Hot Flashes from a little kiln

WEAC propaganda to recall Gov. Walker

2011-11-14T11:41:00.000-08:00

I am so tired of opening my mailbox only to find yet more of the crap WEAC sends to me darn near every week. Hey WEAC, guess what, I am NOT voting to recall Walker, quite the opposite in fact. He is the only governor who has had the balls to stand up against the Union to make the difficult changes that are needed to get our budget back in line. Seriously, stop taking money out of my paychecks to publish your propaganda and solicit signatures and donations to support your cause. Not all of us who work for the schools want to see us revert to a hyper spending, grossly in debt government. Do you really want Wisconsin to be another Greece or Italy.

It is no longer about budget cuts though, now it is all about the Union losing power. I do not want Unions to buy my government with my dollar. I do not want the Unions to have the power to keep tenured teachers in their jobs when they are actually not a good fit for students, just because they pay union dues. Our kids deserve teachers who really love what they do and chose to be teachers because of their strong desire to teach. Not a strong desire to be off during the summer months.

As for all the crying about how horridly the budgets cuts have affected our schools....I scoff and don't believe a word of it, otherwise I would not see the schools spending money on foolish non essential items.
Really, you needed brand new school logo'd satellite clocks in every room......
Really, you needed to switch around your "early release" fridays to "late start" morning hours because the teachers just couldn't concentrate during the friday afternoon meetings...well how they hell do they teach class during the same time slot instead then? The changing of the early releases into late starts resulted in additional costs to cover the now needed, 2 shifts of crossing guards in the morning, and the loss of the breakfast program revenues, not to mention the need for parents to rearrange work schedules, sometimes having to miss out on being paid for those 4 hours per month....there is so much that just doesn't make sense anymore.
Will WEAC tell you about the superintendants who admit "we can work with this" new budget. Nope, WEAC just gleens the worse, puts it in your face and expects you to believe it.
The Union could not give a crap about the members.
Don't believe me, file a legit grievance once and see just how helpful they are - I personally know of cases where the union should have been able to help some members, but didn't.
The Union very much gives a crap about taking your hard earned money every month though.
Yep, they do that very well.

Paypal has eliminated the shipping link for delayed shipments

2011-11-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

This is awful, I have recently learned that Paypal has implemented the removal of the shipping link in paid transactions that are not shipped within a 14 day period. For all of us who sell made to order/custom order items this is not cool. Most made to order pottery items cannot possibly be completed within 14 days, and our buyers are well aware of that at the time of order. Bad move Paypal.

I am now recommending Propay.com instead of Paypal. Paypal (like its parent company ebay) is losing touch with the users who utilize their services and pay their fees. Might just backfire on ya paypal, maybe even result in a substantial loss in members, and with that a loss of revenues. Now that is something stock investors who are looking at buying some ebay shares might want to take into consideration.

Could fixing the American economy be as easy as just 5 steps

2011-11-04T18:42:00.000-07:00

I have a hard time wrapping my head around why the leaders of our country can't seem to come to a solution to fix our economy that doesn't involve bailouts and taxpayers shouldering a burden that is a result of their inability to run the country within a budget that is consistant with the way the rest of us have to live. Frugally.

I'm just your run of the mill lower end middle class citizen, so maybe my ideas don't live up to the extravagant bail out ideas or the "creation of jobs" that revolve around building infrastructure.....jobs that only benefit those qualified, and only for the short term. That just doesn't seem like a solution that is going to benefit enough people in this country for the long run and the cost of it sounds out of balance with any benefit it might create.

So here's the 5 steps I propose:

1) No more special interest group payments anywhere. Plain and simple. If we can't afford a yacht, we just don't buy one. (figure of speech)

2) Elected officials don't get lifelong after career benefits that are any more than the general population gets. In other words, setup a darn 401K, and save your money like we have to. Live like we do so that the bills you want to pass affect you as well as me.

3) Set up a US business to business website - a way for American businesses to denote their products as well as their needs so we can get these companies hooked up to buy from each other. Now give those same American businesses that exclusively buy components, supplies and equipment from other American businesses a tax credit for supporting their fellow businesses. That is a tax credit worth giving.

What if those businesses can't find certain widgets or needs that they have always sourced from overseas.........

4) That's where the government can help new businesses get setup to supply that need with low cost or no interest loans, with of course, the stipulation that the loan proceeds must be related to the purchase of again, American made products to setup that business.

But it's cheaper to get it from a foreign country.....

