AMAZING WEEKEND

First a HUGE thank you to Amy Kline and Pottery West for letting us us the facility and having such amazing equipment!
Remember I am in Vegas; most of the weekend was in the mid-90's - it was great! Here is our firing schedule. We held about 4 hours, that should be enough time to develop some great color and give is some good sparkly pots.

WOOD SODA	July 15-17 2011				Cone pack
					010; 06; 8;9;11
Crew	Time	upper temp	lower temp		notes
	July 14/15/16
Marc R					Cleaned Kiln
Danni					CleanedFurniture
John G					Vacuum, kiln wash shelves, wadding
Thom B					Split wood, grind bag wall, wadding
Donna/Brian (son)					Split wood, brought personal chain saw...
Thom\John					Purchased 13 new shelves (last firing purchased 8)
	07/16/11
John Thom Beth	2pm – 7:30p				Load (planned 8am start – had to finish prep)
Thom B John Beth Morgan	730	96	96		Start Fire
Thom Beth (Morgan)	830	18	18		Probe wrong
Thom Beth (Morgan)	930				Probe wrong
Thom Beth (Morgan)	1030	245
Thom Beth (Morgan)	1130	300
John Beth (Morgan)	1230	364
John Brian (son)	200	324	356		Probe Died Pulled new probe
John Brian (son)	300	550	390		moving to box
John Brian (son)	400	650	516
John Brian (son)	500	900	690
John Brian (son)	600	1100	812
Thom John Brian (son)	700	1301	1030
Thom John Brian (son)	800	1490	1229
Thom John Brian (son) Donna	900	1775	1500		Reduction
Thom John Brian (son) Donna	930	1600	1400
Thom John Brian (son) Donna	1000	1800	1600		fire box full:coal bed high – open 2 passive (high)
Thom John	1100	1962	1819		switch to pine only
Thom John Marc Mary	1130	2118			stirring ash every 10 to 15
Marc Mary	1200	2100
marc Mary	1225	2150
marc Mary	100	2145			50/50 pine/mahogany
marc Mary	125	2175			bed still high
marc Mary thom	145	2180	2157
marc Mary thom	215	2170	2180		c8 bending middle
marc Mary thom	250	2186	2179		coal bed nice – one passive out
marc Mary thom	315	2180	2150
marc Mary thom	335	2211	2195
marc Mary Thom	420	2208	2200
marc Mary Thom	445	2220	2250		c8 down, c9 starting to bend (bottom/middle)
marc Mary Thom	500	2245	2208
Thom B John	600	2260	2240		c9 bending all over
Thom B John Donna	700	2250	2250		Added soda as sawdust – bury box only
					50/50 mix (5lb total) over 3 stokes(flutter damper)
Thom B John Donna	830	2201	2190		high ash bed
Thom B John Donna	930	2250			HOLDING
Thom B John Donna	1030	2267	2226		c11 bending C11 down in middle
Thom B John Donna	1130	2350	2270		HOLDING
Thom B John Donna	1200				Closed – temp dropped to 2100 in 8 minutes
Opening July 21 – 3pm					Note: Firing of Refrigerator with Mr. Alyiss took
					took place 6am to 5pm on 7/17
					Total wood used 2.5 cords.
					Need to look at termites and carpenter bees in pile

WOOD FIRE WEEKEND

Spent the last 14 hours glazing pieces for the Wood Soda Firing at Pottery West.

Glazed the "Bento Boxes" using a combination of flashing slips and glaze. They should be amazing! I decided to try using a latex wax and Aluminum Hydrate on the "lids" for the forms. Off to Aardvard Clay and Supply to teach class....

The photos I keep forgetting to add

Playing with the idea of "Lunch Boxes" -- Would have loved to open my locker at school or work to find one of these dudes with my lunch in it.... Now that they are to this point, firing, should prove to be a wadding nightmare.


The box scooter arrived in....Scooter -- YEAH

FUN STUFF

first spent a $1.75 to fill the tank on my new ride -- Cruising back and forth to studio on a scooter: Wearing a helmet as the Vegas drivers are NUTS!

Just got an email that my face mug "SPIDEY DUDE" was featured on a new artist blog; http://etsianartists.blogspot.com/2011/07/wonderful-wednesdays.html

Check it out.

Tomorrow I start splitting wood --- who's idea was it to wood fire when its 110 outside; oh it was mine.

New Adventure --

My new project: Bento Boxes, sort of...

Found a open to interpretation, the theme, “To Go,” hopes to inspire both vessel and sculpture creation, from the obvious flasks, thermoses, car cups, lunch boxes, things with lids, wheels… to the more outrageous or unpredictable. The possibilities are endless – surprise us!

I think this is a fun idea, even if I don't enter the show.

process photos soon

IT'S ALREADY MID JUNE....

So when last I blogged, I was loading the Wood Soda Kiln at Pottery West. The firing was AMAZING lots of really good work. We had a slight mishap, we used three of the hollow core shelves at the front of the load. Those shelves are now dead, and hollow core shelves are in general are dead to me.

For the last two weekends I have been in north of Salt Lake City selling pots. The first show was in Ogden UT, a great one day art show. The weather was amazing and the folks there ate up the new product.

Last weekend I was in Logan UT, it was a three day show called LOGAN SUMMERFEST. It was interesting. I did sell one of my favorite pieces from the Soda Fire. I was told told by the women who bought it was going to be a Father's Day gift. Her dad is a collector...

Memorial Day Weekend

What better way to kick off the summer heat in Las Vegas then an old fashion Wood Soda firing - we a Japanese smokeless design. So John Gregg, Marc Rosenthal and Myself (and some great students at Pottery West in Las Vegas) have been splitting wood, grinding shelves and furniture, kiln washing all the parts and glazing like mad.

We will be starting to load this Saturday (5/28) early in the day, and hope to start the fire by 8pm. I think we will be doing a 30hr firing, we could do it much faster, like 18 hours, but who wants broken pots, and non-developed color. The plan is 100 degrees pr hour for the first 800, then a bit faster to 1250. After that we can let it rip. Of course there is reduction at 010, and reduction again at cone 9.

I would really like the kiln to get to cone 11 bending, and keep it in that area for for four hours or so. Talking with Tom Coleman the other day, he said four hour hold should be fine, he would rather it be about six to get the best color development. We will see where our energy and labor force is..... I am already planning on DENNY'S very early Monday morning.

Some photos from the last wood soda fire in February....












What better way to kick off the summer heat in Las Vegas then an old fashion Wood Soda firing - we a Japanese smokeless design. So John Gregg, Mark Rosenthal and Myself (and some great students at Pottery West in Las Vegas) have been splitting wood, grinding shelves and furniture, kiln washing all the parts and glazing like mad.

We will be starting to load this Saturday (5/28) early in the day, and hope to start the fire by 8pm. I think we will be doing a 30hr firing, we could do it much faster, like 18 hours, but who wants broken pots, and non-developed color. The plan is 100 degrees pr hour for the first 800, then a bit faster to 1250. After that we can let it rip. Of course there is reduction in there, and again at cone 9. But I would really like the kiln to get to cone 11 bending, and keep it in that area for for four hours or so. Talking with Tom Coleman the other day, he said four hour hold should be fine, he would rather it be about six to get the best color development. We will see where our energy and labor force is..... I am already planning on DENNY'S very early Monday morning.

Some photos from the last wood soda fire in February....