A Kiln by another name would fire just as hot...

The last two weeks haven’t been that interesting just chugging along with those prayer wheels.  This came to a halt when I got to the decorating phase, I just didn’t have the materials I needed to continue.  So I posted a few videos to Facebook with the twist that I actually explain what I’m doing instead of just playing music.  I think I enjoy explaining a lot more, it feels a lot like teaching and I love to teach people about pottery.  So that was everything new until last Friday when I drove up to Paseo Pottery and bought/ordered a kiln!!! and picked up some chemicals to make glazes with.  The kiln and a few of the chemicals have to be shipped to me, but I was able to take home most of the colorants (i.e. Iron ox, manganese diox, Rutile, and Nickel carb).  This means that while I wait for my kiln to arrive I can work on finishing those prayer wheels.  I’m super excited that I will be able to have finished work within a month or two, also excited that I don’t have to use this kiln to try and glaze in anymore.  I will continue to use it for horsehair and raku firings though.  So look for finished work coming in the next month or so, I will keep you up to date on what I’m working on and how things are coming along.  Thanks for visiting!

An update and an inquiry.

Ewan has become an outside baby since the last time I posted here.  So here is the obligatory baby picture.

And now for something completely different...  I’m thinking of starting a Kickstarter to buy a kiln, and I just wanted to run a few things past my “vast” audience.  I’ve been trying to think of gifts/incentives to give out for various levels of giving.  So far I have:

5- Hand written thank you card.

10-spoon rest/tea bag holder

20- Japanese style tea bowl (chawan).

40- Two Japanese tea bowls (chawans)

50- Four large(ish) matching tumblers or tea bowls

100-four Japanese style tea bowls (chawans), honey/sugar container, and creamer container.

150-3 hour lesson where I come to you to teach hand building or throwing, or you can come to the studio.  Lessons can be for any age.

If you have any ideas for other or better incentives please let me know, I’m completely open to suggestions.  I seem to be moving fairly slowly on this front, but I would like to have a kiln set up within the year.  I think the goal for this project would be around 7,000.  I’m looking at this kiln, the Olympic DD14 Down Draft.  It’s the largest kiln I can get without needing to use a forklift.  It will cost around 7,000 after I add the shelving kit and get a larger gas meter.  Thanks for reading.

General Update

It’s been a while since I last posted and I wanted to just let everyone know what was going in the days of our lives. As the world turns I have been teaching my pottery class down at the Firehouse Art Center for about four weeks now. I’m really enjoying it and I have great kids to work with, and they all are at different levels of experience so it makes each class more interesting (because they each have different goals they want to reach). We all had a really bad storm this past week that wreaked havoc on the city of Norman, it tore down a bunch of fences, took off some roofs, and shut down electricity in some areas for a couple of days. The worst we got was no electricity for about a day, and the hail did a number on our garden. Mainly it looked like a couple of guys took machine guns to it, every plant had broken stems, every leaf was ripped apart, and the few fruits we had looked like they had exploded. But it’s on the rebound. We also had to take out our corn; ants had taken up residence in the few tiny ears that were growing, so they went in to the compost pile. We have also let the garden in the very back get over run by grass (it’s the plot with the pumpkins, watermelons, and artichokes), it’s to the point now that I feel it would be easier to just get a tiller and till it up again instead of trying to do it by hand or with a hoe. Keturah has started to experiment with making cameos, she is trying to carve one out of an abalone shell we have had sitting around for a while. We are also planning a big weekend in the studio this coming weekend, so hopefully there will be pictures of the work we are doing now by early next week. I have also (with the help of our friend Andy (well he really did everything)) have a new computer and I’m slowly trying to get all the programs I usually use to edit photos back on it so I can post pictures again. We also have joined a bread exchange with a few friends of ours, and the first delicious loaf arrived last week. This coming month is our month to send out a (hopefully) delicious loaf. We are on the fence as to what kind of bread to make, we are looking at either a very nutty bread (maybe with some dried fruit as well) or a spicy bread. Another item on the docket is that we might in the near future have something interesting going on with a shop in Arkansas (more on that later, I need to get Keturah on the phone with some people to get more details). I guess that’s just about everything that needed to be updated, although I’m sure that I’m forgetting something.

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.