January is a great time to go through all the stuff you accumulated throughout the year and start throwing it out. At home, I've been going through closets, my office, the kitchen pantry. Throwing stuff out, organizing stuff, and giving stuff away. The studio is also getting attention. My studio gets cleaned regularly, I can't stand a messy and dusty studio, all it does is give me an excuse to clean instead of work. The floors get mopped, shelves cleared, things put in order. But I do have one blind spot, and that's hanging on to random bits of work that I went through the trouble of making and bisquing, and then lose interest in and never got around to glazing.
I think this is a problem that is endemic to many potters. When I worked for Sandi Dihl, there were pieces of bisqueware that were hanging around when I started working for her, and were still there when I left a few years later. When I would visit her over the years, the stuff was still there. In the same place. It's a lot easier to toss greenware into a bucket of water when it's not working out. But once you bisque a piece it seems more permanent, therefore harder to let go.
I have to brace myself when it's time to throw out stuff that's collecting dust and taking up room. I feel so sad when I throw my work away, but after a couple of minutes I get over it and start throwing away anything that's been sitting around for more than a month. It gets wild, there in the studio. Nikki was helping me last week while we did some re-arranging and throwing away of the stuff, and she stopped me from throwing away a few things she thought were worth glazing.
So we put some pieces back on the shelf, and started glazing some right away. These are images of a few things. I have to say they are all nice pieces, I'm glad they got glazed up. I'll be putting them up for sale gradually over the next few weeks in a series of "lost pottery" postings on Etsy, and if you're interested in purchasing you can keep up with new listings on the Facebook page.
