Bisque Success!

I unloaded the first bisque firing of the new kiln today. No disasters - even the kids "door stop" pieces survived. I ran a 12 hour pre-heat in their honor just to make sure all the moisture was out. I'm working on some ideas of incorporating quotes into functional pieces in addition to the tiles. Bill finished up my coddles and I'm ready to cast some new molds. So much to do...wish I had more time.

Testing, testing, testing...

First Test of 04. It's a bit overfired. Thermocouple reads 1947*F as the final temperature. I'm on my way!

Warmth

I've been firing up the kiln to test the temperatures. After a few snaffu's with the electrical panel yesterday we finally have the right breaker installed. I completed a cone O4 firing tonight. I'm curious to see if the elements are still strong and if I really reached c0ne O4 (1924* F). It'll be cool enough tomorrow to check out the results of the pyrometric cone test.

We are still waiting for spring to arrive and the weather to warm up here in the NW - so the warm garage is a nice place to be during this cool weather.

In the next few days, I'm taking it to cone 6 (2165* F) to test the glaze firing temperatures. That's hot! The kids love to watch the electronic display on the kiln control panel climb. Tonight Jacob exclaimed, "It's 17,002 degrees". ;-) Now, THAT's really hot.

Crazy Faces

Lately I've found myself squishing failed thrown pots into faces on the wheel like we used to do in a class I took for years in Sacramento. I miss those art friends and long for the studio company and idea sharing that I had in Linnell's Studio (I wish I'd taken some pictures) and Jane's Studio (I found a picture of it that I took during a show in September 2006 - see above and note how CLEAN it is!). I can be rather chatty (okay, I AM rather chatty) so the solitude is sometimes deafining for me in a crazy way. I find myself listening to books on tape, my favorite new CD, shuffling it on the iPod or trying to catch up with friends and family if I can catch them on the phone - thank goodness for headsets. I'm still working on getting Sequoia to talk. He "speaks" but it's just a woof. ;-)