Moka Glaze Kiln.... and we are off to Raleigh

We were quite happy with how the Moka glaze kiln came out today. Here are a few pictures of the pottery. We will bring our art glazed vases and our Moka glaze pottery to the Carolina Designer Craftsmen today and we will be leaving some in our shop for the weekend. Ed and Gloria will be here to greet the Seagrove visitors. All is well and Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Check out Tom Starland's blog at Carolina Unleashed. We want to thank him for being such a great supporter of us Seagrovean potters.

Celebration of Seagrove Potters -- Gala

I wanted to load some images up from last night. I need to go eat my oatmeal and back to the Luck's Cannery to set up for this morning. Last night was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed ourselves. I will fill in who is in the pictures another day.

Celebration of Seagrove Potters -- Set Up

The North Carolina Pottery Center has a display table at the entrance with historic NC Pottery books and other NCPC information including membership.
Last night Ed and I went back to the Luck's Cannery to set out our pottery. We hit the wall around 8:45 and thought that we would continue in the morning. We met Will McCanless (McCanless Pottery) and Meredith Smildson leaving about the same time as we were. It is all up from here!

Below is our booth as we left it. Gloria and Ed will go back this morning and finish up. We need to be completed by noon so the caterers have plenty of room to set up for this evening's Gala. I am going to work on glazing for the Carolina Designer Craftsman which is next week in Raleigh.

I went around really quick to see if I could find any smiling faces. There were a few left right before Ed and I left.

Below is Chris and Lisa Luther of Chris Luther Pottery

Dan Triece of Dirtworks Pottery came on over to see what was going on and expressed a how do you do to all of you.
Here is Randy and Sherry James of Dixieland Pottery. You may remember them from a previous post that we did back in August about the Luck's Legacy Kiln Opening. They were just about set up and putting a few finishing touches on their booth.
Michelle Kovack of Kovack Pottery is set up beside them.

Paul Ray of Ray Pottery is sporting his Alice Cooper t-shirt, we like it too.

Sheila Ray (Paul's wife) is hanging out talking with David and Alexa Fernandez of Seagrove Stoneware.
Blaine Avery of Avery Pottery and Tileworks is getting set up and ready to display his pottery.

Gala Collaboratives out of the kiln

Here is the pair of 16" vases that came out of Ben Owen's kiln yesterday. Donna Craven threw these bottles and Samantha glazed them.

The crystalline piece below came out this past Tuesday. Bruce threw the 24" bottle and Will glazed it.

Lots of fun going on under the sun at Bulldog Pottery

And some more..... It is a wonderful day here. We are all busily getting pots finished and kilns fired. Bruce is working on putting handles on our Carolina Designer Craftsmen "Masterpiece" . Below Ed is working on sieving the slip that will be applied to the handled urns that Bruce has been working on. I am figuring out what decoration will be applied to his forms and then back to him for some more imagery. This is something new for us and we are excited to see the outcome.
And some...... Gloria is helping to clean the functional pots which we will put our Moka glaze. These pieces will be ready for the Carolina Designer Craftsmen show in Raleigh on Thanksgiving weekend.

Ed is making mulch out of the leaves that have fallen from the trees and Gloria is cleaning away.

Samantha is performing the pot whisperer into her pieces before she begins to glaze.

And now... it is night time and Bruce is gluing on the pedestals rings onto our vases. These vases will have our molybdenum crystalline glazes on them and will be out for the Celebration this weekend!
I am getting tired about now and start looking around. I looked up and noticed the dinosaur gourds I grew back in 2002. Wow, have they been drying up there for that long?? Yes. We have to admit that they have been up there for the past how many years?

Found a kiln for Donna's and Samantha'a Collaborative

We found a kiln to put our collaborative vase pair into (Donna's thrown vases and Dotty Sam's glaze combo). Ben Owens is loading a reduction kiln today and said he had room along with his 20" vases. YEAH!!! What a relief. Bruce loaded them in the car and drove them right on over to Ben's place.

I wonder how Will's and Fred's glaze work collaborative is coming along?

To see more collaborative pieces you can visit the Celebration of Seagrove Potters website.

New Vases

We unloaded a few large vases this morning along with some cups.

Thank you to the sponsors of the Celebration of Seagrove Potters

I read the the above statement and was moved.

I wanted to thank the sponsors this year of the Celebration of Seagrove Potters. I also want to thank all of those hard working Seagrove Potters on the steering committee and the community volunteers out there that are gearing up for the event next week. Cheers to the people that are making this a quality affair and putting all of the volunteer hours into making this happen for all of us here in Seagrove. A big big THANK YOU.

To see the list of the sponsors visit the sponsor page on the Celebration of Seagrove Potters website.

I have listed them below as well.

The Celebration of Seagrove Potters festival has received strong support from potters and the community at large. Special thanks to our 2009 Sponsors: Amicks Superstore, Arts Council of Moore County, Asheboro Elastics, Autocraft, Carolina Arts, Community One, DirtWorks Pottery, Embarq Corporation, First Bank, Heart of NC Visitors Bureau, Insurance Associates of the Triad, Ivey B. and Ruby Owen Luck Family, Life 103.1, Moore County Convention & Visitors Bureau, NC Zoological Society, Our State Magazine, Prevo Drug, Progress Energy, Pugh Funeral Home, Randolph Arts Guild, Randolph Electric, Randolph Telephone, Richard and Susan Garkalns, STARworks NC, Upton Accounting, Van Derveers Gas, Village Printing with more coming on board each week.

Just in case you want to read what the above image says I will write it below:

Very special thanks to the vision and spirit of Ivey B. Luck and family. His hard-working ethic and his contributions to the community have provided us the opportunity to hold our inaugural event at the historic Luck's Cannery. The Celebration of Seagrove Potters admires and hopes to continue the spirit of the original Luck's Cannery: people of the Seagrove area working together to provide for their community.

I have posted the list of Seagrove Potters participating in the Celebration on the Three Corners Clay Blog.

Changing Gears: From Moka Glaze to Fluid Art Glazes

While finishing up some bowls yesterday the logistics of the pottery process dawned on me. I ran down the hill to fill Bruce in on my latest thoughts about our firing schedules. Why don't we change gears and glaze our vases and teapots for the Celebration and then glaze our Moka pottery for the Carolina Designer Craftsmen. My covered jars are just beginning to dry and I noticed that Bruce is still working on his Moka pots too. It can be kinda funny in the head to change gears in midstream but about an hour or so later we felt it to be the right decision. We just did not want to push our pots through the drying stage, and develop cracks and watch knobs pop off the covered jars.

Supporting this perspective, most of our porcelain vases are ready to prepare for glazing and more are coming out of the bisque today. So changing to working with and firing our flowing art glazes this week, and then switching to the Moka pottery to take to Raleigh makes sense.

For all of you planning on coming out to the Celebration of Seagrove Potters or Carolina Designer Craftsmen stay tuned in, along with Bruce and I, to see what comes out in the following weeks.

Working in the Studio

Here are some pictures of us from a couple of days ago and yesterday working in the studio. Most of the pots are now drying with some more to trim and finish. We have found ourselves trying to beat the clock once again with drying time and getting the pots through the firings in time for the upcoming Celebration of Seagrove Potters. We are also trying to sneak in some firings for the Carolina Designer Craftsmen as well. At this point it is a wonder how we will get everything through all of the stages, but we usually do.

I have quite a few jar knobs left over. I am saving some for Gloria. She wants to do something with them someday.
Covered Jars, mugs, and drinking glasses
My finished covered jar series.