clay: a few answers from the kiln gods

I went to my other clay studio yesterday, but merely moistened what’s left of my dark clay (spoons? salt and pepper pots?) because I wasn’t quite satisfied with the glazes on my test pots. Meral said she loved the Majolica or white gloss glaze. I wish I had dipped the dish a second time because those thicker white spots must be where I touched up the marks from the tines of the tongs. Also I needed to fill in the hatch marks on the rim with white underglaze rather than relying on the overglaze to seep into them. However, that's the whole point of test tiles--to see what I like and adjust how I will glaze the 4 large platters and bowls I made. That Laguna W3 Brown sure fires dark--a lot like Aardvark's Obsidian.               

 

I liked the Ghost Blue glaze on the dark clay, but that won't be the plan for my next glazing. I wonder if I would've gotten the same stark effect if I had used a Bmix? I've 4 bisque rimmed bowls with the same kind of hatch marking, and if I glaze the platters in Copper Blue, I should probably adhere light blue underglaze and red in the hatch marks too.  

Below on the left, I glazed a test pot differently with both underglaze and overglaze, but did not see it on the shelf yet. Hopefully when I go to the studio today, I'll find it. I did love Christa's mug in the same dark clay so much that I look a picture of her whimsical piece. I love the detail of the eyebrows or rather the stylus ball pattern pressed into above the browline.

The whole crew that day added faces into their pots and made a nice family. I love the coils that Melissa added to her face pot.

I admired the Floating Blue on Melissa's other pot, and she let me take a picture for the sake of glaze memory. I loved the Copper Blue on my planter and wish there had been more red pooling on to it other than that dark spot I see. It's really fantastic, and so I may have to do another test pot with hatch marks to see if more of that copper or red shows up on bare surface.

Finally I took a picture of my maker's mark to send to one of the managers of the clay studio for their directory to identify work. 

And since I was in a quandary of what glaze to use on my plates and bowls, I left to organize my storage unit nearby. My IKEA shelves are not square, but it was stable enough for me to move it into the storage locker and start putting crap on it. I want to see what fabrics I have, and so I'll open and face out the boxes in order to pick and grab the fabrics as I sew them rather than buy even more fabric. I don't want to buy clear organization bins as I'm trying to be more minimalist and less consumerist--the shelves can look pretty and neat much later as I use up all that damn fabric. My goal is to use up all my stash before I retire from both my day job and perhaps from sewing hobby. Sheesh, will you look at all the fucking boxes?!? Too much, too much.

 

Once at home, I decompressed from my summer "job" by reading the latest issue of Food and Wine. There's a recipe in the summer issue on grilling for clam pizza.

And Cecilia just happens to be fermenting dough, and so the plan is to break out my Ooni and bake a clam pie or two.