Creepy Crawling

Albus took over about three-fourths of my work space this afternoon so that he could have a little nap. (Actually, I don't think he was sleeping, I think he was just pretending to sleep so that I wouldn't bother him.) It was fine as I was just de-dust-ifying the things that came out of the bisque kiln last night.

"De-dust-ifying" is not a word, you know. I'm not trying to put anything past you. I don't know what you'd actually call what I was doing, which was dipping the bits of bisque into water and them wiping them off with a sponge to remove the dust left over from sanding the pieces before they went into the bisque kiln. Dust is not a good thing to have under glaze because enough of it will cause the glaze to crawl. (Crawling is a real potter's word, unlike de-dust-ifying. Crawling is generally considered to be a defect in the glaze. It occurs when the glaze separates from the pot during the final firing, leaving bare spaces of clay. Lots of things can cause crawling, not just dust.)

It's been a very long time since I had a crawling incident. I'm a little obsessive-compulsive about my bisqued pieces never being handled by other people or even by myself if I have lotion on my hands because greasy little fingerprints on bisqued ware can also cause crawling.

Speaking of greasy little fingerprint makers, here is one of Dave's headless students (headless because he's fourteen years old and his face shouldn't be on the internet) with a little sculpture he made.

He's an interesting kid, kind of annoying (like any teenager), kind of funny (like any teenager). Like any teenager, he wants desperately to be a grown up and wants desperately to stay a kid forever.

Sculptures like this are the result of that dichotomy, I think. This was variously likened to something you'd find under your bed, a sea anemone, and french fries.