Copy of Ceramic Arts (3).jpg

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A favorite cup from the fall that’s finally out in the gallery at @ashlandartcenter There’s something about how petite it is in your hand, and the straight sides, just the right foot. When you hold it the green glaze is silky smooth, but the swipe of sharper grooves makes you fiddle with your thumb against the texture. As a minor housekeeping, there’s only one spot left in the wheel throwing workshop on Saturday! What a fun group of potters coming together for it- can’t wait to see what y’all make!
Scenes from the studio today as we all snuck in to squeak out a little work while the snow melts. Jeff here keeps buckets of studio glazes topped off, measuring dry ingredients with water and dialing in the water content and viscosity. We’ve been talking a lot about specific gravity, flocculation, and consistent glaze results. Thanks to all the wonderful sharing from @suemcleodceramics , Jeff has decided to no longer be a closet flocculator. ☺️ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Here he just adjusted a glaze by adding epsom salts, which changes how the particles in the glaze move past each other, in this case less freely. The glaze consistency is thicker even though it still has the same amount of water, and so it coats his strip of newspaper more than before. One visual cue is he can’t read the print any more through the coat of glaze. The second picture is of freshly cut test tiles that will stand up in the kiln to show vertical glaze surfaces. He always dips a test to run through the kiln just to make sure the glazes are looking good. Every once in a while you’re glad you tested before glazing a month of work, although then again there are the times you wished you had... 🤓✏️ 📓
The most ridiculously complicated first steps in making handles for casting, that look like my handles, because they are my handles. 😁 Make handles 👉🏼cast plaster👉🏼clean👉🏼cast rubber👉🏼cast plaster👉🏼cast other rubber👉🏼cast plaster👉🏼cast HANDLES! Never the easy route around these parts 👾📐💥✨
Happy V Day to these mischievous lovers. I’m lucky to have a trove of photos from my great grandfather who grew up in New England in the late 1800’s, including these ones he took of my grandparents from around 1930, and later with my chubby lil dad in 1940. They may not have passed on their style genes, but their shifty look on the other hand... 😏🙌🏼💕 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #mugshot #coffeetime