primalmommy on wed 18 sep 02
I have been working with that plaster-contaminated porcelain, dumping
buckets of water into the big storage tubs and stirring with my arms
until the slip gets about like house paint, then pouring it bucket by
bucket into another storage tub through a window screen. I am filtering
out a lot of dead spiders, bug parts, and yep, little hard chunks of
plaster the size of birdseed. I just covered the slip tubs with fabric
and will let them evaporate on their own a bit before I mess with them
again.
One bucket, though, is odd. The potter who sold me this batch said one
bag was "the good stuff"... so I put it in its own bucket, and it has
been soaking for over a week now -- long enough to turn the rest of the
rock-hard pugs to soup. This one is still half slip and half hard
chunks. The chunks are hard enough that they can be snapped in half with
some effort, and range from pea size to palm size. No matter what, they
seem to resist absorbing water.
I know absolutely nothing about porcelain, having been a ^6 stoneware
potter from the beginning. Is there something going on here that I
should be figuring out? Does porcelain contain the kind of stuff that
goes rock hard like the bottom of some glaze buckets? Why just this
batch, and not the other couple hundred pounds??
Another hard, 20 pound chunk is grey, compared to the white of the rest.
Does porcelain come in grey?
On another topic:
A frivolous note about Vince's wheel: as I recall, the effect of working
at that wheel when you're 5'2" is a bit like being a little kid at the
grown up table... but it's a lovely wheel, despite the odd fit for my
short limbs. What I like best is that is warms up slightly between the
knees as you work... My love affair with machinery included early years
riding the fender of a john deere that did the same thing... and one
weekend the bulkhead of an old workhorse of a tug boat, "Sampit", on the
intercoastal... like straddling a warm horse, but with that low hum and
engine vibration. That tugboat had a gigantic detroit diesel below,
pistons the size of my refrigerator. It was like being a mouse under the
hood of my brother's high school muscle cars. Talk about your sense of
proportion...
I've been reading up on clayart but too busy to post, canning tomatoes
and teaching papermaking to homeschoolers and running scout meetings and
such. I signed all my kids up for saturday art classes at the museum ,
so I can spend an hour wandering through the greek vases, egyptian
mummies, world class glass, calder and picasso and deheem and moore (and
more)... and my dad and I are taking a weekly metal casting class, both
of us carrying around promising chunks of wax in our pockets this week,
scheming, sketching, carving... mine will be cast in classroom scrap
brass, his will be solid gold... I'm working on a fat little goddess
destined to be a lid on a pot. I plan to attach her after the fact, but
out of curiosity -- Anybody know what happens to brass fired to ^6 ox?
Yours, Kelly in Ohio... doing nightly battle with a possum in the hen
house, one favorite hen buried and countless eggs gone missing. The
suburban neighborhood and my sensitive children make my shotgun out of
the question, and I am in no condition at 3 a.m. (barefoot in a
nightgown) to take on hand-to-hand combat.... Last night in the beam of
my flashlight he held open his pink mouth to show me all those pointy
little teeth... Tonight "the girls" are locked in tight, leaving the
possum to settle for my tomatoes and melons, damn his hide. Thunder
rumbling all day over the parched, brown lawn... promises, promises...
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Earl Brunner on fri 20 sep 02
Man, this potter that gave you such a good deal is looking better and
better......
When in doubt, throw it out.
Earl Brunner
mailto:bruec@anv.net
http://coyote.accessnv.com/bruec
-----Original Message-----
From: Ceramic Arts Discussion List [mailto:CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG] On
Behalf Of primalmommy
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 9:21 PM
To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Subject: weird chunks, vince's wheel &c.
One bucket, though, is odd. The potter who sold me this batch said one
bag was "the good stuff"... so I put it in its own bucket, and it has
been soaking for over a week now -- long enough to turn the rest of the
rock-hard pugs to soup. This one is still half slip and half hard
chunks. The chunks are hard enough that they can be snapped in half with
some effort, and range from pea size to palm size. No matter what, they
seem to resist absorbing water.
Another hard, 20 pound chunk is grey, compared to the white of the rest.
Does porcelain come in grey?
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