Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Return to Thinking Out Loud.


Sorry it has been several months since I have felt inspired to write anything. That's not because nothing was happening, but I was just in a very private mood. 

Ginny Conrow (www.conrowporcelain.com) and I led a crystalline workshop at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center at the end of February which was very well attended and we all had a blast. We started work at 8 am and did not finish until 10.30 pm each day. We had the use of some of the kilns of the local attendees and did altogether 6 firings, I think. 

I had a show at the Jacksonville International Airport for 3 months from January through April.

It's time now to get down to the day to day stuff of the shop. I am trying to finish a glaze load of stoneware to fire in the gas kiln. There is an 8 piece dinnerware set, some special order bowls, and I also have some oilspot items, which are being refired in reduction. 

Last year in August I came up to John Britt's in NC and attended his oilspot workshop and have been smitten by them ever since; not that I was not smitten before. Here is my best one so far. 


 They are not as easy to do as they look, that is, if they look easy. It's one thing to get a nice glaze on a test tile, and quite something else to make that glaze work on a pot. 

2 comments:

klineola said...

Hi John, Great to hear from you. Just yesterday Tom and I got together for lunch at the Deli in Mars Hill. We were wondering what you were up to as we remembered the day I met you there!

The oil spot looks great and you're absolutely right about the difficulty of transitioning from test tile to pot!

Dan Finnegan said...

The king of blogs beat me to it, but welcome back, John! I've always admired oilspot glazes, but I know it is a technical challenge I'm not up to. I think that you are just the man for the job.
I have regularly used your blog for reference for my photographic endeavors and I've had good results...thanks for that.