April 12

Today Mr. Mogilnicki and Mr. Barmonde were loading a gas kiln firing, and I have this tea set that I made at the beginning of the year that I had been testing glazes for, for a long time.  I finally glazed it today with a couple glazes that I mixed up.  I hope they work.  It’ll be too bad if they don’t, but the tea set isn’t really any good so I think it’ll be okay either way.  I’m also realizing just now that I forgot to glaze the little plates that went with it.  I didn’t make enough glaze to dip the pot into, so I got to use the spray thing under the gas hood and spray the glaze onto the pieces.  It was a cool thing.  Then I waxed and dipped my six salad plates in the clear glaze, and they’re ready to go in the electric kiln.  But apparently the kiln shelves are all gross in there so I have to coat them with kiln wash. 

            This week has been really exhausting, and I’m totally getting a cold.  Hopefully this weekend is more relaxing.  I threw two more glasses today, but I’m still kind of having trouble with the tall shapes.  I’m not going to be able to trim them in the morning, cause it’s Saturday, so I’m going to cover them all weekend and hopefully they’ll be good to go on Monday.  I feel like everything’s going really well, like I’m totally in the right time frame.  I’ve pretty much got all of the basic pieces done at this point, and glazing is going a lot smoother than I thought it might.  I’m getting really quick with the blind contours. 

            I’m going to visit my sister this weekend in Connecticut.  I’m excited to see her.  She’s super supportive of all my art things.  I always think that we’re really different – she’s a biology major and I’m going to art school, and we just look totally different and I feel like we don’t act alike at all, but whenever I go to visit her at school it’s crazy how similar we are.  Our voices are oddly similar and we have all the same mannerisms and the same sense of humor and all that.  But it’s always nice to see her, especially because she thinks that all of the things I make are impressive even when they’re really not.