5) Time to assess customs and duty charges so that there in not a financial advantage to buying foreign products.

It's all about the government not spending money foolishly and keeping the jobs here and that starts with buying from here.
So simple!

pit fired pots without digging up the yard - making pottery in my new campfire pit

2011-08-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

These pictures are from a previous attempt at firing a little bowl in my fire pit purchased at Menards for having backyard campfires.
By using some organic fuels, coloring agents next to the pot and then wrapping in newspaper and tin foil, and finally allowing it to burn in the fire for several hours, I can make our evening outdoor fires have a little of the anticipation a child feels at christmas.

Trying to be humble, but pretty darn excited!

2011-05-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after many months of anticipation, I was greeted with a package on my doorstep from DRG Network. Alas, my yarn bowl was back home, and accompanying it on its journey were 2 hard copies of the current issue of Creative Knitting Magazine. Wow, the cover shot is of a finished top to die for. Wish I had the time to really delve into knitting when I see some of these creations. If you're a knitter, this would be a fabulous magazine to subscribe to - and either the online version or the snail mail version are available. Perusing through, I find an overhead shot of one of my yarn bowls on page 11 "Knitting with a conscious" article - with a great writeup on eco friendly green yarns. The article continues and there on page 90 in all her glory a full shot of my bowl. The yarns they chose to feature in the bowl couldn't have been more perfect. I am normally a very humble person, but I can't help but be terribly excited about this - thank you Creative Knitting!
Visit Creative Knitting

Hey, I think there's a skunk in my Bearpaw Tama boots - product review

2011-01-28T10:07:00.000-08:00

Imagine if you will, that for Christmas you were given a brand new dressy winter jacket, with a fur trimmed hood. It's lovely and now your ancient winter boots, that are cracking and leaking around the soles look very out of place. Well, that is just where my story starts.

After many hours of shopping locally, I was unable to find the perfect boots to both match my style and taste and my new jacket. I wanted comfort and good quality too, because I wouldn't be buying another pair of boots after this purchase until they were worn out. After many additional hours of research and looking online I decided on the black Tama style boots by BearPaw.

I ordered them online on January 5, 2011 and received them on January 12th. They're lovely boots, I couldn't wait till I had the chance to wear them. I took them out of the box quick tried them on for size, at that time I noticed what I thought was a strange rancid rubbery smell. Figured it was the new soles and didn't ponder it further, put them back in the box to take up to my room. A few days later I decided to wear my new boots, so I took them out of the box and removed the plastic sleeves that the boots were packaged in, and the odor hit me again only this time I realized it was skunk! I so desparately wanted to wear the boots. "Maybe they would air out after a day of wear". I shouldn't have worn them to work, it might just be the most embarrassing day of my life. As my co-workers repeatedly commented on smelling skunk, I just wanted to go hide somewhere out of everyones olfactory zone.
by the way - regarding sizing - I wear a size 7 to 7 1/2 shoe, and have a somewhat narrow foot, so per all comments and suggestions I ordered an 8 and they are slightly big, plenty wide, but I would be afraid to order small since it's better to have a little extra room than not enough).

Long story short, after a little over a week of trying to get some resolution on the problem it has now come down to me having to spend MY money to return them to the company at which time they would have to send me a completely different style (although they offered more than one option), none of which was really truly what I wanted. I am having a difficult time justifying paying to return a product that never should have been sent to me in the first place only to receive in return, a pair of boots that I never would have originally purchased.

So one month and almost $100 later I still don't have any boots to wear, and needless to say I am pretty much one very unhappy customer. Oh, and fyi this was a "batch wide" problem from what the person I spoke with indicated and that the retailer I bought them from did not have any replacements in stock for me. When I asked to be able to contact the manufacturer I discovered that the boots are actually made in China (my bad for some reason thinking these were made in the US where the quality control would be better). Maybe a stowaway skunk in a some Chinese factory is to blame for the free smells you get with the boot. At any rate, I have found other online reviews indicating the same problem with the same boot, so it's not just me.

Have you too experienced this - please post in the comments, and as for anyone else considering ordering, be sure to get confirmation from the seller that they have opened the plastic packaging sleeves and done a sniff test first. My recommendation would be to only buy them in person, so you can view the product carefully and sniff it too!

Update (2/10/11): I am happy to report that I have received a pair of replacement boots, sans odor! Yeah! I have another month, maybe, of winter weather left in which to wear them. Thank you to those who helped me.

