White Trash Raku, Etc.

This is the white-trash raku set up at the studio: A busted old raku kiln lined with lung tumor-causing ceramic fiber, gas burners on the bottom of the kiln (that you have to kneel on the ground and use a stick to "bump up"), and five metal trash cans in various states of decomposition. Add a few pairs of leather gloves, some long-handled tongs, a five gallon bucket of old towels soaked in water, a box full of shredded newspapers and some dried up old weeds? That's a raku firing right there.

We (Dave, myself, and the starred woman above) took advantage of the beautiful weather on Monday to do two raku firings. Did I get pictures of the work? Uh, no. But I did get this shot right before we pulled the first load out of the kiln.

And here is one of the stamped tumblers I made a couple of weeks ago, playing with stamps I carved and with a paper pattern for tumblers. It's bisqued and has a black underglaze painted on and wiped off the high spots. That's as far as I've gotten.

And speaking of glazing, this is where the magic happens, the glazing area at the studio.

The five gallon buckets are about 60% of the glazes we have available. Beyond the glaze area are student shelves, wheels, hand-building tables, and so on. There's a door to the right (just out of the picture) that leads to the kiln shed. Believe it or not, but this area has been recently cleaned and organized.

And this photo has nothing to do with the studio, only it reminded me of the same kind of chaotic environment.

This is the coffee-making area at the bakery where we usually order our pizzas from. Look at that. Crazy, no? The whole bakery looks that way actually.

The day?

Judi and I went down to the studio and I made more ornaments out of the damned endless bag of frost porcelain. I swear, it makes me wonder how people who make ceramic jewelry and little ornaments and so on ever get through a whole 25# bag of clay. Seriously, how? When I got sick of cutting out ornaments and stamping designs into them, I sanded the ones I made a few days ago. Then I started to carve a few more stamps. (Yawn!) Next time I go to the studio, I swear I'm going to do something more ambitious than porcelain ornaments and stamp carving.

And in the afternoon, we had to go out and rent a car in preparation for taking our poor little car into the shop yet again in the morning. It's been leaking coolant and will probably need a new water pump and timing belt. Cha-ching!  It's been a good little car to us lo these last twelve years. I mean, we've put close to 190,000 miles on it and we've never been the best at keeping up with things like oil changes and the like, so I guess it's fine. But still.

And we had dinner tonight with my older brother who is having some trouble with his face, pobrecito. He had a sinus infection that affected a nerve on the left side of his face and made it all droopy and swollen and painful. The doctor put him on antibiotics and steroids so it's a little better, but it's going to take six months or so before it's completely better. Still, he managed to down a tuna roll and teriyaki chicken bento at our favorite Japanese restaurant, so I guess it can't be all bad.