Thursday Morning Drop-in is back!

Thursday Morning Drop-in 10 am - 12:30 am is back for the winter beginning November 4th

See you at the studio!

Teresa

Fused Glass Drop-In with Glass Artist Cherie Keep

Cherie Keep will be at hte studio November 3rd & 10th from 5:30 pm - 8 pm for a free workshop!

No experience needed

During drop-in Cherie will be giving demo's, sharing tips and techniques and giving instruction.  Drop-in is an open studio type event at the studio.  Participants may choose to work on holiday ornaments, plates, bowls, night lights and more....  the cost of supplies varies from $12 to $60 depending upon the project.

Hope to see you at drop-in!  Teresa

Truckee Thursdays

Wow- I could not believe how many people were at Truckee Thursdays last week!  It is definitely the happening event in town.  About a dozen people painted pottery during the evening, most came over the weekend to pick up their masterpieces.



Being that I have Drop-in (open  studio time) Thursdays 5:30 - 8 pm at the studio, Gerri will be there tonight for T Pots Pottery.  Stop at our booth by the Kid Zone to say Hello and paint a piece yourself or come over to the studio and check out the happenings there!

Enjoy your Thursday in Truckee,



Teresa

Spinning into the New Year

Life is beginninng to get back to normal after the excitement, stress and hardwork of moving the studio in November '09, the holidays and work. 

We celebrate Thanksmas, which for us is a wonderful few days at Moms house (check out her blog at http://pinkdogwoodblossom.blogspot.com/) where we celebrate Thanksgiving with a hike in the foothills and an incredibly delicous meal prepared by Forrest one day and Christmas the following with presents under the fake fiscus tree iwth white lights.

The hecteck holiday season begins after that with the finale of working the ER at Tahoe Forest Hospital from Christmas day through New Years day, the busiest time in the ER.  I also taught at Martis Camp for two days and helped with their budding paint your own pottery program.

As I said, life is beginning to get back to normal in the studio and at home.  Still busy yet, manageable and fun.  Last week I added an additional drop-in time on Thursdays from 10 am to 1230 pm to compliment the Wednesday and Thursday evening drop-in sessions at 5:30 to 8 pm.

A Mini Beginner Wheel Throwing class started last Sunday with an awesome group of 5 people, three additional pottery classes are scheduled to begin in January.

I really enjoy teaching classes and helping out during drop-in sessions.  I feel so blessed to have such a creating, engaging and fun group of people who frequent the studio.  So much of what I blog about is technique and/or studio issues, both are a huge part of what i do at the studio yet, it is the people and interaction which really make it such a comfortable and relaxing place that I am excited to go to everyday.

Enjoy Today! Teresa

Metal Flakes in Pugged Clay

Those little black specks in the clay are the culprit!  For months we have been fighting "contaminated" clay coming out of the pugmill... the first few times, I thought we must have had a stray tool find its way into the clay recycle garbage can but, after a few more times and just as many complete and through cleaning of the entire inside of the pugmill, I knew that could not be it.  The entire clay recycling program was put on hold for a few months while the studio moved to the new location.  After some time had passed at the new location and we had settled in, I decided to take the pugger apart for further investigation...

To the left is the picture of what the inside of the pugmill looked like, it is a close up so you can see all of the pitting to the metal.

The nice guys at Peter Pugger diagnosed this awful case of metal acne as "oxidation".  Well, humm, I thought, who would have guessed that after all of these months and safe guards put into place so foreign objects would not get into the pugger, it was all coming from the metal nozzle inside the pugmill.

 

Peter Pugger sandblasted then brushed on two coatings of Devcon Brushable ceramic epoxy coating making a lovely Tahoe blue color.  I did not get a picture of the fresh pugged clay, we used it all up already!

New Pottery Studio Pics

Two Sinks! Working room which is home to the wheels, extruder, slab roller and tons of misc. tools
The studio is split into 3 room. This picture is taken from the back room (glaze, kiln, drying shelves) through the middle working room into the front gallery area.

Back at it- Studio set-up

Now that the excitement, preparation and clean up from ARTour Open Studio is over, I am back to the normal routine in the studio.

Drop-in has started up again and the first Mini Beginner Throwing class starts this Sunday.

I rearranged the studio (just a tiny bit) to improve the flow of work during Drop-in pottery nights, have moved part of the retail pottery display to shelves against the wall,


added additional space for wedging, handbuilding and work space along the wall,


Put all of the handbuilding tools, supplies and "texture" stamps and tools in a single area,

organized the glazes and incorporated the "Cink" a recirculating sink for washing clay from ceramic tools and equipment and put little shelves next to the glaze spray booth for the mason jars of glaze.

Whew, it was a lot of work, fun to do and I am liking the end results!