Website is up!

I finally decided to get hosting for my website. It's not complete yet, and I need to rearrange and update the galleries, but it is up!! It is a little slow to upload and I need to know if it is just my computer, so if it is slow to you too, let me know and I'll ask the host. If you go to a gallery and it is slow to upload, let it finish completely before you click a picture to see my nifty gallery feature.

Any other feedback on it is welcome too, especially the artist statement. I've never written one before and it was very hard to do.

http://starkspots.com

Long Days

While my dad has been on vacation since Wednesday, I've been working til closing time at 5. I usually get off at 4 and get home in about 30-35 min. When I leave after 5, it takes about an hour or more to get home, so my evenings have been shortened and it's kinda killed my studio time. I went in there tonight and could not think of anything to throw, so I started working on my webpage. I've been trying to build it for a while, but I've pretty much neglected it for many months. I hope to approach some galleries this summer and I want to have it done so I can appear at least somewhat professional. It is really coming along nicely, especially since I finally figured out how to add my picture galleries. Actually, it's going to be quite kick ass when I'm done ;)

This is one of my bakers that came out of the kiln the other day. I'm somewhat pleased with how it came out. I added too much water to my glazes this past time I went to glazing and the iron reds came out a little dark. I'm going to let them sit up a bit and take some water off.

I took pictures of the individual shelves before and after the firing, but blogger was being a pain in the butt when I tried to upload them, and I couldn't get them to stay next to each other. After I get the website done, I may move the blog over to WordPress, mostly so I can feel all cool and fancy like so many potter bloggers out there :)

Ok, I am super sleepy and have to go to work again tomorrow morning. Only til noon though not too bad. Nite!

All healed up!

Finally feeling better!! I was super sick from Tuesday to Friday, and I got to feeling a little bit better on Saturday. I was diagnosed with a 'severe respiratory infection.' I think that is just a fancy name for a really bad cold, but it still kicked my behind! I just made it back into the studio and got started glazing and waxing my bottoms. hehe--he just said 'waxing my bottoms!' Ok, enough of that. Here's a few of the pots I got glazed--still loads more to do.


I can't wait to get my kiln all loaded back up and get some finished work out. I seem to totally trash my studio when I go to glazing and it could use a thorough cleanup. And, I haven't even dragged out my spray stuff yet. Tomorrow--I really go to town making a mess!!

Under the weather

I woke up today with a terrible cold, and I get the pleasure of being to only one at work today. The only upside is that it's raining and nasty outside, so we are kinda slow today. And I was introduced to the coolest thing since sliced bread!!! Pandora is this radio station that tailors music to your tastes! It is really, really cool!

I put a coat of polyurethane on the shelves yesterday and I sanded and buffed them this morning. They look really sweet! I'll take some pictures tonight when I get them back home. It's so nice to have any tool I need at my disposal. I couldn't find a high enough grit sandpaper at lowes, so I brought them to work and sanded them with some 320 grit on our dual action sander--five minutes later, I had a great surface to work with. Put on the coat of poly and put a work light on them to dry them out. Then this morning, I grabbed some 2000 grit paper, the high speed polisher and some machine glaze and buffed them out to a nice gloss. I made the satin poly into gloss. I love having the right tools!

I am now debating whether I should paint the base. Right now it is just bare light grain pine, and I kind of like it. I just don't want to get paint on them and not like the result. I've also got to get some fabric to make table cloths--totally out of my element there, but I think I can manage! Since my pots are mostly dark, Lindsay suggested that I get a lighter colored fabric for the table cloths. I want my booth to be kind of bright and vibrant. I was thinking maybe a pale yellow?? But then would that look good next to the pine? Maybe a light gray? I don't know. I would really love some input from you out there in blogger world--men are not always the best color choosers. At least not me anyways.

Well, that's it for now. Back to work--I've got some parts to receive. Talk to y'all later!

New Display Shelves

I spent a good part of today building these new display shelves. They are 4 ft. wide and each shelf is 6" wide. The tables I got for Christmas are 5 ft. long, so these should fit nicely. The tops are some extra birch ply that was left over at work, the rest are one of my old 6 ft. shelves that I'm not going to use anymore, so my investment in them is zero. I've still got to sand and polyurethane them--I'll get to that tomorrow night.


