Home Grown Pottery

Georgia National Fair Award 2007

2007-11-08T19:46:00.000-05:00

Below is a picture of a horsehair vase that I entered into the juried competition of Fine Arts during the Georgia National Fair. I won first place in the Amateur Division for Fine Crafts:Pottery and Glass category. I certainly wasn't expecting this but am glad now that I entered.

Raku & Horsehair Firing of 10/13/2007

2007-10-21T16:42:00.000-04:00

I spent Saturday morning doing some more raku and horsehair firing. It was a beautiful morning and unlike the last time the temperature was a whole lot better and only got into the middle 80's rather than than the 100's.

I got the first firing stared just after 7:00 and did 9 firings while firing 21 pots. Most of the firings went pretty well. The first firing was real good but the 2nd wasn't quite as good. The lp tank ran out of gas when the firing was about 75% completed and then when I finally got them fired the all 3 pots had big cracks in them. The 3rd firing was a little better and after some adjusting of the pots in the kiln and changing up the firing schedule a little bit the rest of the firing were okay. I have been trying to fire at least one horsehair pot with some raku and the trick is to get a high enough temperature to melt the glaze correctly while not getting the horsehair pots too hot to crack it.

I have added two sections to this blog which explain the raku and horsehair firing techniques which are located on the right side of the blog.

Below are pictures of the pots that I fired. I hope to do another firing in a couple of weeks as I get ready for the Dublin Service League's 44th Annual Antique Fair & Marketplace which this year has dedicated a special section called the Artist's Attic will contain art from 30+ plus artist from the local area. See the link in the Links section for more information.

Raku & Horsehair Firing of 08/11/2007

2007-08-12T15:07:00.000-04:00

I spent Saturday morning firing raku and horsehair pottery. The weather was awful hot and humid when I started setting up at 5:30 in the morning and it only got hotter as the morning went along. When I got the first firing going at 6:00 I was already soaking wet. The temperture was around 90 at 10:00 and around 100 by the time I quit at 11:30. I managed to get 5 firings done while firing 16 pots. 3 of the pots were test purposes and the other 13 came out pretty good. The pictures of the 13 pots are below. I hope to be doing a firing each month for the next 3 months in order to get ready for the fall and winter shows.

Raku & Horsehair Firing of 05/19/2007

2007-05-23T21:35:00.000-04:00

I spent Saturday firing raku and horsehair pottery. The weather was almost perfect as it was a little cool for thistime of year, there was not a cloud in the sky and there was some wind but I will take some wind if it will help keep the weather a little cooler. I started setting up just after 6:30 and had the kiln ready for the first firing a little after 7:00. I fired until just after 3:00 and fired 22 pots in 8 firings. I had 2 to crack too bad to sell and wasn't happy with a 3rd one but the others came out okay. On one of the horsehair pots I sprayed 100% soy sauce on it after applying the hair and another I sprayed 30% soy sauce mixed with 70% water. I'm not sure how much I like those but someone might like them so I will see what reaction I get from them when I put them up for sale.

These 5 pictures were taken by my a friend of mine named Cid Couture-White as I was doing the firings.

These are the pots I fired.

On this first pot I sprayed a solution of soy sauce and water and then sprayed ferrice chloride.
The second was sprayed with 100% soy sauce.

The candle holder on the left was sprayed with ferric chloride before it was placed in newspaper and covered with a metal container.

Pictures From The Celebration of Fine Arts

2006-11-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures of my booth at the Celebration of Fine Arts. The turnout wasn't too good because of the bad weather but we got some pretty good exposure anyway.

Horse Hair Firing and Raku Firing from November 18

2006-11-25T10:48:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures from my latest firing. It was a pretty successful firing.

Raku and Horsehair Firing on November 5th

2006-11-06T21:17:00.000-05:00

I did some more firing this past weekend in preparation for the Dublin Artists Guild's Celebration of Fine Art in conjunction with the Heart of Georgia Technical College's Festival of Trees the 21st and 22nd of this month and the Holiday Sale at the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation in Watkinsville, Georgia on December 2nd and 3rd.
Here are some pictured of the results of the firing.

More Firing Results

2006-10-05T21:07:00.000-04:00

I did some more Horse Hair Firing last Saturday and also did a cone 6 glaze firing.
Below are 2 views of one of the Horse Hair vases and one view from another.

The next vase was fired with Faux Wood Fired Brown glaze.

The last one is a test pot using the Oatmeal receipe from the Mastering Cone 6 Glazes Book by Ron Roy and Hesselberth.

