Damp Box

It used to be the case that I worked from home. I would be "at work" at 6am so that I could be done by 3. This gave lots of time for pottery or anything else. And of course, I would be able to take an hour to trim if some pots were at just the right stage.

I no longer work from home. It was a difficult decision to switch positions because of the freedom of working from home. I was worried I wouldn't have enough time to keep enough production. I was worrying about the wrong thing. I can easily throw a kiln load in one sitting on a weeknight. The problem is scheduling trimming and handle attachment and other tasks that need to be accomplished during drying. This problem is especially compounded in the summer (peak production), or when the kiln is on since things dry faster.

Enter my latest project. Without this damp box I am completely relegated to making lidded and handled items to the weekend. Periods of time when I can repeatedly go to the studio and check drying progress. In order to make more pieces which require attachments I needed a more controllable drying situation.

I simply used some scrap lumber that I appropriated from the neighbours fence when it was replaced and built a box between two shelves. The interior is 30 inches by 27 inches by 11 inches. Obviously it's not huge. In fact it won't accommodate medium to large platters. But that's the purpose, it's for mugs and pitchers. The plastic I had lying around from renovating our bathroom and the hinges came off a dog fence that I built for my previous office (one dog had a habit of puking in our area). They're damn hinges, spring loaded to keep the door closed, very nice. So all in all I didn't spend a cent and I had something fun to do while the kiln fired. (Leo's cups are in there cooling as I type.)

The picture shows its inaugural run. Since the kiln fired to 1200C yesterday, it gets pretty warm in the garage. Too warm to allow these mugs to cool slow enough so the handles don't pop off so instead of just draping them in plastic like I normally do they got put in to the new toy. It worked great.

Sues bigger lamps

A really long time ago. My then sister in-law asked me to make her another set of lamps. Here is the first set she asked for. I think it was a year and a half ago or maybe only last June, she saw us at the Farmers Market again, and said that another set would be great for the living room. Larger though. Like two feet large. I explained that the tallest I can make is governed by the available space in my kiln and twenty one inches is the most I can make. These are about nineteen. I hope it's enough.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I had to make these. I threw them about two months ago and quite honestly it's the first time that I've ever thrown a set using sectional construction. They turned out reasonably close to each other. About half an inch different in height and the profile is quite different between the two but the glaze does make them an obvious set. I hope she likes them.

For the M^6G fetishists out there, this is Waterfall brown over Bright Sky Blue. It's cooled to 1050 C (from ^6) as fast as the kiln will cool (about 45 minutes) and then cooled at 70 C per hour until 800 C. This is more or less the schedule that R & H now use as published on their site. If you hold this combination at 1050 C for an hour or so after the initial cool you get a very beautiful lustourous brownish matte. But I know Sue wanted shinier brown so I didn't do the hold.

Teacups for Leo

In real life (away from clay) I work at a video game studio. Part of my work there involves liaising between technical artists and my group of programmers. Every two weeks on Fridays we celebrate our pay day by electing one poor computer geek to prepare some kind of dessert for the group. Last Friday was my turn.

Now, I'm an alright cook - I do the majority of the cooking for my wife and I, but when it comes to sweets she rules this roost. So, the extent of my contribution to the Friday payday morning dessert was supplying the vessels for my wifes excellent coffee mousse. (It's awesome and easy.) The reason I bring this up is that the technical director for the central art team was quite taken with the ash glazed teacups that I produced for my test cases during the winter. He liked the glossy black with green ash on top so he asked me for a set.

So, I finally got off my butt, cleaned up the studio and threw a board of yunomi for Leo. Here they are, I'll probably throw another board later as these didn't come out at all similar. He asked for six and while he said he doesn't care if they're identical these are mostly unacceptly unique to each other.