The Mugs Have Been Delivered!

Got a call from my Mom. She hand delivered a mug order to Vancouver Island for me on Monday - yes that mug order! I had an order in December for nine mugs with names for a group of office staff. If you've read earlier posts from this year, you will know that it only took me THREE tries to get them right! Here's the final result .....

Subsequent email from customer - everyone is HAPPY!

OMG! - It's June already!

Time seems to just slip through my fingers .... summer is on the horizon and with it comes tourists (aka customers - yeah!), Hot Summer Night Market (we get to take the pots to town), Blackberry Festival, Arts in the Park and the Powell River Studio Tour. Add a few visits from out of town rellies & friends and I just know, before I blink, it will be September!

June also is garden time. Rick retrieved a broken bowl from the ugly pot pile and found it a new home ......

I began a new production cycle last week - always my favourite time - love getting back to my wheel! As usual, I started with my warm up - I throw off the hump - bowls, cups, whatever suits the mood. This time I did handle-less mugs and tea bowls. After I get my throwing chops back, it's time to move onto the 'planned' pots.  This time around, with fruit and berry season just around the corner, berry bowls and pie plates were on the agenda. All in all it was a pretty good week - only one pot hit the recycle bucket. You know I might actually be getting the hang of this!

As is my nature (I call it my 'butterfly syndrome' - you know, flitting here and there - others might call it 'lack of focus'), mid week, I veered off into making a couple of plaster molds. I have a piece of large beach bark I use to make baguette trays. The inside of the bark has awesome teredo worm tunnels all through it. I lay a slab into the bark and then after it sets up a bit, I flip the slab (texture side down) over a newspaper covered 3 or 4 inch PVC pipe. The worm tunnels give me a nice raised texture on the inside of the tray. I had been mulling over ways to simplify the process and decided a plaster mold would do the trick  (and since plaster mixing is a chore, I decided to make a couple of leaf and berry sprigs at the same time - see  what I mean, this is how my brain works!) To do the bark mold, I applied a couple coats of mold soap (50% Murphy's Oil Soap / 50% water) on the inside of the bark, built up the outside edges of the bark with extruded clay and poured in the plaster. Mission accomplished, right? WRONG! - As I was cleaning the new mold I realized - arghhhh! - smack hand on head! (I always get this male/female mold making backwards) yes, I have a nice permanent mold that I can lay my slab over but now the resulting texture will be an 'inny' texture, not an 'outy' texture! NOT what I wanted. NOW, I realize I need to cast the formed slab not the original bark form. Oh well, from our mistakes, comes ........ new and exciting pots ....