I also unloaded a really full bisque load today, and everything survived except one server. It had a hairline crack in a ring on the bottom which I tried to take a picture of, but it wouldn't come out. I think it was from not compressing the bottom as well as I needed to, but I'm not certain. I haven't had a crack form in a complete ring before--it is kind of weird. Anyway, it doesn't go all the way through, so I'm going to glaze it anyway and see what happens. At worst, it will split in half and glaze will drip all over a shelf :)

Goodbye 2008 (a little late)

Well, this will probably be a fairly long post. I'm in a writing mood, I've got my favorite soda fired cup full of Beam and Pepsi (way better than Coke any day of the week), and I finished off my pots needing trimming and handles. How much more content could a potter be?

This is also my first chance to somewhat reflect on 2008, and it was a really great year. Life has been really interesting with tons of changes!

We were busy at work, and had a great season. I work with my father at his business selling and servicing landscape equipment, and we had the best year to date in 2008. I really enjoy working with my father, even if the customers can be a little more difficult sometimes ;)

Lindsay and I got to go on two really great trips--a cruise to the Bahamas and our recent trip down to Mexico. Both were really amazing and some of the most restful and relaxing times of the year. We are truly fortunate to have been able to go on both of them. Especially since one was essentially free :)

I also feel that I have progressed by leaps and bounds in the quality of work that I am now making. I have found that it is so satisfying to make work that I can feel proud of--and as a bonus, I actually still like this new work after making it for a couple months. I think that my forms are improving, and I'm also creating a more cohesive body of work. I am going to start compiling a portfolio of forms and glazes so that one day I can approach a few galleries and at least appear somewhat professional.

This past year, I got my studio set up pretty much to my liking--well, except I can't make it magically triple in size. I am still missing two critical items though--a wedging table and a pugmill. I can make the wedging table as soon as I get time and materials, but the pugmill will have to wait. Too bad I can't make one of those! Anyone got an old one they want to get rid of? You know, just lying around :)

And, of course the biggest and best news! We are expecting our first little girl May 14th! As I've said, we are soooo excited and really can't wait!! So, now that we've got to start paying for child care, I am trying to make tons of pots to sell. I plan to do a few shows this spring and I am going to keep filling my Etsy shop. Now, lets all just say a little prayer that the economy will get somewhat back on track so pots will just fly off of the shelves!

Well, that's enough reflexion for now. Getting a little sleepy now--must be about time for a refill.

It's a GIRL!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that Lindsay and I are having a little baby girl! The ultrasound went great today and everything was perfect! Got to see the baby yawn on the ultrasound and saw the little 'girl parts'. At first I thought we had a very well-endowed baby, but it turned out to be the umbilical cord. :)

Speaking of umbilical cords--that thing doesn't just come right off after birth!! It stays there for a couple of weeks! What's up with that???? I must admit, I'm a bit freaked out about some of the gross stuff, but I know I'll get over it once she gets here. At least she cant pee on me while I'm changing diapers ;)

Where have I been?

Man it's been FOREVER since I've updated, or even really had a chance to comment on others blogs--and I have been missing it. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years! Mine was nice and quite, which I needed. I also had a good amount of time off of my day job, and I put in a good many hours in the studio over the past week or so. I have been working on some new bakers and serving dishes that I am really happy with. They are split rim pieces that I had never tried before, but now I really like the outcome. I can't wait till they are glazed! I think tomorrow night, I'm going to take some better photos of one of the servers to put up on the critique blog for some honest feedback. But let me know what you think now anyway :)

I also have a new bowl form to go along with my other work that I think works fairly well. I burned through pretty much all of my clay, so now I get the joy of picking up more. I've got some good and smelly reclaim drying out, but nothing is drying again. I sometimes wonder if I've got the patience for ceramics. I bring out the torch an awful lot nowadays and still always seem to trim too wet. Oh well, whatcha gonna do?