Glaze Testing and Covering the Jar

We are busily working in the studio getting ready for the Celebration of Seagrove Potters and our kiln opening on December fourth. We are making a variety of forms for our flowing crystalline glazes. At the moment we are in the process of mixing glaze tests in the evenings and very excited to start developing some different surfaces and colors. The process of mixing and testing glazes is time consuming. It can take months and even years to go from a test tile to putting a successful glaze on a piece, and even after using a glaze for years we can and do go back and tweak the glaze a bit more.

What do we mean by tweaking? Bruce describes it like cooking in the kitchen, " We look at materials like a cook uses spices. A little bit of this material and a little bit of that material, always altering the formula to our taste."

Bruce has been focusing on creating new glaze formulas in the morning while drinking coffee, and Samantha will be trying to develop some new colors for the insides of her cups, bowls, and plates. We both have a strong drive for, imagination about, and passion to create glazes, and between us we have a lot of information and knowledge to draw from. Very cool and exciting.

Last night was like "Dueling Banjos" we had both of our scales out and were mixing glazes into the night, and in our new glaze lab to boot! Yeah !! Very Very happy here at Bulldog.

Happy Halloween!!

Do you like skulls and want to see more? Then possibly Skull of the Day is the blog for you!

Bats!!

Bats!!! They are not flying mice. Bats do not become tangled in hair. Not all bats are vampires. Most bats have cute faces. Bats are shy, gentle, and intelligent. Average life span is 35-40 years.

To adopt a bat visit Bat World.

Information is from Bat World.

Cotton in the Carolinas

We just came back from NC Central Park in Star. A great talk was given by the men below and the man above. They make t-shirts here in NC.

Cotton in the Carolinas is a collaboration of farmers and manufacturers across the Carolinas dedicated to growing, making, and selling its t-shirts in the Carolinas.

There will be a Farm tour on Oct. 30th, this Saturday at Thurman Burleson & Sons Farm in New London. If you are interested in attending it starts at 10 and ends around 3pm. Contact Eric Henry eric at tsdesigns dot com

Would like to buy a t-shirt that was grown - made - sold - here in North Carolina? Dirt to Shirt in 750 miles.

Color

After the Mint Museum's Potters Market we continued to glaze and fire vases and cups. Bruce had a couple of ginger jars sitting on the shelf waiting to be glazed that came out really sweet. We are motivated by the results that came out, and had spent some time working on new color combinations when we realized that the days have whizzed on by. Between organizing & moving stuff around in our new studio, and glaze testing, we now have to re-work our schedule.

We have decided to stay focused on our crystalline glazes for the rest of the season, and look forward to testing some new clays and glaze colors. The oranges that came out are new for us and we want to continue to work on developing these colors. This means the Moka glaze firing will have to wait till the new year.

We are preparing for the "Celebration of Seagrove Potters" which will be on Nov 20 and 21. The Gala is on the 19th, Friday evening. Our booth this year is located in the back left hand corner.

On Saturday, Dec. 4 we will be having a holiday show and sale here at Bulldog Pottery. Lots to do and lots to look forward too!

We will be posting our progress between now and then and letting you know some of what we will have available.

Figuring out the schedule.

We are gearing up for the Celebration of Seagrove Potters and our December Kiln Opening on the fourth. We are figuring out our schedule. Sometimes this can become complicated since we like to do two different bodies of work. The Moka glaze functional pottery is fired at a different temperature and uses different clays than out molybdenum crystalline glaze. This clay and process detail just adds a bit more adjustments into scheduling of what we do and when.

So as of now we will be firing our Moka glaze pottery for the Dec. kiln opening, meaning this design style will be fired after the Celebration. For the Celebration we will work on our crystalline glazes. With all of this studio detail explained, we will still have Moka glaze for the Celebration and we will still be making our crystalline glazed work for Dec. 4. Yes maybe a bit confusing, we can get confused too, and we are always reworking our schedule. It all just seems to work out in the end.

So if you are wondering what we are making and what we will be having in our shop for this coming up holiday events. Stay Tuned and follow along. We are excited to find out too!

Here is a new angle I thought I would try out. Bruce's knees look enormous.

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Carolina Designer Craftsmen Guild: A Tradition of Excellence

Leaf Bowl by Samantha Henneke

"Carolina Designer Craftsmen Guild: A Tradition of Excellence" is an exhibition taking place through November 7 at Cedar Creek Gallery in Creedmoor, NC.

The Carolina Designer Craftsmen Guild is a group of professional artists whose mission is the pursuit of outstanding design and craftsmanship, to encourage opportunities for artistic growth, and to promote education in and appreciation of the art of fine craft.

