Brad's Blog
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July 1
It does seem a bit odd that most of us who live where winter
happens, live their lives looking forward to 2-3 months of
summer, parts of which are too hot to enjoy. I'm not complaining,
mind you, but it does seem odd... Although with the library job,
the first 1/3 of summer went way too fast...
I
took a trip into Spokane today for supplies, which reduced my pottery
day to about one hour, during which I unloaded a glaze kiln and trimmed
a half dozen large bowls. With the current hot weather, pots dry
quickly, and these bowls had gotten white at the rim, although the clay
at the foot was less exposed and still trimmed in ribbons (as opposed
to little scrapings, at which point it's best to recycle the clay).
To prevent the rims from cracking when set upside down to trim
(which happens all too easily when the pot is very dry, and slightly
out of round (as most pots are)), I trimmed them on an ice cream bucket
set on the wheel, with dabs of clay on the lid to secure the bucket to
the bowl. The ice cream bucket was actually full of kiln wash,
which helped hold it in place by its weight.
July 2
Every Thursday is another hurdle towards my last day at the library.
Today I combined vocations and took my potter's wheel to the
library, where I set it up outside. After some warm-up songs and
stories, I showed them how I make pots. One of the pre-schoolers
said, "It's magic! Do some more." It does indeed look like
magic when anyone who's done something for many years demonstrates
their facility. My son's ski tricks look that way, except that
I've seen enough of the falls along the way to know there was no magic
but desire and discipline.
Back to the
library--then I showed them how they could roll out clay and make a
little plate, or make a coil pot, or a pinch pot, or a sculpture, and
let them loose for 20 minutes. Most kids love the sticky nature
of clay, and most of them had something figured out by the end. I
let the older helpers try the wheel after the session was over.
Tip for potters if you work with kids, cut squares of cardboard for
them to work on--it doesn't stick, and they can sign their name on the
cardboard so you can transfer it legibly to their pots--I did it with
about 45 pots today.
I did manage to break a
piece off the plastic splash pan when unloading the wheel from my car
(it's being reglued overnight)--otherwise it all went well. The
temperature was in the high 80's, so it was very warm out there, but
there was a lot of shade...
I felt that June's
sales were very good, but compared to last year they're off by 30 %,
which is no surprise, considering the economy. Lately sales have
gone up with the temperature, as people flood into the area for the
lake and the 4th of July weekend. I made salt and peppers,
tumblers, and mugs today, filling low spots in the inventory.
