Once again, the last month has been jam packed. Lots of making, moving, and working has made the time fly by. I considered putting off this blog even longer because I have more pressing things to do, but I think that will always be the case, and as silly as it is I think it’s important to keep reflecting on and logging my clay (/life) journey.

I did some clay collecting at the start of the month, following coordinates from HP Bloomer’s 2017 blog of wild clays around Cobb Mountain (https://www.cobbartandecology.org/blog/2017/5/14/clays-from-around-cobb-mt) and a couple sites along Bottlerock Road that seemed promising to me. More details on all of that are in my wild clay logs.

I couldn’t believe all the obsidian deposits along Bottlerock Road! I’d never seen such massive amounts of obsidian — there were literal boulders of it. The clay collected from there all has obsidian inclusions which is an issue for clay but could be nice in a glaze. I loved that dark brown clay in the slides above (“BRD”), found in a ditch along the road. It’s incredibly smooth and plastic, but melts into a puddle at ^10 (last slide above). Based on that, HP’s notes, and a ^6 button test, I think it starts melting around ^2-3.

I am eager to see my button test results — I have a handful currently cooling in the train kiln that will give me the information I need to actually start doing stuff with all the samples I’ve collected. Aside from clay, I’m looking to find a site with volcanic ash (top right image shows a promising place?) and pumice.

I’m still testing that XX sagger stoneware recipe I pulled from HP’s Glazy. I did some absorption tests, and the batch I’d mixed had an average 5% absorption (too porous for functional work).

I found out that HP’s recipe is slightly modified from one from Jason Hess — subbing EPK for tile 6 kaolin. So I made 3 500g batches with tile 6 and varying amounts of g200 and one batch subbing in helmer kaolin.

I also did some quick line blends with my original overly-refractory batch of XX saggar stoneware and that brown clay from the ditch! Excited about these. I know half of them will likely turn out as puddles but am hoping for some ballpark information to work from. They are currently cooling in the train kiln with my other tests.

I have been busting my ass this month to make work. I made another batch of slipcast cups, continuing to play with casting them thick and carving/adding onto them. I plan to make another mold soon. I just don’t know if/how/where I will find the time.

Time time time… the majority of it went to altering my thrown forms, per usual. I’d originally planned to make a sculpture for the Thanksgiving train firing but had to pivot due to space restrictions and made more sculptural vessels instead. My biggest project was the pedestal vase, which I first threw, then flipped upside down and coiled/sculpted up the base, flipped right-side-up again and sculpted the top. I build a “crown” out of groggy stoneware for the vase to rest in during the bisque and final firing, to take stress off of the delicate base structure.

Halfway through the month, Casey ran a soda firing and was gracious enough to squeeze in a few of my pieces. The soda ate away at the top of the vase I put in in such a crazy way; some holes got filled in with soda ash, and the spindles became paper-thin at parts. Really cool but unplanned. I am loving the range of colors I’m getting in the soda kiln. I am going to shadow Casey on a firing in a few weeks and then am hoping to lead a resident soda firing in January.

Also, I started working at Calistoga Art Center as their ceramics studio tech! It’s a very small operation and the studio needs a lot of love. I’m only working there 4 hours a week but am really happy to be helping out there and doing work I feel passionate about. I’ve been chipping away at cleaning and reorganizing the space and have a long list of projects I want to do there; I’m grateful to gain more tech experience outside the Cobb studio. Outside of tech work, I had the awesome opportunity of doing an artist demo there! It was my first demo and I definitely learned a lot about what I want to do differently next time. Talking about my process and work while actually working is super challenging, and my process isn’t easily translatable in a small time period. But it was a great experience and the folks were all very kind. I couldn’t have asked for a better venue/crowd to stumble through my first demo.

Very important side note before I get into the Thanksgiving firing— I made a tiny teapot! I hadn’t made a teapot since 2021 and was forced inspired to have my go at one so as not to be left out of the CMAEP tiny teapot party. Casey, Lucas, and Syd have all been on a tiny teapot kick, and Syd got all of the residents to make their own rendition of one. It was a fun form to return to with my new sculptural voice.

A lot of workshop participants also happened to bring tiny teapots, too, so Lucas filled a whole shelf with them while loading. I can’t wait to see them all come out of the kiln tomorrow!

