
It has taken a lot of elbow grease to get the studio fully functional for ceramics, and now it is! I picked up an awesome wheel off of Craig’s List. We (the fam) drove out to Black Earth, WI on a gorgeous Fall day to get it. It was one of those days when you just want to drink in all the colors and practically drive off the road trying to take it all in. We took side roads back so that I could sit in the passenger seat and look out the window (Julio doesn’t drive on expressways) and stopped to convene with the Wisconsin River for awhile. I bought the wheel from a very nice former ceramics major who was so sad to let it go, but being preggers with her second childie, she needed the cash and knew she wouldn’t get to using it for awhile. (So sorry sister! Enjoy the young’ns and see you on the other side).
The kiln finally got hooked up after three electrical quotes and a city inspector. I now am understanding how the government grabs money out of your pocketbook at every turn- permit for this, permit for that, license for this, license for that- boo!

Then there was the figuring out of how this new-to-me kiln fires. It is an old school kiln and although it was given to me with the manufacturers instruction book, alas, I somehow lost it. I found a pretty good video on you tube I used as my starting point, and have since fired it at least eight times. It’s a good kiln. I am beginning to see the beauty of those computer programmable kilns though- hanging out and flipping switches once an hour for five hours gets a little old. But hey, I am gaining valuable experience about the firing process. And knowing is half the battle people.
The whole ceramics thing is a resource intensive process. There are a lot of things you need to get set up to make it happen. A lot of resources go into it. And, a lot of time, with the firing and all. People really don’t realize what it takes when they look at the price of your product. It’s so not fair. But I love the clay. Love the clay. Ceramicists are all crazy freaks and they love the clay. What can you do? Gotta just follow it.

And I did my first mosaic in the space and so the mosaic area is fully functional as well. Yee-hah. I can go from one work area to the next and leave each project out and it is just a dream come true. Another layer of gesso goes on while the first layer of glaze dries, while the grout sets up a little. It’s the bomb.
I even have an area set up for taking photos of my work. So there may be some changes afoot for my website soon. Uploading all those photos and resizing them is gonna be a real treat. Oy. I think maybe I will train my kid to do it. He's a monkey.

