Been a busy weekend around here.  Been a busy month, actually – three shows down, one to go.  If you like pottery, please drop by the Lab School of Washington DC next weekend (December 5-6) for the Glen Echo Potters show & sale.  Looks like close to 70 potters participating this year, and there’s a LOT of really nice pieces out there.  I’ll be putting out the best of mine and will be there around mid day both days manning the cashier station.  There’s refreshments for all, and a lot of fun to be had.

Fired up the Raku kiln for the first time this weekend, and gave it a shot.  I think I overcooked most of the pieces – but a few came out nicely despite my abuse.  Nice metallic copper patina on them.  Will have to see what happens when I get the timing right – I suspect the glazes will be stunning.  For those of you not familiar with Raku, it’s a different technique for firing that makes decorative pieces – basically a small kiln is used to fire one or two pieces at a time in about 15 minutes and then the pots are put into a combustable (like shredded newspaper) in a sealed container and left to cool there.  The combination produces some nice colors in glazes, and unglazed areas of the pot turn black from the smoke.   Other variants use unglazed pots and you put horsehair on the hot pot to get the reduction and blackened areas, or spray a chemical on the hot pot and put in the sealed container.   Lots of fun to do – and I’m looking forward to doing more.

The other new thing this month is that I got a set of plate moulds that let me make hexagonal dishes.  It’s a lot of work to do each of them, but I think it’s worth it – I really like the shapes coming out.  Another one to play with and get the thickness and patterns right on.  I used different textures on them, and all the textures came out nicely (you can see them in the pictures of the back of the plates).

Anyhow, on to the pictures.  Click on the gallery photo for a larger view.