It has been far too long since I’ve produced any work. Finally, life is getting less hectic and I find I once again have time to play with clay. A couple of weeks ago, I glazed most of the bisque ware that was on the shelf, and fired it. There was a variety of clay bodies, some pieces were from 2004! I fired to cone 6, and everything came out pretty good. I have been playing with glaze combinations, using some commercial glazes that I bought from Georgie’s.

I used a baffle shelf, placed 2 inches from the top port of the kiln, in attempt to even out the temperature. It helped - I only had one cone difference, but I still had a variation in temp between the top and bottom of the kiln. I will move the baffle up about 3/4 inch next time and see how that affects the firing. I am also going to leave an empty shelf at the bottom.

Here are the results of that firing:

The nearly 100 pounds of clay that I have has somewhat dried out - no big surprise there, considering I bought it six months ago. I decided to use the dryer bag to make some slab pots, and also threw some small bowls and a couple of cylinders. I threw the bowls off the hump, and found the clay was OK to work with in that way, so I think I’ll use this clay up by making TONS of little bowls. They’re really cute when done, and I think they’ll sell.