Lee Love on thu 27 nov 03
I have to cover my wheel with wareboards to keep the cats from using the
interior of the platform as a litter box.
--
Lee in Mashiko
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful
servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has
forgotten the gift." -- Albert Einstein
http://Mashiko.org
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? Albert Einstein
logan johnson on thu 27 nov 03
Hey There Mike,
Can't give youn ANY help on the "wet spot" question but, At the community college I attended we did do saggar firings with moose poo. At least you don't have to wait 'till a student goes on vacation to Alaska.
Mike Martino wrote:
So I get up at 5:30 and go for my morning walk. On the way out I notice that
the side door to the garage is open and the light is on. Oh yeah, I forgot
to shut everything up last night in my rush to pick up the kids from day
care. No big deal. I take a path along the dark roads on the outskirts of
town and back around through the small shrine grounds behing my house. No
sounds but the early birds, and a very light mist falls for about 5 minutes.
It's a very quiet morning, peaceful with less early cars out than usual. I
feel good, thinking about the glaze mixing I'm going to do today in
preparation for my first ever firing. I come back to my garage and open the
main door with the intention of checking on the clay I made yesterday and
turning out the light. Looking down into my clay bucket I notice a couple of
footprints, cat I think. "Ha, ha, the cat's were in here playing around, how
cute" I think. At about the same time I notice a strange unpleasant smell.
I've smelled it before but can't quite place it. I look over to my large
stone mortar where I crush the iron oxide that I collect from the mountain
across town and pick up the wooden fence post to give the crushed iron a few
more loving whunks. My eyes move over to the bin where I keep the half
finished crushed iron. It's canted over at an odd angle and a little has
spilled out onto some of my other collected glaze ingredient, known only to
the local potters as 'that grey stuff'. I remember the cat and chuckle as I
imagine it jumping up and avoiding a fall as the bin tilted, then I
see.......
can you guess?.....
keep going.....
THE BIGGEST CAT TURD I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE! OH MY GOD ITS HUGE. And with
that sight the smell comes back to my attention and the realization hits me.
A cat has used my precious red iron oxide, my iron oxide long searched for
on the mountain, lovingly collect by pick and shovel and ground down for my
glaze with my own blood, sweat and blistered hands! I grab the nearest tool
I see, a pair of large tin snips, to fish out the offending cat bisuit (a
beautiful dark red, I might add) and notice there is a large wet spot in my
precious mineral as well. My next thought is: I wonder if cat piss will add
any interesting characteristics to the glaze? And if so, how do I get more?
Mike
in Taku, Japan
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Logan Johnson
Audeo Studios
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Snail Scott on thu 27 nov 03
At 07:07 AM 11/27/03 +0900, you wrote:
>...My next thought is: I wonder if cat piss will add
>any interesting characteristics to the glaze?
Although I do not use cat piss in my glazes, I DO use
it in my bronze patinas. (Bottled ammonia would work
just as well, but I love having a practical use for
used kitty litter!) I find that the traces of cat
piss (or rabbit piss, etc.) do not have any noticeable
effect after heating, at least in my usages. All the
interesting chemical effects happen mainly at room
temperature. I suppose that any refractory trace
minerals are simply too few in total quantity to be
noticed.
(You didn't think that _nobody_ would have an answer,
did you?) ;)
I occasionally have feline 'gifts' when a cat gets
accidentally locked in the studio overnight and uses
the pile of clay trimmings as a litter box. (Yes, it
happens pretty often - they think the studio must be
truly wonderful since they're not allowed into it,
and become invisible at quitting time. Repeated lock-
ins have not yet convinced them that they are wrong.)
For this reason, I do not save the timmings off the
floor. That, and other less stinky but potentially
more annoying contaminants like plaster bits and metal
shavings.
I also had to chuck out a large bowl-shaped plaster
mold. :(
My Problem: a local tomcat has claimed my kilnyard as
his territory, and thoroughly marked my kiln as his
own. While liberal dosings of Febreze have largely
suppressed the day-to-day olfactory effects, they
return full-force as soon as the kiln heats up. ;p
-Snail
Mike Martino on thu 27 nov 03
So I get up at 5:30 and go for my morning walk. On the way out I notice that
the side door to the garage is open and the light is on. Oh yeah, I forgot
to shut everything up last night in my rush to pick up the kids from day
care. No big deal. I take a path along the dark roads on the outskirts of
town and back around through the small shrine grounds behing my house. No
sounds but the early birds, and a very light mist falls for about 5 minutes.
It's a very quiet morning, peaceful with less early cars out than usual. I
feel good, thinking about the glaze mixing I'm going to do today in
preparation for my first ever firing. I come back to my garage and open the
main door with the intention of checking on the clay I made yesterday and
turning out the light. Looking down into my clay bucket I notice a couple of
footprints, cat I think. "Ha, ha, the cat's were in here playing around, how
cute" I think. At about the same time I notice a strange unpleasant smell.
I've smelled it before but can't quite place it. I look over to my large
stone mortar where I crush the iron oxide that I collect from the mountain
across town and pick up the wooden fence post to give the crushed iron a few
more loving whunks. My eyes move over to the bin where I keep the half
finished crushed iron. It's canted over at an odd angle and a little has
spilled out onto some of my other collected glaze ingredient, known only to
the local potters as 'that grey stuff'. I remember the cat and chuckle as I
imagine it jumping up and avoiding a fall as the bin tilted, then I
see.......
can you guess?.....
keep going.....
THE BIGGEST CAT TURD I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE! OH MY GOD ITS HUGE. And with
that sight the smell comes back to my attention and the realization hits me.
A cat has used my precious red iron oxide, my iron oxide long searched for
on the mountain, lovingly collect by pick and shovel and ground down for my
glaze with my own blood, sweat and blistered hands! I grab the nearest tool
I see, a pair of large tin snips, to fish out the offending cat bisuit (a
beautiful dark red, I might add) and notice there is a large wet spot in my
precious mineral as well. My next thought is: I wonder if cat piss will add
any interesting characteristics to the glaze? And if so, how do I get more?
Mike
in Taku, Japan
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