breaking up is hard to do...

Snort....just kidding! Although I will admit to separation anxiety prior to this months market day, my usual market buddy had a sicky this month so mucho grande head space arranging needed to happen before sunday..... As it was a wild and windy day in Stirling a fair amount of hangin on to the gazebo was called for! And a lovely day with copious amounts of visitors which was just brilliant and I really didn't have a moment to myself til after lunch but that soon passed. Considering the crowd sparcity it was a good day and of course being well prepared with loads of clothing layers!! After experiencing too many frozen days I'm getting smarts about these winter days :))

My compressed market setup piccies, new mini tiles, stock of lil birdie and a smattering of new raku and some Obvara. Last week my fello Obvaries and I had a group burn at Annas place..and what a lovely day, the vids below.

And getting a couple of hours studio time to fill up the kiln again for my next Tagine firing. Gas delivery ordered for next week so weather  willing I can get these guys through the kiln asap. That last bunch of shino mugs inspired me, narrow necks and a slight tapering, oooh and a batch of teapots hiding under plastic somewhere.....mmm noice. So excited to hear a little package of one of those mugs made it to Melbourne safely today, happy cuppa time Georgia!!

  

And dont forget Mug Day is back! Milan Rouge this Sunday 30th June. Head on up the freeway it's the first set of shops at the roundabout.

got a minute up my sleeve...

So with an easy day ahead of me and the cleaning is done a lil photoshoot is called for...
This last kiln load was an entire toss up, I could have been totally pedantic and made a third batch of shino glaze but as I was feeling lucky....I glazed everything half and half of both buckets of shino....so here's what happened. I'm at the club as usual on a tuesday night and mixing up glazes all six buckets were low... I'm meticulously marking off weighing out all the glaze ingredients and Kevin comes over to chat about something then I notice the 500g weight on the end of the scale....oh crup!!
now did I finish putting in the 500's or did I just add it to the remaining amount....dang....So insteps Matt and his brilliant brain we work out that its 22% so go through all the other ingredients and add 22% of them and hope thats all I did wrong....So to be on the safe side I mixed up another batch of shino at home and of course I'm out of soda ash....now I could waste 1+1/2hrs driving across town to the 'slug mill' or I could wrack my brain for a substitute... now I have done enough glaze classes to know there are substitutes or equivalents to be found in the supermarket or the hardware store.. So off to the hardware store I know where the pool stuff is....and there tis on the shelf Soda Ash...brilliant
So I get home and $10 later I have 2kg of what I need, I crack open the bag and of course its a different grade, quite coarse so then I think I can take a punt...Ive bought it now!
So that's what I decided bung her in and get on with glazing..

The tall mugs were glazed with the 22% batch and all the tagines too..
The small bowls were all with the pool soda ash..
So how cool to crack the kiln on sunday and both glazes are great! the pool soda ash batch is very smooth even the glaze in the bucket is really soft to the touch, so whatever difference it makes I like it!

These are tenmoku with Michael coffee's white over them and they look a bit thin to me so i over glazed with B7... nice! 

 All the cups and mugs are off to Milan Rouge contemporary craft & design for Mug day 30th June, Oak Plaza Stirling

and some fat blue chun dipped several times..over a couple of days

This plate had been in the cupboard for about 6months..

As for the tagines I have 6 bisqued and 3 fired and lost one already to minor cracking, hope the rest of the firings have a better success rate..

More batts are on there way so I can get production up and running...only 17 to go :P

and some lovely straight up mugs with strap pulled handles...so nice, might have to keep one of these too. So now for the separation anxiety wanting to keep more than I should and needing to sell the lots really.. Anyhoo I'm back at it after a nasty bout of the flu, not a great start to the season but hope I'm done for a while that one was painful with bad back pain and really painful joints, I spent a whole week on the couch and watch way too many movies.... saw some good ones though, really liked Identity Thief with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, Guilt Trip with Seth Rogan and Barbra Streisand - she really should make more comedies and Arni in The last Stand, messy but great!

Gulgong Road Trip Pt 2

The roofs of Gulgong

Kirsten Coelho

Well time is flying by and grabbing a minute to edit has been a bit of a challenge, so here's part 2 of our road trip, a bit more of skippy since I don't have any night footage of the real things!! Man they were out there lining the roads ready to pounce, pity I didn't have any night vision goggles they would have been handy :P.

This episode features the substantial pot dance section and you can see the whole thing in high res on my youtube channel. Loads of fun and tres messy, I dont think connie's white jacket survived the oxide splashes it was covered, you can see her front row directly across from me.

There's been loads happening in the studio, the Hive works are all delivered and survived which is amazing but I did fire really slowly but it's great for all the participants to get their work in one piece.
Hopefully tomorrow i'll get all the cups and bowls glazed plus the first of the Tagines and a firing Saturday perhaps, i'll need to check my gas levels on the last firing log and get that kiln filled!

This episode features Kirstsen Coelho, Jeff Mincham, Diana Fayt and of course the pot deco crew..