Ceramic Showcase is over and Mom has arrived. A small group of us set up the show for Friday...Stephen Mickey and the Soulbuds at MHCC Visual Arts Gallery. It looks great. Lots of amazing work and I'm so honored to be in the same room with all this talent. I think I'm still a bit tired from the Showcase weekend. During Ceramic Showcase I sucked it up and got some professional shots of some of my work. Above is one of the pieces. It was from my last firing at Soulgama in Brush Prairie, WA. I got some nice ash drips and crystals. Hope you can make it to the show.

Soulgama and a Happy Birthday

Another fantastic firing at Soulgama. Stephen Mickey always gathers a fantastic group of potters and this firing was no exception. The crew is an amazing community or maybe more of a family. We work together to load the kiln and fire it, but we laugh together, eat, drink, and maybe even share a few tears. One crew member described a feeling of Loving Kindness. Yes, it sure was that. Of course attention is placed on our work and the kiln, but there is so much more going on and I'm honored to be a part of it all.

My dear friend Sarah arranged cake and festivities for Sat. night since it was my 38th birthday. Maybe the best birthday ever. They sang me birthday wishes and Sarah made a marvelous chocolate cake. So much love and fun. I can't tell you how much I was touched and grateful to be surrounded by such a grand group of people. Thank you all soooooo much. In two weeks we will meet again and open the kiln and see what magic we created. Can't wait.

Pictured: Stephen Mickey, Jack Walsh, Ron Linn, Natalie Warrens. Brenda Scott feeding the fire. A sea of pots during loading, and a nice shot of Stephen Mickey laughing.

Lessons Learned

One of the things I love about ceramics is that you can never stop learning. You could dedicate your life to the process and you will never master it all. This can also be frustrating at times. For the most part the ceramic community is loaded with people who are willing to share their knowledge, time, experience, triumphs and even failures. I guess I have a failure to share with you today, but I'm passing this information on so you don't make the same mistake.

REFRACTORY BRICK...it's not created equal. I purchased 600 hard brick on craigslist.com a few years ago. Good brick, but not for my application. It's brick for a glass kiln, which I didn't have a clue, nor did any of my friends, that it's made for very high temperatures, but not the changes in temps we potters put it through. We made my grate, posts and a couple walls out of this brick and during the first firing the grate started to break up. Of course I was as stressed as could be because the posts were cut from this brick that was falling apart. We thought maybe we didn't leave enough slop between bricks and the expansion destroyed them so we made the grate the same for the second firing, except we left lots of slop for the bricks to expand and move. Well, they fell apart again. The back wall of the fire box has a few cracks, but we think because they are under compression they are holding up. The posts didn't crack either, thankfully.

Since this second grate fell apart so bad I felt I needed to start asking around and see if anyone had some answers. Stephen Mickey didn't know, but suggested I try Jack Troy. Jack is brilliant and answered my call for help with a wonderful explanation. As I said earlier glass kilns are brought up VERY slow and held at a constant temp and their brick has a lot of silica. So now I have new garden brick. Of course I won't be using the posts we cut anymore and we'll have to figure out some sort of covering to protect the one wall that gets heat. Lesson learned.

Pictured are some of the wonderful results from firing #2. Bowls with wonderful shino glazes and soap dishes.