meltdown!

Before I tell you about my kiln meltdown, I need to tell you that I will be at the Clay and Glass Festival in Palo Alto THIS weekend. Come and see me!

Since I'm about to have my biggest retail show of the year, that's usually about the time my kiln decides to go on vacation. Without telling me. Most people see kilns as an inanimate object, but ceramic artists know that kilns, in fact, have minds of their own and like to use their power for good and evil.

So, for the first time in many, many years. I lost a whole kiln load of pottery to a major overfire. My thermocouple, the brand new one I just bought and installed, was faulty, and not reading temperature properly. I just realized I'm blaming my kiln for screwing up when really, it's the thermocouple's fault. Yeah yeah, I know you are supposed to test everything, and use a witness cone, and blah blah blah.  I did not. Anyway, here is a sample of what I had to deal with first thing Monday morning:

Potters know what's happening here, the unschooled think it's trick photography. What happened is the glazes got so hot, it ran like liquid down the sides of the pots, fusing to the kiln shelf. If you look closely at the cake stand, you can see the drips. The only thing that can solve this problem is a hammer and a chisel.

So, how did this make me feel? Well, as I was unloading the kiln and seeing the damage, I felt a little sick in my stomach. It hurts to see beautiful work destroyed, and think of the wasted time and money.

But mostly, I just wanted to clean up the mess as quickly as possible, and move on. While I was chinking pieces of pottery of my shelves, I was listening to an interview with David Jay, who started The Scar Project, photographing women with breast cancer scars. So I'm listening, and chinking away, and comparing my disaster to losing your breasts to cancer, and I figure that this isn't even close to a really bad day. I know from experience that this meltdown won't even cross my mind in a month, so why let it totally get me down today?

Maybe I'm evolving, maybe I don't care as much anymore, maybe I'm able to keep things in perspective. Whatever it was that helped me get through this meltdown without melting down myself, I hope I can do it again!

the way of the stressed-out potter

Sunday, I woke up at 4 am.  I would have liked to have gone right back to sleep since there was no reason in the world for me to be awake at 4 am, but no, that's not how it works around here. I had some thinking to do. I had an order cooling in the kiln at that very moment, an my highly tuned antennae were taking flight down the street to my studio and hovering over the kiln, trying to figure out a way to get in and see what was happening.

Why was I all stressed about an order? That's a good question. I generally don't get stressed about orders anymore. I get bothered, I get frustrated, I get disappointed, but not stressed out. I've gotten to this place where I've decided that no amount of money is worth my peace of mind, and that has released me from a lot of stress and tangentially, a lot of problem orders too. I don't know why it works that way, but it does. Orders still go wrong, all the time, but it doesn't keep me up at night anymore.

But... but. But. I took a last minute order from a design company in very late November for six place settings, three pieces each. Big plate, small plate, bowl. Twenty-eight pieces total.  Not a big deal... but they wanted it in 3 weeks-- by December 20-- for their client, and they wanted it in white. All white. The last time I took an order for an all-white dinnerware service set, I ended up grinding down miniature bubbles, giant freckles, and blue spots on almost every plate and re-firing everything. It came out okay, but I was not satisfied. The customer loved it, I didn't care that they loved it. I did not love it. I was mildly traumatized by this order.

But, I did learn something soon after that: my white glaze likes to be mildly under-fired. Firing it to a very cool cone 5 does it right, which is how I've managed my white glaze since, and it is very reliable now.

I won't go into the details of why I was waiting for it to cool down the day before it had to ship out with absolutely no wiggle room. Or why every large plate had to be absolutely perfect because there were no extras in there. Or why the kiln had fired a bit too hot, hotter than I like to fire the white glaze. It happened, and it was totally stressing me out.

So there I was, laying in bed, trying to get myself back to sleep at 4 am. My mind cleverly created a deck of flash cards, each card with an image of something horrible, like a rash of bubbles across the surface of a plate, a cracked edge, a warped foot. Every time I would drift off, one of the flash cards would pop up, and I would startle back awake, my heart racing.  I thought I was past this level of stress, but apparently, I still have some things to work on. I took on the challenge the order, and in the end, I won. The order was beautiful, and it shipped on time. But me, I feel a little bit fractured, a bit delicate around the edges. It's definitely the holidays.

choices

Did I mention it's my birthday today? It's my birthday. I'm 39 now, and I started this new year with unloading a glaze kiln, which is sort of like an birthday un-present. Some good stuff, more small disasters. If you follow this blog, you may have noticed that the breaking point seems to be around the corner, or maybe you think I'm on the verge of losing it all the time. Well, to a certain extent, I am always on the edge because of my work. I think I have a pretty good sense of humor about it as a general principle, and I have my coping strategies, but I'm usually about one bad firing away from being locked up in jail or the nuthouse.

Last night, bad dreams. I dreamed I was at a show and my booth was filled with ugly work; pots I was trying to pack for clients were breaking in my hands; kilns were splitting open in the middle of firings. That's just a normal night for me. And I'm thinking: here I am, almost 40-- a certifiable adult, not a kid anymore--and I'm totally sick of the stress, of losing sleep because I can't get a cake stand to fire out, and of the dread I feel before I open the kiln. Is this a sane way to live?

I was having a discussion with an old friend who asked the question, "How did my life get so complicated?" My response is that it is always about the choices we make. I think part of being a fully realized adult is recognizing that our choices have consequences. And then figuring out a way to live with it, or change it, and having the courage to do either.