About 2/3 of my pieces fit in the train kiln; the remaining ones will go in the soda firing in a few weeks. I’m most excited about my tests and big vase, which was loaded on the floor of the side-stoke firebox, right in front of the door. By the end of the firing, the side-stoke coal bed was about 3’ high, covering mine and all the other pots on the floor. I’m expecting some cracks in my vase and goblets for sure, but am hopeful they will be minor.

Surface wise, I dipped a lot of pots in xx saggar sig, some in helmer sig, and a couple in some of my flashing slips. I covered the outside of my vase and a few smaller vessels in the clay I collected at Touchstone (I wish I had more of it… it’s my favorite wild clay slip as of yet) and a little bit of blue soil from Arizona that has melted into a beautiful green-yellow glaze for me in the past. I left all my shallow dishes unglazed and lined the rest with a green celadon (Cobb studio glaze), a nuka-like glaze called “Sea Slug” from Karley, or my go-to shino, Dolly’s Russian Hotel. Retested my batches of Salt and Penn State shinos on a few pieces too, but unsure if those were part of the group that made it in the kiln.

I truly couldn’t have imagined a better first wood-firing (as a resident) here at Cobb. The group was wonderful; everyone was so incredibly enthusiastic, generous, and kind. The Thanksgiving potluck was delicious (i was very proud of my deviled eggs), as were all the following feasts cooked by workshop participants and residents. Lucas did an amazing job at loading and coaching us all through the firing. He is so experienced, humble, and wise — a very grounding, calming presence to be around, and a magnificent teacher.

I fired the first two sunrise shifts (4-10am), first with Syd and Morgan as a third, and second as a lead. The shift I led was particularly exciting and challenging; I was handed a struggling kiln by the overnight crew — they couldn’t get it to climb past 2100. When I joined in around 3:15, we put our heads together and decided to adjust the primary air ports, which helped get it to climb again. A few hours into my shift it started stalling and dropping again and the coal bed was still very high, so I opened some ports completely, which caused a lot of back pressure. That prompted me to keep the door shut for the entire stoking cycle, to draw the flame back into the kiln. This strategy certainly helped get the front of the kiln climbing again (the back had been slowly increasing in temperature throughout the shift despite the front stalling) — but was a very dramatic way of doing so. Lucas stepped in around 8:30 and made some adjustments to the primary/secondary air ports so that there was less back pressure and we could switch back to leaving the door open while stoking. The kiln dropped and stalled again with these adjustments, but at this point, I’d already dropped 9, 10, and 11 in the front of the kiln. We were where we needed to be, temp wise.

I was firing with two people who hadn’t wood-fired before, so I felt a lot of pressure to try to keep the kiln on track. I think I had the right idea, but could’ve gone about it in a more elegant way. Either way, we hit our goal, and I learned a lot. It was an ideal first lead shift for me.

After that shift, I spent the rest of the weekend and Monday catching up on sleep, dropping in on the kiln (super fun time as extra kiln support early Monday 2-6am), helping clean, socializing, and catching up on some tasks. Without the pressure to be cranking out work, I felt like I had a lot of free time for a very short while. Now I’m back to the scramble. But this is yet another reason why I love wood-firing — it forces you to slow down and harmonize with the pace of the kiln and the people around you. Good people, good food, good conversations, good memories — that is all that matters at the end of the day, over anything that goes into/comes out of the kiln.

Outside of the studio/work…

lotsa running (bike is currently in repairs) — ran my first half marathon around Boggs state forest last week! Soft ground and hills and beautiful sites make running 50% less painful (:

aurora borealis over the studio, and an almost-full moon with a fairy ring!

random koi skeleton (i think an animal dug up one of Scott’s that he’d buried n dragged it up the mountain?) + other forest finds

my pot in a magazine! i’m basically famous!

a lot of earthquakes this month. I don’t really have a photo of those but just imagine the ground shaking

casey being the silliest/best studio mate ever

game nights!

homemade pineapple fried rice that morgan made that kinda changed me, tiny tomatoes from Lorie’s garden, and apple butter w/ the apples from the orchard!

and more pretty trees, as always. been waking up in time for the sunrise a lot more lately and am always awed by the morning golden hours here.

November Update

October Update