A Horse with no Mane

Keturah convinced me to throw some pots so we could do a horse hair firing.  So I threw a few 1 and 2 pound forms, it ended up being about 50 or so pots, 25 of each weight. 

Here are a few of the 2 pounders.

 

After I trimmed them I allowed them to get bone dry, and then rubbed them down with some steel wool to smooth out the rough edges.  I then rubbed them down one at a time with vegetable oil, and then burnished them with the back end of a spoon.  Here are a couple of pictures of the burnishing one static and one action shot.

 

Here’s a group shot of the first batch freshly burnished, you can see our kitchen light reflecting off of the surface of the pots.

 

Here’s a close up of one of the vases.

I then loaded the kiln to the brim with the pots, and fired the kiln up to around cone 010 (1657 f, 902 c), and then let it cool down to about 1100 f.  We then set up a station on the other kiln with a lazy susan, some kiln shelves, and a piece of fire blanket.  After the kiln reached 1100 f we began to take the pots out one by one and lay the horse hair on them, and allowed the hair burn and sizzle on the surface.

  

Here are a few photos of the hair being burned on the surface of the pots.

  

A group shot soon after we finished the last one.

  

A group shot of the pots after we washed them off.

  

After the pots dried we took some wax and polished the burnished surface to bring back some of the shine lost during the firing.  It ended up being about 23 pots that we finished this time around.

Here are a few shots of individual pots, look for these on our Etsy site in a couple of weeks.

Functional List

Here is a list of the items that we will try to make this week and in the next few weeks.

Honey pots, garlic keepers, small medium and large lidded jars, jewelry holders, tea bowls/cups, soap/lotion dispenser, orchid planters, planters, berry bowls, butter dishes, butter bells, soap dishes, toothbrush holders, tumblers, mugs, spoon rests, utensil holders, prep bowls, pet dishes, yarn bowls, wall planters, and fruit bowls (large bowls).

That’s everything we’ve come up with so far, if you can think of anything else or of anything you would like us to make let us know.  Well I’m headed to the studio for today, and tomorrow the World (aquarium that is).

Accoutremon

The other day we ordered some items to accessorize our pottery, and 

it came in!  We ordered some honey dippers

 

and some lotion/soap pumps.

We have already made some honey pots and just needed these dippers to complete the look.  Here are a few of our newly adorned honey pots.  Look for them in our Etsy Store!

The soap/lotion pumps will be used in future bottles.  We couldn’t make them in advanced like the honey dippers because we didn’t know what size to make the opening on top.  Now that we do I’ve made a few soap bottles, so now we are waiting to see if I made the openings big enough.  The clay we are using shrinks about fifteen percent from the throwing stage to the finished product.  I’m sure there’s some sort of maths that would help us know what size to make them but I like to fly by the seat of my potters wheel.  So we will see how it goes.  Today was a half day in the studio, we went to pick up more clay from the City, and had some good Pho.  Keturah has a book discussion to go to tonight, but I will be back in the studio after dinner to finish up a few things before calling it a night.  Tomorrow will be a full day in the studio, then we both have classes to go to in the evening.  And Wednesday we are heading down to Dallas to go to the aquarium and hang out with some good friends!