One special year...2010!

Time really flies, it's already boxing day 2010. This has definitely been an eventful year for me....started my own home studio the end of June, participated my first Ottawa Guild of Potters sale in November, visited Italy, France and Barcelona at the end of September...

The home studio came together quickly with help from my wonderful husband and the kiln expert, Jim. I managed bisque firing quite quickly, however, glaze firing took quick a bit longer. I had 3 glazes made: black, mysterious blue and randy's red. The black was just a disaster, it's really matte finish...just looks nothing like the black from the studio. After using twice, I had decided to stop using it. It just wasn't worth the time and it's always disappointing....The mysterious blue started out ok, but there are always pinholes on the pots. Most of them I had to re-fire again and even then they were still not 100% fixed! The Randy's red seems to be a little better, but it doesn't like to be applied on too thick or else it runs everywhere....and thanx God for the kiln wash or else I would have needed new kiln shelves already.

My first ever Guild sale went well, except I was under a lot of stress the week before the sale. I was hoping to get more pieces in for the sale, so I was still glaze firing 2 nights before it. And had to stay up past mid-night to load the last glaze load. :( The sale was 3 and a half days long, on the Thursday my husband and I went to set up my booth and then the Standard Committee went over everyone's pieces to make sure they are all up to the standard th

en the door opened at 4pm to the public. I was the cash for a few shifts and some shifts were so busy that I was writing receipts non-stop for a couple of hours. I met many nice potters, they were all very supportive and encouraging. I'd learnt a lot from everyone of them. I will definitely join them again at the Fall sale again next year. However, I don't think I will be ready for the Spring one. Since, I didn't make much since the sale. :P

My goal for this coming year is to make something different and a bit more challenging and to support that statement, I made my first more challenging piece....teapot.