There's hard Chunks in my Coyote Shino Glaze - Oh My

2011-01-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

Just thought I would take a minute to post this for anyone out there who is perplexed about finding hard little chunks that won't dissolve back into their shino glaze, which has just happened during the past few months. I keep my glazes in the basement. A dungeon of sorts, since it is a very old house, which is not heated by ducts. It's winter and sometimes drops into the 50's temperature wise, which I found out, is why my Coyote shino glazes were getting gritty/chunky. I didn't realize that just being cold would cause this, but it does. One of the ingredients in it doesn't tolerate cold temps well (neither do I for that matter).

So I posted my problem to my friends on the Etsy Mud Team after I had already glazed a bunch of mugs with it, chunks and all, thinking they would just melt down during the glaze firing. On the good advice of some of the members, I found out you need to immerse your glaze container in a bucket of nice hot water to warm up the glaze until you can get the chunks to dissolve. I tried it and it worked perfectly!

But in the meantime the already glazed pieces went on to be fired. The result was a somewhat mottled spotty effect, which worked fine over the black glaze that I had layered the shino on top of. Above is a picture of one of those glazed pieces heating up in the kiln at the early stages of a glaze fire.........every little hardened speck erupted in the glaze. It almost looks like gorilla glue oozing out all over the mug doesn't it? I found it so interesting I couldn't resist sharing.

My Review of Free Freight Pottery Supply

2010-08-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

I just have to give a shout out to Alex and the others at Free Freight Pottery Supply for their really awesomely helpful and friendly customer service. I originally purchased some Coyote glazes from them last year for the purpose of making some food safe utilitarian wares. Occassionally it is fun to divert from art pottery and turn to things that are useful too. Making my own glazes, I was unable to achieve some of the colors or finishes I desired, and still have them be food safe. Thus the veer towards commercial glazes for mugs and such. Then I discovered they are also just what I needed for some of my new decorative pieces too. I have ordered 3 or 4 times now.

On Thursday night, I placed an order for glaze that I was low on and a few new ones to try....I have ideas you know, lots and lots of ideas.......
anyway, late Friday afternoon as I was working on some urchins and thinking about some new color combinations I want to try on them when I get my order from Free Freight Pottery Supply, when I noticed a crab claw that I had forgotten about, which I was saving for "inspiration" - (I think they are intriguing and lovely). It dawned on me I would need some orange if I wanted to try to mock the colors in a crab claw and so I quick gave a call to FFPS. I asked if they already had my order packed and ready to go/or shipped, and found out that yes, it had just finished being packed up. I told Alex I wanted to add a glaze to it, but that's okay, I could get it next time I ordered. But instead he said 4 magic words.... "we aim to please" and then went ahead and added the glaze to my package.

I can't say how much I appreciated it, here it was after 4pm on a Friday afternoon, and I am sure the last thing they wanted to do was open up a box they had just finished packing, to make a last minute addition to it. But, they did and that is the true meaning of great customer service! I think any other company would have just told me that they were sorry the order was already "processed". Oh, and did I mention how quickly my orders always arrive! I have waited upwards of 2 weeks when ordering from other companies, but have always had my orders from FFPS arrive within 3-5 business days.

I give them a big thumbs up and know I will be ordering many more times from them!
Click on the topic title link to visit their website.

English Channel Sea Urchins are my latest love

2010-08-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile I find a new texture or color combination that strikes me and I want to keep exploring the possibilities that it could become. Lately it has been the English Channel Sea Urchin that has inspired me, and along with some smaller ones I have finished a 5" one (real life size) and a cool Urchin inspired bowl. I love the way the spine nubs feel....so textural! Next, I want to explore these forms in some other colors, I am leaning towards greens to start with. These pieces have been made with white stoneware clay and slip. Once I move beyone prototypes, I may give them a shot in porcelain too. Be sure to check out my urchin treasury on Etsy by clicking on this posts title.

Works in Progress

2010-08-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

I am slacker when it comes to keeping my blog updated, but time gets away from me easily and I will be going back to work in just one more week (may the 2010-2011 school year fly by and summer vacation return quickly!).

I have been rather excited about some new things I have been working on and my favorite, albeit time consuming, projects have been making English Channel Sea Urchins. With my airpen in hand, I can add all the little spine bumps without causing carpal tunnel aggravation. Experimenting with the glaze combos to color them with is fun too. I made a pretty nifty sea urchin bowl this week, along with a sodium silicate cracked pod that is very primitive and earthy.....just the way I like it! Of course you are seeing the pieces in their greenware state....

