Wednesday, March 6, 2024

ROAD TRIP

I am not sure how often this happens to other potters but I ran out of clay recently, I still have a good cache of terra cotta and porcelain but not stoneware. Part of this problem stems from the fact that a clay supplier I used to get deliveries from was goobled up by a really big company so now I have to make a supply run an hour west or two hours east to get heavy supplies like clay and chemicals for glazes and slip. Compounding this new issue is that our vehicle can only really carry about 500lbs at a time so I am limited with each trip. I know, things could be a lot worse, I could have to dig my clay and mine my own materials but truthfully i wasn't paying enough attention and "poof" the stoneware was gone.  

Illustrated are two, well three pasta/ salad/ what-have-you omnibowls that along with a spare teabowl were thrown off the hump and represent the last bag of clay. I threw these bowls to proof, test the amber and soda blue on shallow pieces as well as making sure that the glazes will work considering I am using newly sourced materials. Shouldn't be a big problem but better to be safe than sorry as the old days of saying; "well f#ck it" and filling a kiln with an iffy glaze are well behind me or at least I hope so.