Resources

Say! I'm not sure whether anyone has mentioned it recently, but Carole Epp provides a valuable service on her blog, Musing About Mud http://www.musingaboutmud.blogspot.com/ .

She posts interesting ceramic related events, calls for submissions, exhibitions, etc. She also posts job-position openings for potters!

Her site is definately worth visiting regularly.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Chae

Greenware

Haven't been at the wheel much these past few months. There's very little incentive to create when the pieces can't be carried through to completion.

Still . . . haven't been entirely idle.

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Happy Days Everyone. The sun is shining here !!!

Chae

November Bowl

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After 9 months, Paragon Kiln Company finally decided to help "fix" the kiln situation !!!
A brief history: the kiln was brand new, straight out of the box, last October when it was first plugged into a dedicated circuit. It worked properly for a couple of months.
But ........
3 months later, the kiln (with a digital programmer) fought for its life to reach a temp of 2167°F usually stalling out with a "fail" notice around the temp of 2144°F. (The kiln is rated to temps of 2300°F.)
So! i called Paragon and emailed and called. Finally, a month-and-a-half ago they got back to me.
My goodness!!! xx I've never run into a company before that has such a multitudinal stockpile of excuses!!! xxx Most of them pertained to electricity.
They tried to tell me old houses won't carry a 110/120 volt load.
I replied: this is a brand new house .........
They tried to tell me that the plug-in receptacle was too far from the breaker box.
I replied: The receptacle is 20 inches below the box.
They tried to tell me about "power surges" and that you couldn't expect the kiln to function if everyone in the neighborhood turned their electric appliances, etc. on all at once.
I replied: Not too many people use their electricity between the hours of midnight and 6am.
You get the picture: a lot of excuses . . . .
The result? They sent me a "control board" for the programmer which arrived Friday. All i had to do was install it. I would-a been more grateful if they had included directions !!! Like: exactly how does one accomplish this?
You can't imagine the fear level i had managed to scare myself with. After all, the kiln functioned minimally as it was. If i did this installation wrong -- would it work at all?
OK. Screwing my courage to the maximum, i started dis-assembling the existing control board. And much to my amazement, the procedure was as simple as sin. It's a plug-in connector assembly much like attaching computor cables to the back of a tower.
Whew! I could do this.
xxx
That was Friday. Didn't sleep much that night in anticipation of firing first thing Saturday morning. Up at 6am and kiln started by 6:03am. Checked that puppy every 15 minutes throughout the day.
It fired 100 degrees (per hour/segment) lower than "normal", but hey! what the heck. If it worked, i'd not complain.
However, it didn't wait til 2144°F to fail. Shut itself off around 2123°F. Restarted it. It hung up at 2142°F. Restarted it. It quit several more times but finally reached 2167°F at 1:06am.
Boy! That was a long day. Just 5 hours short of 24 hours!
It's actually a pretty little bowl, but i'm not sure it's worth the 19 kiln-hours it took to produce it !!!
May all your firings be easy and short!
Chae

Wot's Hoppining to the World of Clay?

Google the phrase: "transferring images to clay" and you will find ( i stopped after 4 pages) scads of links to: "transferring images to Polymer (Sculpty, etc) clay".
There's gotta be something slightly askew with our modern culture when "clay" translates to "polymer" !!!
Chae

YES !!!

America redeemed.
In the eyes of its citizens.
In the eyes of the world.
Have a glorious day!
Chae

VOTE

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO TODAY IS: GO VOTE !!!
That is
If you haven't already . . . .
Chae