Good batch of Madara Karatsu guinomi from late April firing. Body is mostly crushed sandstone with a bit of native low iron clay to help keep things together.
Madara Karatsu guinomi from spring gas firing.
In prep for the open studio event, I cleaned the deck and brickwork of the backyard. I did not realize just how overgrown with algae and moss it had become until it was clean again.
The deck and bricks after being power washed. Almost like a new backyard.
One of the worst sections, but it felt really cathartic blasting all of that green away, leaving nice clean trails of clear, brown wood.
Before After pic of the deck, what a difference!
Entrance to the yard event space, tents and blue tarps up to keep out the rain. Luckily, although it threatened a few times, it never really rained, and the last day was actually sunny and hot. This is the middle of monsoon season folks, we totally lucked out.
Emeth and Shimauchi san’s burgers. Best burgers in Nagasaki. Best burgers in Saga for 3 days only.
The spot for gamblers. 500 yen per turn, no losers. One grand prize, 15 second place prizes, 25 3rd place prizes, and 100 4th place prizes. One grand prize went out every single day of the 3 day event. Happy customers!
Pot lottery wheel. No losers here, everyone walks away with a pot, some better than others…
This discount table was a new strategy for me. Turned out to be great for turning older pots into cash and additional storage space in my studio showroom.
My discount table, holding everything I haven’t sold in 6 years that I couldn’t bear to hammer. I think about 300 of these pots found new homes.
Knife and tool maker, really nice stuff for reasonable prices
Knives and tools from Matsubara forge, in Nagasaki.
Really big caterpillar!
A friend I discovered during the open studio event. Never seen one like this before.