Horse Hair Firing

2006-09-24T14:50:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a lot of throwing since my last entry and finally got around to doing some horse hair firing yesterday. I did 3 firing of 2 pots each and only got 2 pots to come out okay. I had bisque fired the pots to cone 014 and the ones that didn't come out okay had cracks. I will re-bisque fire the ones fired earlier and a couple of others to a higher cone and see if that will help eliminate the cracks. The first two pictures are of the same pot from opposite sides.

2006-06-26T10:36:00.000-04:00

I did 4 horse hair firings this past Saturday. I started the kiln up at 7:00 and was through by 10:30 and managed to beat this 90+ degrees heat we have had here lately. I fired 8 pots and 6 of them came out real good. The other 2 had cracks so they were discarded. I have placed pictures of two of them with this post.

Also I will be at the Dublin\Laurens Farmers Market this Saturday July 1st from 8 AM until 2 PM.

2006-06-07T10:21:00.000-04:00

Wow, it has been awhile since the last post. Since I got my wheel fixed back in April I have been concentrating on making pots for raku and horse hair firing. I finally got enough pots made to do a firing and last Saturday I fired 22 pots. I started at 7:30 and quit around 2:30 doing 7 firings. I've included pictures of 4 of the pots tha I fired.

The Carved Horse Hair Vase is Not For Sale.
The other Horse Hair Vase is $40.
The 2 raku vases are $30 each.

I will have a booth this Saturday at the Grand Opening of the Dublin/Laurens Famers Market. The hours are 8:00 until 2:00. There will be live entertainment and food vendors, other artist and oh yes, some local produce.

Market On Madison

2006-03-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

On Saturday March 18, the Dublin/Laurens Artists Guild held our annual spring art show. We have it on Super Saturday of the St. Patrick's Day Festival's month long celebration. This year we had it at the new Farmers Market and we included a student art show. Click on the link to the Dublin/Laurens Artist Guild to view pictures of the event. We had other artists from the community and four artists from Columbus. We had a very good turnout despite some cold and windy weather and the day was considered a huge success. I've included 4 pots that I created for the art show. All 4 of these were sold. I would have had more new pieces but my wheel broke before I could make any more. As soon as I get my wheel I will get back into production and make more pots.

St. Patrick's Festival Commission Update

2006-03-22T11:10:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday March 8th, Mrs. Ricks of the ST. Patrick's Fesival Committee and I met Leah Stanley at the office of the Courier-Herald Newpaper. I carried the 100 pots with me and we set them up in one of the conference room where Mrs. Stanley took pictures and interviewed us.

The article appeared in the paper on the 15th. A picture of one of the pots was in the upper left hand corner of the front page along with the page number where the article appeared. The article and pictures took up the whole 1st page of the Living Section. The printed a huge full color picture of the pots with the article placed to the left of the big picture. Another smaller picture appeared beneath the larger one that showed me presenting Mrs. icks with one of the pots. There was also another picture of some of the pots along with some of the other sourvenirs that appeared on another page in the paper.

The ladies of the committee carried all but 20 of the pots to the big Pancake Supper
the following afternoon and sold all that they carried by 7:15 and could have sold many more. The remaining pots were sold at a lunceon on Friday and at the Arts and Craft Show at the park on Saturday.

I think I had forgot to note that each pot was dated and serialized.

In a couple of weeks we will begin discussing next years project which will be a different type of pot and we may do 200 to 250 of them. The plan is to do a different piece each year and eventually get up to 500 per year.

St. Patrick's Festival Commission Update

2006-03-02T12:26:00.000-05:00

48 pots that were fired Tuesday night came out good also and the project is basically done. It's been a long process but a lot was learned.

St. Patricks Festival Commission Update

2006-03-01T09:41:00.000-05:00

The firing of the first 38 pots frm Monday night came out okay. Last night I fired 48 more pots and will check them this afternoon when I get home. I still have 14 to bisque fire, glaze and then glaze fire and hope to do that this weekend when the pots have dried out. I hope throw some vases tonight and tomorrow night to be used for horse hair firing.

