Rained out again!!

Well the weatherman was partially right, the rain was done by noon, but it was much more than the .1-.25 of an inch expected. Kiesha allowed me to take "her" good van in the field and get it covered in mud. The cows had destroyed the salt box kiln and trampled the wood pile. I guess the wood is "preseasoned" for the next firing. I cannot figure how or why the cows move the pottery shards all over the area. We are planning on trying on Tuesday again, it is supposed to be in the high 80's and 90's the next two days to dry the ground out a little. There is a still a 20% chance of rain in the overnights until then.

Here we go again....Maybe

Well, we are going to shoot for Sunday afternoon for a Pit fire. I cannot think of a better way to spend fathers day then roasting a bunch of clay pots over a large open fire. There is however a 20% chance of rain, but we will not worry about that. We will keep you posted....until then.

RAIN...

Well I was planning to fire the pit tomorrow to have a few more pieces for Brookings Art Festival, but mother nature has other plans. It has been raining most of the morning today and supposed to continue as scattered showers for a couple days. At least I have a couple more weeks left to fit it in.

Well, it was a typical Buffalo Days experience, cold and rainy. Although it was my first as an artist I have worked in a booth there for many years. Thanks to all of you who braved the weather and stopped by. I know I was soaked and chilled to the bone by 10 am. Our next show is Brookings Summer Art Festival on July 11 & 12. As for now we are in booth 79 in the NE sector of Pioneer Park, in Brookings South Dakota. We are looking forward to seeing you there!

It has been a busy week, here at Up in Smoke Pottery! We finally have caught up cataloging the first few firings. We have also packed up for Buffalo Days this weekend in Luverne, MN. We will be in the City Park from 9-4 on 6/6/09 for Arts in the Park. Hope to see you there. If I have done it correctly the photo box on the upper left side should be updated as well in case you want to see more of our work. I am also posting a couple pics of recent work.

May Pit Fire

Well, I squeezed in another pit fire this week. I actually completed it in under a day, the 30 mph winds assisted in the cooling and mostly like fueled the fire so it burned faster. I did not notice much change in the results, but I will know more in a few days when I wash the pieces. Next week we are planning to do a few saggar firing to stock up for the summer shows. I'll post a few pics when I get a chance. Thanks for looking

Buffalo Days

Join us at Buffalo Days in Luverne, MN on Saturday June 6th. It is their annual arts in the park festival. We will have booth set up displaying lots of our work for this year. I look forward to meeting all of you there!

Pit Fire Results

Well, we finally had time to clean and seal the pieces from the last pit fire. Here are a couple of the photos from the pit and some of the finished pieces. Thanks for looking.

Pieces in the flames, they appear white now, but the colors appear as they cool.

Here are some of the results....Remember all colors are derived from vapors getting trapped in the pores of the clay while it is hot. There are no glazes of any kind.

Well, the 1st pit fire of the year is complete. The weather complied just enough to let us do it. We had to dig a new pit since the vehicles could not cross the creek to our normal pit we have used in the past. This pit is a true pit and we needed to jump into it. It was so deep initially we hit ground water and had to fill it in to get a solid base. When we returned to open the pit, it had filled part way with water submerging most of the pots. We only fired about 35 pieces, of which about 30 survived. I think we were too rough loading it and broke most of those in the process. We did get some awesome reds on some of the pieces and several blue areas. The oranges were not as prevalent this time, will have to work on that. Over all not bad considering the weather, we have several nice pieces which I will take pics soon and post.
We also played with a salt box kiln. The results were mixed. I will continue to play with it and try to get the results I think it should produce.

Pit Fire

As you may have guessed we have not gotten out to the pit. Schedules and weather have not been cooperating. But, never fear, we have the van loaded and ready to go. We are going 1st thing in the morning. They are forecasting rain, anywhere between a 20%-80% chance in the afternoon. We are hoping to have the pit covered before the rain falls. We may squeeze in a barrel firing and maybe a saltbox. I'll let you know how it turns out.