Vases for Daffie Days

We have been moving right along.

Lots to do.

We are moving move it!

Tomorrow morning it is up early for us. We need to set up and decided to wait because of the wind. Looking forward to getting all of our vases out and displayed. We are really happy with the results. Lots to think about and to work off of for the next round of vases.

Gloria and Ed are in the kitchen baking.



Bruce has been polishing the bottoms of the vases the past few days while I glazed cups and bowls. That kiln will come out Saturday morning.

Steady Gets It

A selection of the vases that we pulled out of the kiln yesterday

Steady gets it here at Bulldog. Glazes to mix, bisque pottery to wash, rings to glue on, glazes to sieve. All part of what goes into our process of ceramics. We love glazes and the immense variety that one can get from constant testing. We always want something different. We wish we would be better record keepers, but it is one homework project that we just have not started properly. When using as many glazes as we do, we don't remember some of the glaze combinations that were once our favorite. There is an organic feeling about how we approach our studio work. Our work is a continuous cycle of what colors, textures, and forms that we are emotional drawn too. Reality sets in, and for some reason some glazes just want to misbehave and we can't (for reasons we don't understand) get the combination to work properly for us anymore. This can be frustrating to say the least, but we look at what is working for us and go from there.

Ed is helping us wash the recent bisque pots that we unloaded from the kiln. Are you wondering where Gloria is? She has been working out in the garden. And also coming up with a few goodies for the light refreshments that will be served next weekend.

Bruce is still at it, gluing on the rings to our vases.

He has finished quite a few and these await our brushes full of glaze.

Now Ed has gone to bed. Which leaves me to finish up the sieving process. Bruce and I think about the new glaze colors that we want to mix up, but there just is not enough time left in this glaze round to get into the lab. There are all of the other "known" glazes that we need to make to top off our containers.

Samantha getting another glaze sieved, she feels she hasn't enough to choose from.

Vases

We are both throwing a variety of vase forms to be vehicles for flowers. We are getting ready for Daffie Days, celebrating the blooming of spring. This series of vases I threw a couple of days ago, have a wide opening to suit a group of flowers. Bruce said these look similar to Italian apothecary jars. Sure enough I just looked it up and these are apothecary forms. This is my first time throwing this particular form. It was definitely fun, and I am looking forward to throwing more. My tendency lately had been to throw bud vase forms with a small opening and longer waisted torso, somewhat like a wasp. These new forms should handle a good sized bundle of blooms.

Daffie Days- March 25-27, 2011

The UPS man delivered our Daffie Days postcards yesterday. We will be mailing these out soon. Would you like one? If so send us an e-mail with your address to bulldog @ bulldogpottery dot com. Would you like to receive our e-newsletter ? There is a form right next to this blog post where you can fill out the form. The information goes to our account on Mad Mimi. This is the service that we use to send out our newsletters. They will send you an e-mail for you to confirm that it was you that sent it.

We have a busy and exciting schedule this year. We will be attending the American Art Pottery Association Convention in Langhorne, PA on April 27-May 1. On April 30 and May 1 we will be setting up along with 44 other vendors at the hotel. Cousins in Clay is coming up at the end of May, and we are looking forward to Jack Troy, Peter Lenzo, and Michael Kline coming here to Bulldog with their awesome pottery. Of course there is the Celebration of Spring in Seagrove on April 16-17.

And at the end of the year? We have been invited back to the Potters Market on September 10! At the end of August we will be headed over to Michael Kline's place in Bakersville for the first Mountain Cousins in Clay we will have more details about that soon!!! Our Nature Art Gallery Show will open on October 7th and off to D.C. for Pot Hop and Jam with Mark Shapiro and Sam Taylor. We have listed where we will be and when under Bulldog Events in this blog's sidebar. We also have a list of events on our Bulldog Pottery website.

Follow along with us as we venture into the new year......