Mugs again

Norfolk Southern visited CSX yard today. Downpours around noon.

Do you know the clay shrink from the throwing (wet) stage to the finished stage? My clay shrinks about 14 to 15 %. Here is a comparison. It seems that the shrinkage rate varies depending on such as the shape.

Yes, I was making mugs, again. I lost good numbers in the firing, and start using the same shape for two glazes, turquoise and tenmoku glazes. I throw 50 small mugs today.

Continue throwing

Have been busy making casseroles to butter dishes. It was hot day in the studio as the weather finally starts warm up while bisque firing. I am running out of the space and clay very quickly.

Back to studio

Well, three weekends of the shows, that was fun, well, I am exhausted.

I am encouraged that the new tenmoku glaze line of works is selling well. I have decided to discontinue my blue glaze line this year, that I have been selling more than 10 years, and its sale was declining. It is scary to replace the long-run product with the new.

Craft show is a lot of works. You are bringing your store to the street. From early morning to late night, heavy lifting and standing up all days. I like it, out of the studio to get the real feedback of the customers, which improves my pottery, but I can't imagine doing 25 or so like fellow craft people does.

Now, I am back in the studio and restock the inventory next four weeks. I just realized I am very low in clay, 7 boxes left. Yes, I use the prepared clay from Laguna, #510. I once mixed the clay, but it is too much of the work for one-person operation. I need to reclaim the clay as much as possible while I test the sample of the clay I am purchasing.

Allentown Art Festival

Left home at 5:30am. The forecast on the radio to Buffalo said the shower, but the weather held up, and we had great crowd. Very busy day. Packed up for the day around 7pm.





Went Japanese restaurant, Kuni's. I ate the grilled Hamachi cheek, that I have been dreaming of eating for four years. It was very juicy and good. I am very satisfied. Sushi combination looked great, as well. Highly recommended if you are in Buffalo.

Kiln unloaded and the Allentown Art Festival

I fired the kiln on Wednesday, and opened it this morning. Very good reduction throughout the kiln. Maybe, the dolly took my recent series of bad lucks with it!!



The containers are restocked and loaded into the van. The Allentown Art Festival starts tomorrow. Hope to see you there.

Here is the finished custom order.

Three River Art Festival-2

There were lots of people at the art festival, and I enjoyed talking with the customers who visited my booth. I start to feel the people are getting used to see my pottery. I hope I can be back.



Someone stole my dolly from my break-down pile in my booth while I went to get my van. Just the dolly, not my pottery. There was 18" vase sitting next to it! Whoever the person was, it was "LOW", especially I needed to move lots of pottery 400 feet away to the van. Fortunately the good people of the Three River Art Festival lent me one, so I could finish before turning into the pumpkin.

Three rivers, as Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers form Ohio river , where the festival is located. There are lots of bridges left and light and lots of interesting landscape and cityscape.

Three river art festival

After five hours of driving, plus one hour of the traffic jam near the downtown, thanks to "Go Pens" (Stanly cup final, Pens won last night), it took me three hours to unload and move my stuffs to my assigned booth last night. It was long way from the van to the booth. It was just exhausting. I set up the booth this morning.



This is a new location from the previous three years. There is two separate locations, usual for week-long exhibitors and new for weekend-exhibitors. I was worried not many people show up, but there were many people. The cross from us is the music stage, and after 7PM, there were lots of people. It was cool to listen the live music from own boot.  It became bit too noisy to talk with customers.

In between shows and Three River Art Festival

When you do shows, you do not know which items you sell well. One week is a bowl week, then mugs week next. It is quite strange, but it works that way. One thing leads to this is that when one customer is buying the mugs, those who surrounds the customer want the same thing. So, I may have a series of the customer buying the same item. Anyway, at last show, I sold tenmoku black pieces, which is a new line for me, better than expected. I was glazing the tenmoku pieces yesterday for next firing (next week).



I restocked the container and reloaded the van, and am leaving to Pittsburgh, PA for the Three River Art Festival tomorrow. The festival runs two weeks long, and I participate the first weekend, June 5-7. This year, I am setting up the Point State Park portion of the festival away from the Gateway Center Plaza. More information at Three River Art Festival. Hope to see you there.