Composite

I am going to break a cardinal rule of this "blogosphere" and say what you are never supposed to say. "Gee..it's been a long time since I've posted." I read that somewhere about a year back in a guide to having a successful blog. HA! Well, if consistency is what you are after I am afraid you are in the wrong place. Some days (or months) I just cannot bring myself to keeping everyone updated on my life. I will not bore you with my ruminations on why that may be.

So here is the update:

Plans are moving along on the workshop construction, kiln, and kiln shed. There are a number of details that need to be worked out...like what to do with a pesky power line that goes up through the back field (and the potential site of the pottery) to the last property on the road. As promised before here are a few pictures of the place. This summer I'll be going out on weekends to chip away at a list of house improvements including a shed dormer which I have felt could be a little over my head, but have then been assured by a friend of mine who is a framer that it is "just about impossible to be over your head with a shed dormer." All house improvements will end n the fall when work will start in eanest on the kiln shed and workshop.

Site of Workshop

In the pottery we are busy as always making pots for the next firing which will be in mid August. We have about 7 weeks to throw which will give us plenty of time to fill the kiln. Below are a few pictures of the process of throwing a composite.
The bases are all thrown on day 1. We leave them on the bats and let them stiffen up.
The next day we attach and throw the necks. Joseph throws his necks off the hump which may be faster but I prefer to throw the necks out of individual balls of clay. Fo this pot the base was 3.5 lbs and the next is 1.75. The necks could have gone down maybe a quarter lb but this weight was pretty good. With callipers we match the flange of the neck to the base.

The next step is to flip the neck onto the base and throw it. These are tricky to make and because I haven't done alot of them here they still take me a good bit of time. Depending on how centered the neck goes on and how much I have to wrestle with it wanting to spin out of true they take me between 10 and 15 minutes per base but usually its closer to 15. I would be happy to get it down to 1o minutes. It of course also depends on how complicated you make the neck. These are fairly straighforward. These were inspired by a pot of Daniel Johnstons which is on my refridgerator. Maybe more on that subject on Tuesday...