Wrapping Up

Bruce Gholson putting his pottery in our home-made hot box

We are finishing up our first firings of all of our pieces that we have made for our upcoming December 15th Kiln Opening.  The first firing is called a bisque firing, which hardens the pottery and makes it physically strong enough to undergo the rigors of glazing. The pieces still are delicate and need to be handled with care. We waxed the bottoms of our pots yesterday evening, and we are all ready to have the glaze-athon over the next several days.

Under this accelerating crunch time, we had to set up a hot box to speed dry our pots. This year we set up a table, draped plastic over it, and put a dehumidifier underneath with the pottery. This has worked well in the past for us. The pots are fairly dry after 24 hours and with a long soak in the bisque firing they are dry enough to take on up to temperature.

Many varied emotions are happening now in the studio. We want to make more pottery--our ideas are flowing and we are all warmed up to keep throwing, but our deadline is on us and we must switch gears. We are also pretty tired after working in the studio non-stop, and staying up in the evenings. We want another week. We want more glazes, we want to develop new glazes, and more pots to put them on. Basically we want more time in the studio, which is kinda funny because almost all our time is in the studio. As we are glazing and working in the studio, it is hard to explain, but it would be nice to have an hour between the hours to do all that we strive to do.

Bruce Gholson with the pottery that we are drying in our home-made hot box

Bruce Gholson Puts a handle on a pitcher

Samantha Henneke finishing a rim on her thrown vase

Samantha Henneke brushing slip onto her cups

Bruce Gholson trimming his large bowls

Bruce Gholson with his large bowls after combing slip onto them