Tragedy, figuring it out and come buy my pots!

 

When I searched the google for "Timmy Tabasco" this was the second image that came up.  I assure you this is not Timmy Tabasco.

My senior year of high school one of the last projects we tackled in my speech class was to write and produce a short television program.  The show my group developed was a situational comedy about a guy who gets put in the witness protection program.  I believe it was called "Where's Walter?" or something like that.  The plot went something like this.

One day as Walter is walking down the street some mob thugs drop a guy on his dog.  (I was that guy dropped on a dog.  They actually threw me off the roof of the school...onto padding of course.  It was pretty freaking cool.)  After witnessing this mob murder Walter testifies to put Jimmy the Squid (the mob boss) in jail and is put in the witness protection program.  For some reason he has to share a room with someone else in the witness protection program.  This new room mate is none other than Timmy Tabasco, a ex-GI red neck on the run from the Chinese mafia.  I was also Timmy Tabasco.  Wackiness ensues.  There are candy-grams, slow speed foot chases and probably not that much oh so much more.

Granted this was only a crappy high school project, but it was awesome...or at least we thought so.  You are no doubt exceedingly disappointed after three weeks of build up, and I don't blame you.

There is probably still a tape of that spectacular show pilot floating around somewhere.  If Dan, Aaron or Steve happen to have a copy of it (or, even less likely, if they happen to read this), I will give you a large Fortel's pizza for a copy of it.

And now that that foolishness is out of the way...

Tragedy!

There are few things sadder than a broken coffee mug.

The other day my son knocked my Brandon Phillips coffee mug off the table and broke it.  It was probably the mug I used most often...the perfect size for a cup of coffee or whiskey.  And a freaking fantastic handle that was just about perfect for how I hold a coffee cup.  Oh well, so it goes.

For something a little less tragic, here are the results of the red clay experiment.

Wishy-washy spoon rests

Wishy-washy sheep

Wishy-washy wheat

There are obviously a few problems here, beside the collapsible handles.  I think the slip was a bit too thin to begin with.  Combine that with them being over fired and you get a washy, thin look that is not all together pleasing.  Due to the over firing the lids also stuck on the jars.  Luckily I only mangled one while knocking them loose.  Most of the batch ended up on the shard pile. 

I did have a couple that did not make it into that first round, though, so I tossed them in with the next bisque firing.

Add caption

"I pour poorly!"

Neither will be sold due to cracks (not sure why/how those showed up), but they are still structurally sound, so I will  probably hold onto them for a while.  At least the platter.  The lid of the teapot fits a little too snug and traps air when pouring, so it is kind of a pain to use.

I will probably pursue this style again soon, but not until I do a little more research.

Finally, a few shots of the glaze load I just unloaded this morning.

Train!

 

Collaborative piece with my 2 year old son.

This is another piece my wife has been bugging me to make for a while.  One of the custom items I make is a "surprise" mug; personalized on the outside with a figurine on the inside.  Now I will always have an example on hand that I can take to shows.  I would actually like to make a catalog to take instead of just examples, but that is still in the works.

Whiskey cups, lidded jars, bottles...and balloons!

The mark of the werewolf!

It was a pretty small load because I had to get some custom orders done, but I was happy with how everything turned out, especially the reds.  I had been having some trouble with getting the color I wanted, but I think I have the formula figured out now.

And finally (again), if anyone is in the St. Louis region, I will be at a show in St. Charles this weekend.  Mosaics goes from 4pm Friday to 5pm Sunday.  It looks like the weather is going to cooperate, so come up and see me!

Up next...capybara! 

Bats, bags and seeing red...

 

I told my wife that 2013 was going to be the year of the beard.  She scoffed at the idea, citing the fact that thus far in my 30 years of life the extent of my facial hair growth has stopped at scraggly chin hairs.  We shall see...

Ok, I have a shit ton of pictures to put up, so words will be minimal.  First up, making a new bast system.  I never seem to have enough bats when making jars and such so I worked up this rig.  Now I will have a copious amount of cheap bats that will store easily and such.

Tools of the trade: 6.5 inch square cut out of one sheet of masonite, glued to a second sheet of masonite, 6.5 inch squares cut for bats.

Holes drilled for bat pins and notch cut for easy removal of bats.

Edges of bat trimmed down to fit inside splash pan.

New bat system on the wheel with bat in place.

In use.

Jar and lid successfully thrown on new bats and taking up very little space.

I think I may need to put a couple coats of shellac on everything to keep it from warping, but all in all I think it will work quite well.

Last week I went up to Krueger Pottery to grab some supplies I desperately needed to finish up some custom orders and such.  I got a bunch of glaze/slip materials, mostly in 50lb bags as they are much cheaper that way.  The only problem now is that I am not sure where I am going to store everything.  Oh well, small problems.

I also got a Talisman hand sieve to work up my slips and glazes.  I had been having a slight problem with clumps and bits of muck in some of the slips. 

The sieve works fine, but it is a bit smaller than I expected.  The description said it would fit on a "normal size" bucket, which I naturally assume means a 5 gallon bucket, but not so...falls right in.  I guess I will have to make an adapter ring so the sieve can sit on the buckets without having to muck about with it.

I also got a couple bags of plaster so I can finally finish up my reclaim bin.  Now I can recycle the many many pounds of slop clay that have been sitting around the studio.

It does, however, weight just slightly less than an elephant, so I will have to find a good, mostly permanent place for it in the studio.

Yesterday I loaded and fired a glaze load, which is currently cooling.  It is probably cool enough to take a peek now, but I am going to wait a little while yet.  Pictures of finished work next post.  For now here are some pictures pre-firing.

Bisque-ware pre-glazing.

Figures for surprise mugs.  Freaking great and much fun to make.

At ye olde pottery shop I also picked up a underglaze pencil to play around with.  I have tried underglaze sticks before with not very good results.  They were difficult to sharpen and almost impossible to get any detail with.  This new one, though, is cased in wood making it very easy to sharpen.  It also seems to be a bit harder than the last ones I tried, so it holds a tip longer and gets better detail.  My only complaint so far is that they smudge a bit, so I have to be pretty careful while working on pieces.  This, of course, is a pretty minor problem and should be an easy fix.

Underglaze pencil experiments.

I really enjoyed drawing on the pots and was very happy with how the illustrations came out.  We will see how they look after being glazed and fired.

And last but not least, a chance to Philbeck it up.

I got a bucket of terra cotta clay from who knows where and it has been sitting around for quite a while.  The other day I finally wedged it up and ended up with about 35 pounds or so of nice red clay.  Not enough to do much with, but plenty to play around with.

Up next...yoga?