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POTTERS
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COLUMBIA
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Getting back to basics 2) Melany Hallam

It’s time to make a New Year's resolution. Traditionally, this is done
on Jan. 1 but I’ve never been one for tradition (my mom is still waiting
for grandchildren.) For anyone who has ever gone to school, September
is when everything really begins again: new grade, new textbooks and
(this was always my favourite) new notebooks, pens and art supplies. I
mean, what's really new about January except that the last digit of the
number describing the year has increased by one?

Anyways, back to the resolutions. After years of having pretty much
abandoned it, I’m getting my pottery studio back together so that I
can make pots again. I live with my equivalent-to-spouse on a five-
acre lot in Powell River, two ferry rides up the coast from Vancouver.
Derek and I have spent most of the last eight years building a timber
frame house and getting caught up in our day jobs, but no more. The
house is liveable and I quit the job that was taking over my life. Now
my resolution is pretty simple: ’'m going to go into the studio every
day and do something, even if it’s just squashing spiders.

Here’s how I’ve done so far:

July 25: Swept up the huge piles of dead wood bugs that had
collected around the buckets of glaze-making supplies and clay slops.
Soooo disgusting. Where on earth do they all come from?? Got a start
on clearing out all of the accumulated junk and storage boxes that had
taken over my ware shelves and almost put my back out hauling down
a large Rubbermaid full of old papers and books. And is that awful
smell left over from the building’s old barn days, or is it our jury-rigged
clay settling system (i.e. bucket) under the sink? There must be a better
way to set up the drain.

July 26: Installed two old upper kitchen cabinets, one lower cabinet
with drawers, and two old pieces of countertop. I backed out of going
walking with a friend of mine today so that I could finish installing.
Feeling guilty.

July 27: Finished installing countertops. Looking really organized.
Sorted through 12 old boxes of clay and found only one usable box. I
see much clay recycling in my future. Good thing I got that tip from
Don Jung last year. As per instructions, I’ve been filling bags of clay
with water and then submerging them in large buckets of water and
waiting for them to soften up. Works like a hot damn. I really wish I
had a pugger though.

July 28: Derek got out the machete and hacked a path to our back
40 so that we could start a shard pile. I really need to get rid of those
old embarrassing pots and kiln disasters from many years ago when
we last fired our home-made, propane-fuelled car kiln. Then I fought
my way through the spider webs underneath my wheel so that I could
spray the rubber drive belt with silicone lubricant. Wedged up some
clay and decided to start by throwing some tiny pots off the hump.
Surely I could handle that. Well, just barely. How can centring be
so difficult?? I used to teach beginners to do this stuff for Pete’s sake.
On the last pot of the afternoon I finally got that just right feeling,
perfectly centred and pulling up like the pot is growing out of the
wheel—eureka!!

July 29: Gardening today and didn’t make it into the studio. Planted
more peas and greens, and picked my first zucchini.

July 30: Got caught up looking through my old copies of Ceramics
Monthly. Ripped out and saved all of the cone 10 glaze recipes that
looked amazing in the photos and got excited looking at some

View from the wheel.

beautiful pot shapes. There are still many house-building tools and
supplies stored in the studio so I decided to smuggle one item out each
day and surreptitiously deposit them in the basement workshop where
Derek is working on his own organizing and cleaning out project. ’'m
sure he'll never notice.

July 31-Aug 5: Making and trimming pots this week not going as
well as I'd hoped after my first taste of the potters touch back on the
28th. Adjusted my Giffen Grip in case that was part of the problem.
Nope, that wasn’t it. Accidentally bashed the rim of one my bowls on
the bottom of my very carefully installed upper cabinet; carved out
the rim on both sides of the bowl and turned it into a chopstick rest
feature. I think I’m getting the hang of this.

August 11: 1 was in the groove for a few minutes today—yahoo!

August 22: Some of my recycled B-mix is finally ready to use. It’s
still a bit sticky but I’ve run out of fresh-from-the-box clay, so what the
heck. Plates, PH make plates. Oooh, this is much better than that old
443 Tve been using. OMG, I centred way more clay than it takes to
make a mug and I didn’t totally wreck the resulting pot when I took a
wooden rib to it. I think I can do this!

Now: Looking ahead to the day when I'll have enough pots to fill
our 25 cu.ft. kiln. Can’t wait!

Putting the guild’s newsletter together each month has kept me in
touch with B.C.’s clay community over the last couple of years. It’s
quite possible that, without this constant source of inspiration, the

Continued on Page 5, Spiders & wood bugs

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - September 2010

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