Saturday morning

From the studio door

Saturday morning, bright sunshine in Fiskars, and the crowd of pots has grown. 

This week Riitta Talonpoika kindly lent me a wheel and transported it up to my studio, but I have had little success so far with it - using Witgert porcelain "Body No. 011 “Mont Blanc”, the whitest and most translucent ceramic body on the market"- I see this morning that 2 out of 5 cups I threw have "S" cracks, so I don't think I am going to waste any more of this special clay on throwing: better to stay with pinching, rolling and coiling.

I have mixed two terra siggilatas and now can start decorating some of all the 53 bowls.

The round pots made with Crank Clay are made to go in the space between the firebox and the bag wall of the kiln. They will be painted with a coat of kiln wash a là Kaupo Holmberg (my studio-mate at the 2011 Kohila Symposium in Estonia), perhaps over porcelain slip....like this one - fired at Kohila in 2011.The kiln wash inhibits all fluxing on the pots, and gives the most subtle colours a chance to be visible, as the brown stoneware body cannot dominate. The porcelain slip is also a barrier to inhibit "brownness". We will see...

Saturday morning gathering of pots

I made bread yesterday