Today is All About the Whiskey

....cups that is. No actual whiskey will be consumed in the making of these cups. That would be a disaster of epic proportions. This week has been less than productive on the pottery front. Today I shall make up for lost time, and get'er done. There will be no 12 before twelve because I wasted an inordinately huge amount of time attempting to add a soundtrack to my morning and post it here. so finally I just stuck the widget in the side bar. enjoy.

Workin' It

Today I shall make many pots, or die trying. I will also deal with High School Guidance Offices, and I shall win the battle. I wonder if I should bring cookies to bribe the guidance staff, does that work?

A Blustery Day

So yesterday, as I was just preparing to decorate some teabowls, Seonaid arrives at the door.
"When you get a minute," She says, "Can you give me a hand?"
Off I go down the stairs, and out the door to see that she has parked the van on the skirting of the greenhouse in an attempt to anchor it down in the wind. After a few minutes discussion we decide maybe we should replace the van with the cement blocks that are up at the back of the property.  Many wheelbarrow trips later, we secured the two long sides of the greenhouse with dozens of cement things. Wedged them in with dirt, and moved the van off of the plastic. It was cold brutal windy work.The greenhouse was acting like a giant angry bird flapping its wings in our face, snow was stinging our faces and the cement things were slimy and muddy. But we got it done. All was good, the plastic stayed where it was supposed to and Seonaid went off to work, leaving her greenhouse under my watchful eye.
And the wind changed.
Thats where it all went south. Or North or what ever damned direction it took to fling the many cement bits and pieces willy nilly about the yard in a deadly shower of heavy slimy mudcaked missiles, and create a giant kite out of the greenhouse. I tried in vain to hold the corner down so I could release the plastic from the frame and the wind lifted me and tossed me about. Somewhat worried I might end up in OZ, I let go of the greenhouse and attempted to call in reinforcements. Alas, none were to be found.
When the kids got home from school, Mason helped me cut the tape and release the plastic so that it didn't tear to shreds, or fling the frame about any more than it already had. By this time though the frame was bent beyond redemption. I was pretty tired, and sad, and sore.
We learned a few things in the process of the great greenhouse debacle. Not the least of which is that we wasted a good chunk of money on education. With a combined total of well more than a decade of expensive post secondary education, including at least one graduate degree between us, the best swear word we could come up with during the whole crisis was f**k a doodle doo.
Maybe we should have just gone to Hank's House a Learnin' instead of University!

A Day in The Life

They love each other, really.

These are my two favourite people in the world. They make me crazy on a regular basis, but they are my world. I am very lucky to have them in my life. Now I think I might go bake them some of gary's peanut butter and jam muffins before they get home and start fighting, thus making me forget for a moment, that they are my sunshine.

Kiln Shopping, Sticker Shock, and Size Matters

It's been kind of a sluggish week on the pottery front. Although I worked my keister off for most of the week, I got few pots made. It is my intention to make many pots this weekend, but we'll just see how that goes, great intentions and all.
For the past year I have been firing my pots at the Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design. My kiln is still in New Brunswick, and I have been sluggish about getting it here. The old girl is small, and she is old, I think about my age or more and probably not worth hauling all this way. Firing at the Centre seemed like a good plan at the time, but increasingly I find it very restrictive to my work, booking time and attempting to fire during office hours only, fitting my firings in between class firings. Transporting greenware without breakage is a huge pain in the rump, I lose a lot of my more complex pieces between Albert Bridge and Sydney let me tell ya,  travelling 20 minutes over country roads with greenware ain't all its cracked up to be!  it really affects what I make. Very few sculptural pieces or crazy teapots get made these days, and that makes me sad. The restrictive firing times is also a loss leader, my glazes like to cool slowly, and mellow, they are so much more beautiful, and consistant with a little time on their side. I lose a few pretties to a quickie firing all to often. Bottom line here is, I need to purchase a bigger, badder kiln that will share some all nighters with me, and heat things up at home. Enter the shopping trauma.
There are a butload of kilns on the market-and they sure aren't cheap! They come in all shapes and sizes, they have all kinds of bells and whistles and it is a scary prospect for me to throw thousands of dollars out there and then wish I had chosen differently. I have chosen the brand I would like, and tentatively the model. But here is where I start to panic. What if I buy the wrong size?  I have no gauge here. I have only ever done part time potting, this stepping up production and looking at wholesale and expanding to more galleries thing is quite the change for me. But if I go too big, will I ever fill it? I look at BeckyJo's new beast and think ooh baby! gotta get me one of those..... but then I get scared cause he's sooooo big.
I think I'm gonna have to bite the bullet, and just jump in to medium deep water. I have a tentative decision on this little number from Tucker's in Ontario. Unless y'all would like to share your expert opinions with me that is!

Happy Belated to Gary and Chelsey

This first week of April plays host to a few good birthdays, My dear sweet cousin Chelsey who is in her final year of pottery school in Fredericton NB, and a new found blogger friend Gary . Now these folk are pretty cool, and so are the Ramones, so here you go. turn up your speakers and join in the chorus! I don't wanna grow up!

This is one of Chelsey's bowls from last spring. I am dying to see the new stuff.