Pottery Studio Lessons: "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." Scott Adams

   We're in the middle of glazing, which is the perfect time to dream about what we're going to do next.  John has made all the glazes he wants to test in this firing.  I've still got to decide which glazes to use. The fun comes when we start talking about what we'll do after this firing: what we'll make and what we wish we would make. Glazing isn't a horrible part of the pottery making process, just a time consuming part. Most of our art designs were done on greenware so there are just a few creative decisions left.

Which glaze goes on what pot and whether we want more and more or less and less. It's a focused and detail driven process.  But once those decisions get made and we've written ourselves notes (essential!) then the hard work of being on our feet for hours begins and so does dreaming.

Then, there's the moving furniture stuff that is all John's job.  The kiln is outside and today it's not so cold, so I'll be running cups of hot tea out once in a while.

Above is kiln furniture--which holds kiln shelves up.  Each firing has different shapes and sizes of pots so he builds the shelves as he goes.  Kinda like using those cool bricks and blocks of our childhood.  He records everything he does. 

We joke that it's almost like Christmas here when we open the kiln, but it's better than that.  It represents 8 weeks of work and many answers to so many questions.  And that exhilaration energizes us to clean everything up and do it again.