April 5

Today wasn’t a very good day.  I broke two of the big dinner plates that I had trimmed.  I thought it was fine, though; I just threw three more, kind of quickly.  I accidentally worked through lunch, and then I went to get an apple with peanut butter during block 8, and when I got back to the studio, Mr. Mogilnicki told me that all of the plates that I had made are going to warp and get ruined in the kiln.  I guess I had made them too thin and they didn’t curve enough to support themselves in the heat.  I am really frustrated because now I basically have nothing done, and I don’t really know how I’m going to find the time to start over.  I guess it would be easier to make the pieces with stoneware but I really wanted the set to be porcelain.  Right now I just want to go home and sleep.  I feel like I’m not actually that far behind, but redoing the plates is going to take a long time.  It took me this whole week just to make eleven plates.  I feel like I’m going to have to sacrifice something, like maybe I won’t be able to do blind contours on all of the pieces like I thought I’d be able to. I don’t know when the deadline is in the studio for having pieces to go in the bisque firing.  I’m worried that I’m not going to be able to finish all the pieces in time.  Maybe I’m overreacting, though.  I feel like I’m just taking this one setback and making myself feel bad about everything.  Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to get going quickly again. 

           

            Now I’ve gone home and had a nap and an apple and I realized that I was being ridiculous.  My project is going to be fine, and I’m only a few days behind schedule at most.  I’m not even sure that the plates are going to warp all that much in the kiln.  Tomorrow I think that the final plates might be ready to trim, so I’ll probably spend both of my free blocks on that.  If they’re still too wet then I’ll start in on the bowls and wrap everything up so it stays wet over the weekend.  It’s hard to get the timing right all the time; sometimes a piece will be too wet to trim one day and then the next day it’s way too hard.  You have to be really careful about covering everything with the right amount of plastic.