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Garden Imprints
Thanks to the heat and mosquitoes, working in the garage at the wheel in the summer can be pretty uncomfortable, so I’ve transitioned into the house, hand building at the breakfast table. I remembered that one of my favorite finished products over the years has been little footed dishes with imprints, so I picked a fern and a few flower heads from the dill plants and made a dozen of these little tripod dishes. Several summers ago I made a series of platters from garden imprints, and I can tell you right now what sells and what doesn’t. People love imprints of various herbs but have no interest in imprints…
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Kiln Unloading
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It’s Another New Year
I don’t really buy into the whole new year, fresh start, clean slate bit. All of me at 11:59 pm on December 31 carries across to 12:00 am January 1. Chances are high that I’m not changing. Not really. That Costco box of Cheez-its will still be on the counter the next morning, and I will still be sneaking 2-3 crackers at a time and letting their tangy goodness dissolve in my mouth. If you’ve never munched on chocolate and Cheeze-its at the same time (alternate bites, don’t cram them in together), you really should. It will blow your taste-buds. I do buy into slow, progressive improvement, reflection and re-upping…
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New Pots
This fall I took a class “Throwing and Altering” at the NC State Crafts Center. I didn’t do a good job altering, but I still had a fun time. These are my finished pots. I’m stilling waiting on another two to finish firing. There’s probably another sneaking around the studio without my name and number written large enough. I’ll have to track her down. They were fired in a gas kiln to cone 10. The mugs weren’t altered at all. So I guess if the class were for a grade, I would have flunked. I did square off a couple pieces, and there’s a bowl with a nice ruffled rim…
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Hand Building Project: Lace Imprint Casserole
One of the simplest and most rewarding clay pieces I make is a lace imprint casserole dish. This particular piece is eventually headed to my brother. Steps to creating a lace imprint casserole dish: I took a Pyrex style glass casserole dish and created a plaster mold from it. Be prepared that due to shrinking in the kiln, the piece you end up creating from a plaster mold will be smaller than the original piece it is cast from. I rolled out a slab of clay with a rolling pin, then draped the clay over the mold and used a combination of patting with my hand and stroking…
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Grow Your Own Plants for Clay Imprints
In this post I’m going to share some of my favorite plants to use with clay — all of which grow well in my home garden, which is zone 7b and follow up with tips for making imprints with leaves. This blog space may come off as being scattered across multiple hobbies and interests, but it’s an accurate reflection of my life. My day to day time is split up between family and home routines, teaching online graduate classes in engineering, home gardening and making pottery. Those last two are hobbies that have begun a gradual marriage. I make planters for small jades, succulents and indoor mini-gardens, and I grow…