A Dirty Wheel is a Happy Wheel

At least that’s what I always thought; although it might not be that healthy (all that dust isn’t good for the lungs you know). Anyway, work is being produced!! And here are some photos of said work, check it out…





These first two pictures are of some orchid planters that I threw for Keturah to carve into. As you can see there are quite a few of them, and she’s a bit over whelmed.



Here are the four that she has already carved into, and they look great I think.



This is a photo of some cups (obviously) that I made just the other day. I have always been bad at handles but I think these ones came out okay.



This last photo is of some butter dishes and some Japanese style tea bowls (these are my favorite type of cup to make, mostly because there are no handles). Anyway, that is the work so far, it’s taking quite a while for me to get back in the habit of working in the studio, but I’m gaining momentum. Next big project for me is to convert my electric kiln to a propane kiln, it should be fun!

Oh, here are some stamps I was making the other day with some old wire tool handles and my dremel tool.

Teach it and they will come . . .

At least I hope so. Big news I (David) will be teaching a beginning Ceramics class at the Firehouse Art Center here in Norman starting May 31st. I’m really excited to start teaching again, I really love teaching pottery. Before this opportunity I was thinking about offering private lessons through our studio in our garage, but I think this way is more practical (and it’s not in a garage, but a real studio!!). So if you know anyone who would like to take a ceramics class let them know that now’s the time! Here is a link to the ceramics page on the Firehouse website; it gives all the important information i.e. cost, times, and dates.

This blog is about our new garage studio, and how it came to be…

I started work on the studio by building a table to work on. It’s L-shaped to allow the most surface space for the limited floor space we have. In this photo you can see the table coming to life, I had to construct it upside down and on saw horses because that’s the only way I could think to build it.



Here the table has been finished, and I was feeling really satisfied with myself. That is until I realized that it was really heavy, and I had to flip it right side up before it would be of any use at all. So I had to devise some really clever way of flipping it by myself without breaking any of the legs off.



So while I try to come up with a clever table flipping idea, lets move on to the “damp room”. Which is not really a room at all; it’s just a couple of shelves that I decided to wrap in plastic (which I thought was pretty clever way of keeping pots damp). Here is a picture of the shelves, and as you can see I already have the plastic hung up behind and underneath them.



And with the magic of (a lot of) duct tape and some strategically placed velcro we now have a fully in closed damp “space” ready to be used.



Okay back to the table flipping. So I did manage to come up with some really clever way of flipping it (of course this was after several very unclever ways that almost ended up with the table in pieces). I also put canvas on the longer part of the table so it can be used for wedging and other things involving clay. While the shorter part was left with the wood showing so that we can use it for other projects such as wood working and so forth. So here is picture of the studio at the end of day one of construction (oh, I also added a shelf above the table, which should come in pretty handy). You can see the table, with the canvas on the far side, and you can see the damp “area” off to the right.



Tomorrow I am off to the city to buy some clay, and have some Pho. Right now I am off to make some pizza for dinner.