Fungus On A Stick - what next!

2010-04-29T19:12:00.001-07:00

Just got 50 lbs cone 6 porcelain to try working with, a diversion from the same old stoneware. It feels so wonderfully soft in my hands, almost too delicate to use in the manner I am accustomed to working with clay (which amounts to manhandling the stiff and groggy clays I have been using). So I have ideas, I want to throw some little earth sprout weed pots with it for sure, and some other ideas. But all that needs to wait until I clean out my wheel and tools, buckets, etc, so that I have a clean surface. Don't want to turn my nice white porcelain all brown from the residual stonewares.

So I spend a few minutes pondering just where to start in cleaning up my studio. I really need to find a different place for my driftwood. I have a huge laundry basket, plus a big bucket and a really huge bureau drawer all full of driftwood sticks. I do use a lot of driftwood in my pieces, but some "plain old sticks" that are a bit too large or too plain always sit in a pile taking up precious space just waiting for me to either get rid of them or decide how I can use them.

Sitting on the floor, I grabbed one of those "just too plain" sticks, opened up my bag of porcelain and started sculpting some fungus around the stick.

So here it is, in it's wet greenware state (which is surprisingly hard to photograph).....presenting.....
Fungus On A Stick!

Custom Birch Vases and Wedding Cake Toppers

2010-04-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

I have been having much success with my birch look pottery line, especially popular are the wedding cake toppers, so I put another twist on the birch clump look of the wedding cake toppers and made birch clump wall pockets recently. These are very labor intensive, but I am really excited about how they turned out! Now if only I could get some decent photos of them. This will do for now. I think they will be a huge hit at my shows this summer. In the meantime if you want to buy one, head on over to my online shop and pick one up.

Dear Mr. Coffee pot designer........

2010-02-16T19:23:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I have blogged about anything, and I am going off course from pottery promotion for a moment and posting a rant of sorts directed at all you product designers, those particularly that design new automatic drip coffeemakers. Help me out here, please, I beg of you. I am a coffee drinking addict and take my coffee seriously, but I am on a budget too. I can't afford to replace 2 or 3 coffee makers a year just because they fail to hold up to normal everyday use.

So, here is my wishlist for the perfect coffee maker. Of course an aesthetically pleasing modern look is a given. But only if it does its job to perfection.

1). Give me a carafe that pours without dripping back down the pot and down onto my counter (or worse) over the controls on the coffee making unit. A pot I can pour like a man, I am not a prim and proper tea party hostess, pouring into dainty china tea cups. I tote a big burly stoneware pottery mug that begs to be filled in a flash. I will say that Black and Decker is on the right track with the wider opening, unlike Mr. Coffee.
2). I want a stainless steel burner, not the teflon coated one the chips, flakes and wears off. That just looks tacky!
3). Only one overfill hole please. Don't need 2, that just increases the chance that while I am filling the unit, water will pour right through the hole that is for some reason strategically placed right where the widest fill opening is, and where of course, I am pouring in the water. Another mess.
4). Keep the buttons and electronics at the top. The smallest incidents of dripping or filter basket overflow, has been the demise of more than one of my pots. Poor design. If you must have it located at the bottom, then you better find a way to seal it to be waterproof.
5). Adjustable burner heat and brewing temperature. Everyone has a different idea of how hot they want their coffee, and those that brew boiling hot water seem to degrade the flavor of the coffe faster.
6). No cone filters, no cone filters, no cone filters. They serve the same purpose as a basket filter, but cost 3 times as much. Not sure why, but I hate using them for that reason and refuse to buy a pot that only accepts cone filters.
7). A large water reservoir filler opening is my dream. The little 2" slotted hole is too much of a hassle. Make it easy.....oh, and while you're at it, please design the lid to stay open by itself and not fall shut on me while I am trying to fill the unit. I want to be able to see the water level on both sides of the pot too, just in case my kitchen setup is different than your test kitchen.
8). Delayed brew timer is a must.
9). Finally, last but not least,
back up your product with a warranty that actually means something. If you think you have a good product, be confident enough in it that you can give me a 3 year warranty that covers everything short of me dropping and breaking it.

Let me know when you make one like this and you will have a faithful customer who will recommend it to all my coffee drinking buds too.

Some talent on the etsy mud team - getting mugged!

