Over the last month, I’ve made a lot of work; a single Saturday can consume 50# of clay, especially when the day’s interest includes a few large pieces, beside the plethora of tiny ones that take far more care than clay. Thus I filled my shelves, stacked bisqueware, amoebaed onto adjacent shelves, filled another shelf, more greenware, exhale of greenware to the kiln, breathing space filled with more greenware, inflow of bisqued pieces, I need another shelf, only to return the next day and find that I’d accidentally left a couple of big wrapped houses, still green, on yet another shelf, rather than finding them a home upon the ones I’d already sequestered.

This week I finished the cups and boxes I’d started earlier; they’ll dry and be bisqued.

Monday marked a great exodus, as I glazed all the bisqueware I had, to be fired in the soda kiln. My shelves are nearly empty; a few plates still dry.

One cycle has tapered, the next begins. Now my attention turns toward the upcoming wood+salt firing in Galena and creating work for that. The last of what I have: for a couple of years, I had a 50# box, part-bags of porcelain clay: last night I finished the last pounds in the last bag. Now I’ve a half bag each of soda clay and FSCI, and the bag of terra cotta that’s waited a year already (it’s not a high fire clay, so I’m not sure, yet, how I’ll use it), several pounds of FSCI reclaim - it seems like a lot of clay, but I’ve used all the bits and pieces that cluttered my clay shelf over the last couple of years; this really feels like a fresh start.

Last night I threw out, and compressed by rolling, an enormous slab: after I cut the errant edges off, it measures about 20″x30″.

Cut the slab in half; it’s too thin for one large vase; to make two smaller ones. (Use ’smaller’ loosely- these are still 20″ high, 8 or 10 inches in diameter.

At the same time, the show-preparation cycle occurs: I’ve still quite a few preparations for the Bucktown Arts Fest in two weeks.