A Studio in Retrograde?

I am in the process of tearing my studio apart and doing a major purge in preparation for replacing my kiln.  I have had a Jen-Ken Bead Annealer for years and have used it for bead annealing and glass fusing.  I have been very happy with it.  A few years ago, I got a great deal on  a programmable remote controller  to go with the kiln.   And then I started to use the kiln to fire copper clay which necessitated resetting the controller to handle metal firing schedules which go to a higher temperature than glass.  So my kiln will now reach a maximum of 2000 F which is suitable for low fire ceramic clays.  (cone 04)

Except I love porcelain and stoneware  which fire at cone 6.  (Some porcelain fires at cone 10 but I am interested in working at cone 6. ).  My work space is relatively small but I do a lot of things in it including sewing, polymer, beading, lamp working, fusing, mixed media and metal smithing.  I have a couple of enameling kilns that I don’t use that often but that I want to hold onto.  

So now that I have done a major purge and rearrangement, I plan to install ventilation for soldering and lamp working  and for a new kiln so I can do luster firing and cone 6 firing.  And I have to figure how to either sell the old kiln or trade it towards a new model.  We’ll see

In the meantime, I really wanted to show you some of the new pottery I’ve  been working on. But WordPress is buggy tonight (as it sometimes is-hey I love WordPress but sometimes it’s buggy!)

 

Instead of uploading  pictures of eight different pieces, I have managed to upload one picture eight times.  I am utterly baffled at how things like this can happen.  This is the second time I have tried to upload the pictures with the same mystifying result.  My friend Toni would say that Mercury is in retrograde.  But in retrograde in my computer?

I hope you enjoy my picture.  🙂

 

Trinkets and Some Bowls to Hold Them

It’s not like I don’t already have enough beads, but having access to a pottery studio, glazes and a bead tree has made new beads magically appear in my workshop.  The items you see below are pendants and a couple of bead comes.

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Here are some beads in their greenware state and decorated state  after bisque firing and prior to glaze firing.

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And if bead making was not enough, I been making  little trinket bowls to hold rings and other small treasures.

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I am having fun with different glazes and textures, and finishes.

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And I have also been having fun making components for the Into the Forest  collaborative polymer clay project.

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