Not so good.

When I was in Munich last year, my then four-year old niece, who speaks German, was trying to help me with my pronunciation of German words. She would say a word, and I would try to repeat it. Invariably, her response to me would be, “Not so good.”

Today, when I opened up my now cooled kiln, that was my response. While I gained some important information regarding the glazes I was using, and the way my kiln fired yesterday, very little actually fired successfully. It’s very disheartening to see what represents hours and hours of work get ruined by a bad glaze firing. This is one of the hardest things about working in ceramics. There are so many opportunities for something to go wrong, things that I have very little control over. I’ve had to learn to let go of control of the process and today I had another opportunity to practice this skill.

Loaded and ready to go!

I spent most of my time in the studio this week glazing and loading up my kiln. After making my cups last week, I realized that I didn’t have enough room in my studio for all of my bisqued work needing to be glazed along with new work that needed to dry. The result is a kiln full of cups I made over a year ago just the right size for my green smoothie that I often drink for breakfast. I have a few other odds and ends that you can see in the picture. Tomorrow morning I will start the kiln, and by Saturday morning I should have some glaze goodness to share!