Michael Kline's Page

Had a full day of scrambling between my "two" workshops, filling up bisque kilns, throwing more platters, working on some bottles(jugs) and generally taking each task one at a time. We've had a lovely summer supper of tomato sandwiches. It's been the best summer for tomatoes that I can remember. Now I'm ready for the second shift. Bug time! I hope everyone had a great day. I'll try to report the evenings activities in the morning.

Mark Hewitt is having a kiln opening this weekend, sorry I can't make it. But here is a preview. By the smile on his face it looks like he had a good firing.

Many thoughts went through my head today as I cleaned up the wood yard. Like how am I going to make the pots, stack the wood, clean the shelves, etc. It reminded me of a riddle my mother-in law Jackie asked me once. Question: "How do you eat an elephant?"
Answer: "One bite at a time." It's metaphorical, of course, I wouldn't go out and try it if I were you!?!

It's a week and a half till the firing and I'm reporting the "sawdust" part of my work. I'm still cutting and stacking wood from my massive deliveries late last summer to make room for some fresh wood. The poplar seems to do the trick and I have a bit of oak and maple, too. It's too hot to cut wood all day, so I did some cutting this morning and then a little more this evening. I failed to get a picture but I will be repeating for the next few days.

I struggled to make the pots on my list for today, but they're made. Sometimes that's the way it happens. Some days you flow and some days you stumble. Most of my mind was wrapped around the absurdity of my studio situation and the audacity that I should attempt to make good work. There is probably a reason potters don't work out of doors, several in my recent experience. The big surprise of today was a decision to bisque my bigger pots back at the old shop! How crazy is that? I planned on firing Courtney's brand spanking new kiln, but her wiring wasn't sufficient to carry the load and she's blowing fuses. Luckily I have an old service panel that we can install in the next few days if she can get an electrician. In the meantime I did my calculations and realized that I needed to jump on it and start bisqing, anyway. At ye olde Mushroom Factory I have two kilns and will have to commute to the pots. So into totes the pots go, carefully wrapped. It's so absurd it's got me laughing and crying, (and whining). But that's the way it goes.

In other news, I had a nice visit with Pamela Theis of "Salt/Soda Firing" and some of her classmates from Penland. We looked over the pots and they took some picture of the train wreck that is my compound. Hopefully Pamela will get to come over again before she leaves for home.

The Disqus campaign has been fairly successful, I think. We had over twenty people register and leave brief comments and got the ball rolling. Cynthia from Colorado Art Studio, was extremely helpful and shared her research. If you don't want to register but still want to keep up with a thread, you will be able to click on the RSS feed for that particular thread. Just click on the comment link then click the options button and look for subscribe. If you're not sure what that means, get in touch with me and I can help. It really works best if you register, but I certainly understand if you would rather not. In the meanwhile I think it will be fun and more interactive. Thanks everyone. And if you missed the post the other day, scroll down until you see an duck and read, and register, for a chance to win a piece of my pottery!

Tomorrow, more sawdust in my forecast and more clay.

So today was a big day for this blog, we had a lot of folks register with Disqus, the commenting component of this blog. Basically, it widens the conversation by letting everybody choose what to comment on, whether its what I write, or what someone else writes. Any time you participate, you will receive an email letting you know when someone has replied to what you've said, if that happens, and the "discussion/thread" can go on until it spins completely out of control. Ha... Like at Ron's the other day, to quote Ron, "Oh, brother." Watch out for those body snatchers, Ron. I hope you will be able to continue your blog?!


Back to pots...


After a surprise trip to Carvers Gap (on Roan Mountain, 5512 ft.) to celebrate Evelyn's first day of school, (really her new back pack and school) I turned the feet on all of the platters, cut some rims, and made a couple of jars.