2009-07-27T20:40:00.000-07:00

There are some relatively undiscovered fellow members of the etsy mud team that could use some well deserved recognition. For instance check out this pedestal mug by Julia Terr of Bobcat Studio. It's wonderful and you can see more of her work at www.juliaterr.etsy.com

I will keep adding to this list as I can, and feel free to search the web for Etsy Mud Team. Buy handmade!

I am honored to be blogged about by handmadenews.org

2009-07-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

It's such a great feeling when someone else appreciates my work enough to feature me in their blog. Be sure to check it out here.... http://www.handmadenews.org/article/index.php?id=1748 Cheri just posted this, and I truly appreciate it!

How to spend a boring day at the office

2009-03-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

At one of my jobs today, the boss was super sick and all appointments were cancelled, yet I still had to be there sitting at the front desk, waiting, waiting, waiting for the hours to pass until it was time to go home. I offhandedly mentioned how I wish I had a glob of clay to play with to keep me busy. A co-worker said, "well why don't you just run next door to your studio and grab some". So I did. I returned armed with a blob of clay, a small dish of water, a towel and a needle tool and proceeded to handform this "Pottery Making Dust Bunny", who is busy coning her clay......another day, another dust bunny is born.

(now just hoping I don't catch that nasty bug the boss had)

One good piece out of a whole firing

2009-03-05T20:44:00.000-08:00

Here is one of the pieces I pulled from the kiln this morning. Most of the pieces I had in the firing were 'refires" a/k/a attempts to make better what didn't come out the way I wanted the first time. This one worked perfectly. The others were, well, shall we say less than stellar. Wish I was good at photographing glossy glaze finishes, this bowl turned out with really beautiful colors, the camera just doesn't do it justice.

Perusing Etsy can be so fun!

2009-03-01T14:49:00.000-08:00

So I am spending a quiet Sunday afternoon putzing around in the studio, made a driftwood and earth pod set, a toothpick holder and a miniature, and I mean little, birdhouse. Ramble on downstairs to listen to the Nascar race (dang, Matt Kenseths car blew up and he is out of the race already......) not much point in watching the race anymore so I sit at the computer to search for other miniature birdhouses on etsy. Helps me to establish pricing to a certain extent. While looking I stumble upon this listing http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21704574 hilarious, I am laughing my butt off. Be sure to check out other dolls in that shop too. Love the humor!

My new arrival! I feel like a proud parent showing off....

2009-02-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, I finally did it the other day. Right now I can ill afford this, but I couldn't help myself, I broke down and purchased one of clayflora's ( http://www.clayflora.etsy.com/ ) lovely handmade flowers. She custom made it smaller than her regular flowers so it would fit with my little ground orb like "earth sprout" vases. It arrived today, and I could not be more thrilled! I worried so that this fragile delicate piece would not arrive intact. Quite the contrary, it arrived perfectly safely in the safest and most professional of packaging methods including a styrofoam container wrapped in a special tubular bubble package all neatly tucked inside a box of peanuts. And just look......is it not just "to die for" gorgeous! HGTV, where are you. You don't know what you're missing.
Simply Stunning and such attention to detail! Can you believe it is made from clay. Although a much different kind of clay than I work with, it is an air dry clay - which she artistically paints to realism. The leaves, buds, flower petals, right down to the stamens are perfection.

I have temporarily placed it in one of my earth sprouts that I had at home, which is what you are seeing now as the pot I had intended this piece to rest in, is currently on display at my store. So I will be bringing it home tomorrow for my flower to rest in more permanently.
I wish her so much success in her craft, although with talent like this, who needs my wishes of success!
Thank you Tracy!

How much can a person do in one day

2009-01-05T09:20:00.000-08:00

My first blog entry, so I will introduce myself.
I am a "lunch lady", a seasonal receptionist, a potter and a brick and mortar store owner (where I sell my pottery in addition to doing shows and selling online). Some days it all seems a little overwhelming. Hence, I am a part time person, but a fulltime workerbee.
I have a goal for 2009....well, actually I have many. One was to set up a blog to network with all my muddy, pottery making friends, especially the online etsy mud team friends, who have been nothing short of fabulous. I am going to feature one of those members here as often as I can.....they all deserve their 15 seconds of fame!
Then, I am going to get my paperwork together and start inputting all of my tax information for my preparer. Believe me this will be the most stressful of tasks I plan on doing in January. Last year it took me 3 solid days to get everything organized and completed. I will do better for the next tax year, and not let everything pile up for 365 days.
Can I get all this done in one day?