St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-28T08:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got into the studio as soon as I got home. First I added the last ingredient, the Copper Carbonate, to the live glaze batch. Then I organized all the pots from 1 to 100 to see what was missing if any. I had two pots that I had used for testing so I had to take 2 from my reserve and add the sequence number to the bottom and put them out for drying. I have another 8 drying that are replacements for some that had to be used for testing and 3 more where the wax got on them in the wrong places that I will re-bisque for a total of 13 pots that are waiting to be re-bisqued. I have one that I used Sunday in the test glaze firing which is okay and is finished. I then started glazing 38 of the pots. First I had to pour the glaze into each of the pots then pour it out while swirling it around to coat the inside of each of the pots. Then I dipped the top part of each pot and then went back and dipped the bottom part, then the top again and then the bottom again to get 2 coats on each pot. It took until around 7:30 to get all of them glazed and to wipe off any excess glaze. I started the firing at 7:40 which meant that it would be 11:40 when I set the switches to high and could go to bed. I will check the ones I fired last night when I get home because they were still too hot this morning and it will take most of the day for them to cool off. I took about a 30 minute break to warm up and eat a bowl of chili. Then I went back out and then glazed the 48 remaining pots. I finished those just before 10:00. Those will get fired tonight if the ones from last night are okay.

Feb 27- St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-27T08:34:00.000-05:00

The test from Thursday night came out okay. The areas that were double dipped came out like i had hoped they would so I did another test Friday night this time dipping each pot twice. These had cooled by good by Saturday morning so I check them and they came out just right. I took those pots to Mrs. Ricks of the committee and she liked they way they looked so it was a go full steam ahead from there. After returning home I loaded the kiln with the remaining 60 pots for a bisque firing and then trimmed 10 extra pots I had thrown during the week. Then I waxed the bottom of the 40 pots that had already been bisqued and then brushed on the glaze to the logo area of each and then waxed that area so that it wouldn't be too thick after the rest of the glazing.

Sunday first started out as a nightmare. When I checked the kiln Sunday morning the firing rod hadn't dropped. I checked inside the kiln and one of the shelves had blocked it from dropping. Did that mean that the bisque firing was over fired and that all the pots in it were ruined. They looked okay but the only way to tell was to fire at least one of them and see what happened. Then I started making a 5 gallon batch of glaze for the real firing. As I was ready to add the last ingredient which was a colorant I noticed that I was about to pickup Copper Carbonate. I looked back at the recipe and noticed that it called for Cobalt Carbonate and that confused me. Which one had I used when I made up the 3 test batches? The only way I could tell was to make up a test batch using Cobalt Carbonate and then fire a pot with it and one with the previous test batch. That meant I couldn't finish with the 5 gallon batch so I made up that new test batch and glazed two more pots of each and also used two of the pots form the previous night's bisque firing that may have been over fired and then I fired them that afternoon. I did go ahead and add water to the 5 gallon batch and mixed it up good and got it to the thickness that I wanted. I will add the last ingredient tonight when I get home. Then I waxed the bottom of the remaining pots that were bisque fired Saturday night and then brushed on the glaze to the logo area of each and then waxed that area so that it wouldn't be too thick after the rest of the glazing. I finished working Sunday around 5:30. It was a long sunny cool day.

During the glaze test firing I did on Friday night I also fired this batter bowl. It came out pretty good and was pre-sold.

Feb 24- St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-24T13:40:00.000-05:00

Wednesday night I was up to 11:30 doing a bisque firing for 40+ of the commission pots plus a batter bowl I had thrown recently.

Thursday night I waxed and glazed 4 test pots and the batter bowl. I thinned down each version of the Emerald Green glaze and made them where the specific gravity of each was different by a couple of points. The specific gravity measures the or weight or thickness of the of a glaze. You take a bottle with a small neck, in my case an old plastic Sprite bottle, and get the weight of water and then you weigh the glaze in the same container and divide it's weight by the weight of the water and that gives you your specific gravity. Doing this and keeping up with it will tell you where the glaze fires best at. I double dipped each of the little pots twice on the top and just once on the rest of it. I got the firing started at 7:30 and was up again last night at 11:30 to turn the switches to high. I won't know how they came out until I get home this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed.

Feb 22 - St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-24T13:38:00.000-05:00

The latest round of testing was a little better. This time the pots were a little over glazed. There was one difference between these pots and the ones used in the first two test firing. The pots from the first two test firings were bisque fired using the long bisque firing schedule and these latest were done using my regular bisque schedule. The difference in time is about 3 hours. I loaded the kild this morning with around 40 pots and will do a bisque firing tonight. I will fire these as long as I can but it might not be the whole 9 hours

Feb 20 - St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-24T13:37:00.000-05:00

Sunday I was in the studio by 12:00 and worked until 5:45. I finished trimming the last of the pots and then made two versions of another emerald green glaze. I also did a bisque firing and tonight I will glaze and fire the 5 test pots. One of them better come out okay or I'm in deep dodo. I'm sure I will have to throw a few more pots because I will probably mess us at a few of them glazing. If I had more time I would have chunked a few of the pots I threw but I have to go with what I have as long as any of them don't get messed up in the glaze firing. If everything goes all right with the glaze firing then I will probably do a bisque firing Tuesday or Wednesday night, then spend the next night waxing and glazing then try a live firing Thursday night. Then I will do the final bisque and glaze firing over the weekend.

