Full to Capacity

Trying to get on top of everything, I feel very behind with all my firings and every space I have is covered.  Feeling very behind and like I am struggling to get even the bare minimum done.  Making anything else is on hold, so when I am in the studio for the next week I have to do some painting or drawing, my drawing isn't as far on as I want it so I should work on some

This is my kitchen table there is so much awaiting a firing, including 3 piggy banks, a large piggy bank, an elephant and a lion.  There are even things on there for Christmas Decorations hmm.  And a variety of fruit to paint and then eat, if this were my mothers house there wouldn't be any fruit left as my little boys eats it all there.

The board on the left is all kids and clay things from last week and has been loaded into the kiln this evening.  The board on the right and on the floor are from Tuesday when I had the local church Youth group in it is all drying at its own unique rate.  The box on the floor are some more vase forms which are all waiting to come back to the kiln too.  Two bags of reclaimed clay and one of Arctic white stoneware clay.

The whirl pots are something some one asked for and are due this Friday, so they are in the kiln now ant the firing is going on first thing tomorrow.  Made a batch of smaller coffee cups after seeing these ones. Been thinking of making some rectangular saucers for them to go on, but I need to get some roiling guides so then the whole lot is somewhere near uniform.

Good fun but exhausting

I had a youth group in the pottery tonight, they each made a coil pot and had a go on the wheel.  There were 13 youth and 6 leaders, though the leaders just watched.  I really enjoyed it and after having them all on the wheel I think there was definitely a few that had a feel for throwing despite never having done it before.

When I was doing the demos of coning up and down I got a few sniggers, but never heard one laugh once they were concentrating on what they were doing.


I love the different attitudes you get towards clay, from afraid to touch it, to gently gently, to pushing it so hard it comes off of the wheel, then there are the ones that seem to have just that right touch.  I know I didn't have it learning, I was like a bull in a china shop. 
Now I look on it with a little more of a relaxed attitude, a little more Zen as my Martial Arts instructor would say "let the energy of the [object] flow through you", right before you would throw a punch and the next thing you knew he hadn't even touched you and you were on the floor head spinning.


I am glad I got more clay yesterday as I used an entire 12.5kg bag and then some I think.  I was down to my last two bags.  I got them from Pilling but I have been considering buying in bulk as if I keep buying in 8 bags after a ton it will have cost me quite a lot extra, that and I don't like V9A, I want to buy some more AWS-1G.  I know how that clay fires and reacts, it is a little more but think it would be worth it.

Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures here at some point, there were a lot of camera's about and I know there are some shots of me after I smeared clay on my own face, to prove clay wasn't that gross and hope easily it can get everywhere.

A night of good clean fun.