Wednesday, April 17, 2013

April 16


I loaded the kiln today!  The small electric kiln in the supply closet.  It’s full to the top with my six salad plates, two dinner plates, four bowls, and three other mugs that I had made earlier in the semester.  I have to wait until Thursday morning to actually fire the kiln, for some reason, but it only takes twenty-four hours so I’ll have everything on Friday.
            I had to take all the kiln shelves outside and grind all of the old glaze that had dripped onto them.  The grinder is super heavy and powerful.  They were really gross and dirty with glaze.  Then I had to paint this stuff called kiln wash onto them and cover up all of the glaze that didn’t come off.  I had to wear safety glasses and a respirator.  Luckily Mr. Barmonde helped a lot and mostly did all of the grinding (and kiln loading).  But I was all over the kiln wash.
            Now everything’s just sitting in the kiln and I’m really psyched to fire it all.  It’s making me really nervous though.  I hope everything works out all right.
            I also threw a platter that’s about thirteen inches in diameter.  I only got to make one because I spent most of the day working on loading the kiln and in the glaze lab.  I like the platter though.  I think I’m getting a lot better at throwing plates.  Hopefully it’ll be ready to trim tomorrow and then I can throw more tumblers (I figured it out!  They’re tumblers, not glasses).  I made four already, but they’re not that great.  They’re a little shorter than I wanted them to be and two of them are a little shorter than the other two.
            I love that I’m getting to make things that I’m actually going to be able to use.  It’s such an awesome opportunity to be able to spend so much time in the studio.  I felt like I spent a lot of time in there before this, but now it’s just crazy.  It’s awesome because I actually have time to get things done, and I don’t have to rush.  Somehow I’m totally ahead of schedule on my project.  I think I’m actually going to have time to get everything done that I was planning on.  Even after my little plate overhang scare. 
            I’m now onto my third David Sedaris book on tape, so that’s good.

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