Feb 18 - St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-24T13:36:00.000-05:00

Whew! I just finished trimming another 30 plus pots. I got started around 9:30 and worked until just after 12:00 before I broke for lunch. I was right back out there within 30 minutes. The weather was warm enough for a while that I could keep the doors open then it started raining around 3:00 and the temperature dropped and I had to shut the doors and turn on some heat. Tomorrow I will make another test glaze and start a bisque firing and then try to finish trimming if the remaining pots are dry enough.

Feb 17 - St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-24T13:35:00.000-05:00

I was able to throw another 15 pots last night but wasn't as successful as the night before. I had to use 17 clay ball to get the 15. I have now thrown 114 pots and will use about 5 of them for testing and 9 left over to be used for replacements if I mess up in trimming or if those last ones just look better than some of the others. I'm hoping that will be all the throwing. I have a lot of trimming to do and will get started on that early in the morning. I also have one more glaze recipe to try and I may make a batch of that for testing. Sunday I hope to bisque fire some more pots for testing and maybe do another glaze firing Monday night. I only have 11 more days to finish this project and I've got a feeling it's going to take every one of those to get it done.

Feb 16 - St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-24T13:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning Frenassee Doughety and I taped a segment on the Pam Green show on channel 35 here in Dublin. We talked about the art guild's upcoming St. Patricks art show to be held at the new famers market on March 18th, about some of the artist and about our month guild meetings.

Last night I worked in the studio from 6:15 to 9:45. I threw 15 vases and didn't mess up even one of them. I now have thrown 94 and will still need to throw at least 15 more to have enough for the 100. I hope to be able to throw the rest of them tonight then I can continue on with trimming and then doing a bisque firing and another test glaze firing when I get enough dry pots.

Feb 15 - St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-24T13:29:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't updated in so long. I've been working every night during the week and most of the day on weekends on this project. I have now thrown just over 80 pots.

Last Saturday afternoon I made up 5 test batches of 2 separate emerald green glazes. I remade the original glaze using 90%, 80% and 70% of the colorants and a new glaze using 100% and 80% of the colorants. I fired 8 pots using the test glazes on Sunday afternoon. I used the last of the test pots I had thrown earlier using red clay and 4 tumblers made with white clay. The new glaze didn't look good at all. The old remade glaze looked okay on the white clay but were not thick enough for the red clay so I will test again using a thicker application of glaze as soon as I can get some dry pots bisque fired.

This week I have been trimming some of the pots that were dry enough. So far I have trimmed just over 40 pots and also 4 or 5 that I will use for retesting the glaze. I still nned to throw about 30 more pots and will start back on that tonight.

I feel like I am coming down with a chest cold as my chest feels tight. I don't have time to be sick right now since I am supposed to be through with this project by March 1.

Feb 6 - St. Patricks Festival Committee Pottery Commission Update

2006-02-24T13:18:00.000-05:00

The first picture is the first test of the little vase or pot I made for the St. Patricks Fesival Committee. The second is the first 34 pots that I threw this past weekend. I am going to try to throw 40 this week after work and another 40 next weekend. That will give me plenty of extras to work with in case some get messed up when they are stamped, trimmed or glazed.

Friday, February 03, 2006

2006-02-17T12:42:00.000-05:00

Last month I was awarded a commission by the Dublin Georgia St. Patrick's Day Festival Committee to produce 100 small vases similar to a sample vase one of the ladies had. The vases will be 3" high and 3" wide. I threw 10 test vases with those dimension, glazed them with an emerald green glaze I made and fired 5 of them this past Tuesday night. The vases shrunk to 3" high and 2.75" wide and the glaze was a little to dark. On Wednesday I showed the two ladies in charge of the commission the test and they agreed abut the size and the glaze and gave me the okay to cotinue on with the project while making them a little larger and making the glaze lighter. I have to complete this project by March 1st and hope to get a lot accomplished this weekend. We'll see how it goes.