more glazing fun

This week I'm putting some things in a kiln with a friend, and whether it's a full load or a 1/4 load, it still seems to require similar amounts of time away from the studio. It does make one yearn for the day when all aspects of the potterly life are within reach of each other without packing, piling, driving and splitting time and attentions! But this firing is yet another opportunity to get that shino glaze right, so when my larger firing comes later in April, I can fire those plates for Holly & Chad and they can finally enjoy their wedding gifts! And I'll also have several pieces for Sparrow Spa, which makes more room on the studio shelves for the rest of the order!

Another piece of fun in this kiln is a little sagger test. I've been reading and hearing about firing shinos in a sagger, and I intend to try that out, but right now the only sagger I have was used with salt inside, and since we needed a few kiln fillers, I decided to try a little fun with another salt sagger. The last time used this, it was supposed to go into a wood kiln, but got bumped for lack of space, so since the salt was tightly sealed inside the sagger, I stuck it into the next reduction kiln opportunity. Here are the bowls from that experiement:

They were unglazed stoneware, with two little thimbles of salt. It's easy to see where they got the flashing, and the thin walls warped just so to make them really interesting. I still love these, and had them on display in the cooked sagger in my studio. Now they sit on the shelf, and the sagger is at the glaze studio. I'll take some before pictures and later this week when we unload show the whole adventure. And then I'll start making some saggers for the shino tests in the April kiln - little shot cups, each with their own sagger/gift box!

Back to the Monday: update the books, finish glazing, put handles on some mugs, finish the postcard for the May show at Clingman...where did I put that list?...