Unloading the Kiln

It's not that often that I have a kiln load that's dedicated to custom orders. I guess today was the exception to the rule. I had three orders that were in yesterday's glaze firing load. There's a certain amount of anxiety that comes with doing custom orders. I want the pieces to live up to the expectations of the customer and I don't want any unexpected problems, because that'll just delay delivery. So yesterday's glaze firing was dominated by the butterflies. I took this as a good omen, when I saw a Monarch butterfly fluttering through our front yard right before I opened the kiln. It's like Christmas, unwrapping the presents that the kiln delivers. First shelf looks good and ironically are two Monarch butterfly plates; second shelf looks good, third shelf looks good and finally fourth shelf looks good. I can now take a breath. One slight problem with the non-butterfly yarn bowl. Perhaps that will be a lesson to me that the butterflies prefer to be on their own, no outsiders allowed.

Mugs

The mug is such a personal form of pottery. Most folks have their favorite. It could be that the handle fits well with their hand, or there's a special place to rest their thumb, or perfect balance, or a great tactile feel with the glaze, color, size and the list can go on and on. For that reason, a simple form like the mug can be a tough one to get just right.

Up until a year ago I was never a big mug maker. It was always a challenge for me to get the handles just right, the size perfect, and the decoration the way I wanted it. I felt the best thing to do was just to not include mugs in my repetoir. A year ago all of this changed. The Etsy Mud Team had it's 2nd annual mug swap. It's an anonymous swap, almost like a Secret Santa, and because of the number of incredibly talented potters on the Mud Team, I was sure to get a winner.

This exercise got me to thinking that I should try to improve on my mugs to give them a bit more style and I'm happy to say that the designs are evolving. I'm happy with the last batch that will be at Florida Craftsmen for the Holiday Show in St. Pete, FL. And I've started another batch. I'm enjoying the fact that I can take the same elements that I use on larger pieces like bowls and plates and translate those design elements onto the mugs. My goal for the next month is to make at least one mug every day. I think it's going to be like eating Lay's potato chips, I can't just make one!