The Good. The Bad. The Glazed.

Glazed and ready for the kiln
vs.
Glaze fired and ready to use

I love playing in clay. A big bag of clay. Water. The wheel. Lots of mud and mess. Let me throw out a slab. Cut it. slip it. Press it and make a mess. I'm all for it. Toss me in front of a wood kiln and let me feed the fire on very little sleep and then ask me to split some wood... Ok.

But how I dislike glazing. I think it goes back to my childhood. When I told my parents that I wanted to make pottery: I was enrolled in a ceramic painting class. Each week at the beginning of the class, we were given the choice between two pre-made bisqueware objects d' art. A or B, A or B, A or B. I would sit with the under glazes and paint them on, all the while, wondering why I couldn't make it pretty. I hand the eye/hand coordination of a monkey. Yes, I know, I was hard on myself at 12.

Now jump forward 30+ years. I still approach glazing with a slight bad taste in my mouth. You'd think I'd be excited to start the last step before a beautiful finished project. Not so much. It's like detention. I would sometime rather scrap kiln shelves than dip a pot into a glaze bucket. This just may be the reason I love to wood fire. Or I may just be lazy...

But it's also a great motivator. I've got to find creative ways to decorate my pots with the least amount of glazing craziness. Now that can be the fun part...