Saturday, March 24, 2012

Catching Up...

empty no longer...
Another week has past and I am here to report on a couple items I have been yammering on about in recent posts. First and foremost, the Empty Bowls event was held this past week and yet again Nancy Smeltzer and Harmony Ritchie pulled off another very successful happening. When I spoke with Nancy this week, she said they made 2800.00 dollars for the Indiana County Food Bank and were also able to donate the remaining soup to a good cause. Not too bad for 4 hours on a single day...way to go! Just think if more people did things like this on a regular basis...think of what could be accomplished....that's my stack of donated bowls at the top of this post and here's a shot from early on...bowls galore!

The other tidbit here is my ongoing saga of the 2 dozen mid range mugs. You have seen pics of them in various states from leather to bisque and now your going to see what I'm dealing with now. Weirdness. Thats what I'm calling it. Dan Kuhn is going to re-fire them in an attempt to possibly flatten out the little blister like texture all over the exterior of the surface. Its like a fine grit under the glaze...you tell me...please. It might be from the slip, but the slip was pretty smooth and after bisque there was no visible bumps. But that is where it is...where it has been slipped. It might be from the clay body itself...its a very dark body that is very much loaded with iron. Could it be the iron coming out? Now take a look at the interior...no problems...and no slip...shit, shit, shit. So, now, after the fact, I'm going to make some tiles and check all the variables, at least I will know what not to do again. Oh well, like I have said before..."that's ceramics".
 In the meanwhile I'm garden planning...and enjoying sitting outside in the mornings drinking coffee and doing a little mental landscaping. I've got seeds started inside and popped in a Japanese Cherry at the new house in Beaver Falls, hope your gearing up for Spring too. Until next time...cheers.
mid range soda fired mug...my trusted morning companion back in Indiana, PA.

7 comments:

barbaradonovan said...

Just asked my local clay supplier friend cuz I vaguely remember us having a problem with gritty funk with a c/6 dark body we were custom mixing and neither of us could remember exactly the problem - it was years ago. I'll see if I can get in touch with the potter to see if he remembers. He did mention that sometimes the fireclay in the body can be at fault. They've had shipments of fireclay come in with mixed meshes because the company processing it had worn screens and didn't catch it soon enough. Kind of a drag if that's it since it's out of your hands

k.houser said...

thanks Barbara...I would appreciate any clue as to what this may be...it does really suck and I think even a good re-fire will not do the trick. I will be tossing that clay...start again.

floydpots said...

bisque slow, hotter, with ventilation.
refire and hold for 5-10min

barbaradonovan said...

ok, the clay we were mixing was the potter's own recipe, and he remembers it as being the sand in the recipe. It was remedied simply by using a mix of grogs instead of sand.

If it's a gassing problem, then slower longer bisque like floydpots says would probably do the trick. Seems like when it's gassing though it's little blisters rather than gritty. Is the grittiness actually teensy blisters? If so that would be my bet as well.

Good luck. Hope the refire helps!

MudStuffing Pottery said...

Ugggh... those are the worst. Sorry about the firing issues. It does not look like a glaze issue, looks like a claybody issue, or rather that slip - it looks over fired to me.

I've found that mid range slips and clays are finnicky for being over fired. A battle between a glaze that likes heat and soaking vs. a clay body that doesn't like it.

Course... you will probably say that it's a highfire slip that looks great in the woody, in which case, I got nuthin.

k.houser said...

Thanks all...but the bad news is the re-fire just made it worse. The grit is not blisters its like a sandy grit...super weird...also in the re-fire most all of the 18 mugs bloated. ...measles like bloats here and there. Keith you may be on to something here...I will be testing that slip and both Dan and I are wondering if indeed it is a bad batch of clay...and Mr. Floyd, we did a long bisque but hotter might help...Dan has used the same clay and glazes and not had any issues...the wild card here is the slip! I appreciate all your input.

nancy smeltzer said...

How do you make my pots look sooo good, Thanks N