This Saturday and Sunday Cedar Creek Gallery will be hosting their annual Pottery and Glass Festival from 10am - 6pm. There will be pottery, glass, wood, and etching and engraving demostrations, as well as, live music by Kenny Shore & Larry Hutcherson and plant sales by John Martin & Jeff Bottoms.

Cedar Creek Gallery is truely a cultural treasure of North Carolina, promoting and representing artists since 1968.

These are the pieces of Bulldog pottery that we have in the Carolina Designer Craftsmen Exhibit at Cedar Creek.

Black rainbow crystalline vase by Samantha Henneke

Frog Covered Jar by Samantha Henneke

Matte crystalline and molybdenum crystalline vase by Bruce Gholson

Fossil Fish Flask by Bruce Gholson

Moka glazed large bowl by Bruce Gholson

The Clay and Blogs Opening Reception

Here are some images from the Clay and Blogs - Telling a Story reception. The opening took place this past Friday evening at the Campbell House in Southern Pines, NC. Lots of people were there looking at a wonderful variety of pottery. There are pieces there from New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, California, Alaska.... and of course from all over the USA.

Meredith Heywood pulled this show together. She picked a group of bloggers and she then let each of us pick a blogger that we followed. I picked Alex Solla from Cold Springs Pottery. He has recently made a career change to Alex Solla Photography.

Samantha and Meredith

A group shot of blogging potters at the opening.

Admiring Chris Luther's altered vase.

Blogger shooting Blogger.

Gary and Linda Starr drove up from Florida

Micheal Mahan, Don Jorgenson and Bruce Gholson

Admiring pottery, some of it from Great Britain

Tom Grey with the Star Gang

Clay and Blogs Show-Telling a Story

Tonight is the opening for the Clay and Blogs - Telling a Story.

This exhibition of 40 bloggers will be up for a month at Moore County Arts Council's Campbell House in Southern Pines. There will be pots from as far as New Zealand and the United Kingdom as well as pottery from all over the United States. Take the time to go visit the potter's blogs and read what they are up to around their studio. There is a complete list of the participating potters on the Moore County Arts website with a link to their blog. Excitingly, there is an online component to this show as well where you can view a piece from each pottery blogger showing in the exhibition.

Read more about this very cool exhibition on Carolina Arts Unleashed.

Here are the pieces that we have on display at this exhibition.

Okeewemee

Last night we dropped by STARworks Ceramics in Star for their open house celebration of their new cone 10 clays made from local materials. Okeewemee and Grogwemee both clays go to cone 10. We picked up a couple of samples to try out in our studio.

There were potters around catching up on the latest happenings, enjoying the warm evening, and someone mentioned the possibility of some rain too. All were pleased to hear this.

Below is Mark Heywood of Whynot Pottery talking with Brad Tucker of Brad Tucker Pottery. Brad and Tim Turner came through from Creedmoor - Cedar Creek Gallery to pick up some Okeewemee and Highwater clays.

Jeff Dean From Dean&Martin Pottery talking with Tim Ayers who will be around for the next 6 weeks here working over at Johnston and Gentithes Art Pottery while they are in China. Benjamin Burns of Great White Oak Pottery is nearby snacking on a sandwhich that was provided by the crew there at STARworks.

Gloria of Bulldog Pottery is very very happy to be purchasing some of her first and very own Mudtool ribs of Micheal Sherrill's design. She will have to keep close tabs on these because they could easily migrate to our wheels if she is not careful.
Bruce is talking with Tim Ayers of Tim Ayers pottery and Chad Brown of Chad Brown Pottery. I believe they were talking about getting together to go fishing.

Samantha, David Stumeplfle of Stuempfle pottery , and Tim Turner of Tim Turner pottery (he works over at Cedar Creek Gallery in Creedmoor. Cedar Creek Gallery is having their annual Pottery and Glass Festival on the weekend of Oct.1 and weekend of Oct. 9. On Oct. 1 Cedar Creek Gallery will be opening an exhibition of around 40 Carolina Designer Craftsmen.

Stephanie Martin of Dean and Martin and Mary Holmes of From the Ground Up Pottery.

Bonnie Burns of the Great White Oak Pottery talking with Anne' Partne of Blue Hen Pottery.

As we were leaving Sid Luck of Lucks Ware came in. Sid mentioned that he really liked how well the new Okeewemee clay turns/throws. He also had high praise for the cone 6 Star clays as well.

There sure are a lot of potteries around here.