A few weekends back on Sept 15/16 I attended "Altered Ceramics" a clay conference here in San Diego. It was great! With roughly 145 women and maybe 5 men in attendance I got to watch Martha Grover, Marty Fielding, Izzy Davis, and Dennis Meiners demo! Little things were my biggest take aways. Marty holding up a piece of paper to his pitcher to help him with proportions for a spout, or Dennis' little sprigs subtly showing up in his cups and Martha's vinegar/paper slip.... Yeah! And I really was impressed with Izzy's work but don't have the ambition to add a whole new process (screen printing) to my own work.
Meanwhile, the recycled clay is working pretty well. No unpleasant firings so far! (Knock on wood). I did a recent purge of old bisque - things I just wasn't inspired to glaze. Now there are stacks of fresh bisque piling up and it's time to glaze!
I've got a few glaze tests in the works: 'White' eggshell and Frogskin. Both look nice on my test samples so fingers crossed with mixing a bigger batch for a few larger pieces. I'm also going to give the 'Ketchup Red' another shot on some very dark clay. I know it's mostly about slow cooling to get those iron reds. I worry that slow cooling will mess with the rest of my glazes that are working fine - and I'm lazy - so if the color doesn't come through with a normal firing I'll probably give up on 'Ketchup'.