Last week one of the show managers for the wholesale show I do in Philadelphia called to see what was up with my application for next year-- am I in? I told her I was having serious thoughts about dropping wholesale, adding that I thought I was at a point in my career that I didn't see why I should be doing anything that I hated, and I really hate wholesale. My dilemma about whether or not to continue with wholesale has been my concern about a loss of income, but then I suddenly realized that dropping wholesale represents only a choice about the direction of my career, not the direction of my income. Quickly following that thought was that my choice about making pottery for a career is just that-- a choice. I'm free to make another one. No one is holding a gun to my head, except me. And it should surprise no one that my trigger finger is itchy.

both ends

It's Thursday.  I'm in the finishing zone of a three-day intensive of bisque, glazing, firing. Three rounds of glaze loads as I get ready for the Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival, my biggest retail show of the year. 

It's been a very dark place in my head the past three days.  I basically did it to myself; I've had so many regular orders to deal with that I kept putting off glazing and firing the more complicated and expensive pieces I make for Palo Alto in favor of quick kiln loads to get

my orders out the door.  In the end, everything is riding on good firings, no room for mistakes or re-fires because each kiln load is packed tighter than a Japanese subway, all space sold out.  Each night I go home, drink one beer, just one beer, eat dinner, and pop an ambien that I don't have a prescription for.  I read until I pass out, and the ambien makes sure that I don't wake up in the middle of the night with panic attacks.  I fire during the night, and even during the best of times I usually wake up around 3 AM, sure that something is going wrong in the kiln or I forgot to do something.  Sometimes I can't go back to sleep until I pad down the street to my studio and check that everything is good.

I always think I can do more than I really can, or what is good for me.  When I plotted out this schedule, it seemed perfectly do-able.  Now, I feel like I've been run over by a clay truck.  And when I get tired, the voices from Radio K-FUKT start.  Man, those voices really know all my weak spots.  By the end of yesterday, I had decided to quit pottery and write a book.  I decided to stop wholesaling and only make work for people who can make it through my vetting process.   I wondered how long it would take a neighbor to call the police on me if I just started throwing pottery into a pile on the sidewalk in front of my studio door, just got rid of everything in my studio.   I thought about getting a job.  A job where results don't matter, and I'm not responsible for anything.  The DMV sounded good. I wondered what kind of price I could get for my work if I put out the word that I was quitting and not making anything ever again.  And then I wondered how long it would be before I forgot about the pain and got back on the wheel.

vacation mode

I unloaded my last kiln a few days ago. There were some great successes and a couple of disappointments. A couple of people got emails that they will not get their piece before Christmas. I would usually be so strung out about that, absolutely crazed that someone did not get their piece of pottery by Jesus's birthday. This year I just sighed, drank a bottle of wine, and forgot about it. I had already cut a deal with god that if she let this piece come out of the kiln perfectly, I would be happy for a little while:
This is a piece that a new customer ordered about 8 weeks ago. I made two of these babies a few years back, one for myself and one for another client. They are obviously very labor intensive with a lot of small details that can go wrong. I was praying the whole time I glazed it-- the glazing alone took about 3 hours and you have to get in all of the nooks and crannies with a tiny brush. This is my bad boyfriend glaze: gorgeous and perfect when it behaves, abusive and bubbly when it's not. As you can probably tell from this image, we are all in love and happy right now.

And then Sara and I had a blow-out dinner at Wood Tavern. Her last day with me as my assistant was Wednesday, and now she's goin' to grad school. This was a gift she gave me:
I can't wait to start drinking the 20 proof sake I received from one of my loyal customers with this set. Man, I'm talking about drinking a lot on this post. Sara and I drank a lot too at Wood Tavern, as we both have a love for the red wine. I will really miss her. Everyone needs an assistant who kicks their ass as much as mine did, gives you that skeptical look as you are trying to bullshit your way through a problem, or totally ignores you as you are having a hissy fit with the tape gun. But she's going on to bigger and better challenges, and I'm excited for her.

And finally, I as tagged by two people recently. I'm kind of like an old man when it comes to tagging. I'm mentally shaking my fist and yelling, "Get off my lawn you taggers!" I'm sorry, people who tagged me, I promise I will do a tagging post while I'm on vacation. I know everyone is dying to know 7 random things about me. And with that, I"m out for now!

dead birds

We are crawling to the finish line right now at the studio, and by that I mean almost all of the spring orders I took at Philadelphia are shipped. I say "crawling" because there have been the inevitable plethora of small issues and problems that delay orders: poppy plates that keep sagging and sticking to the kiln shelf--but only in the white glaze--, a blue glaze that keeps pin holing and requiring a second round of firing, my matte white glaze that started pin holing on flat surfaces--only on flat surfaces--, birds that fall over on cake stands during firing.

This has become a huge problem, these birds that up and die during firing. For a long time now I've been adding the birds on right before glaze firing, and it's not a problem. I do it that way so I can make a bunch of plates and stack them during bisque firing, then I can turn them into any kind of cake stand I want. But all of the sudden, the birds started falling over. First just here and there, now all the time. And only on my biggest, most expensive size, not my small or medium size. After a packed kiln of dead bird cake stands came out-- and for good measure some injured birds too, (birds with these crazy glaze crawls under them)-- I gave up my method and made a round of plates with deep divots carved in, birds added while green, and dried slowly to prevent cracking. The way you are "supposed" to do it. Sara glazed up a bunch yesterday and they are in the kiln right now.

When we were loading them in the kiln last night, I said to Sara, "I think we need to make a sacrifice or do some kind of ritual to make sure these birdies come out right". Sara, in her very practical way, said, "I think we need to procure some Xanax so you can take one before we unload on Wednesday." I laughed. Then about a minute later I asked hopefully, "Do you know where to get some?"

When I first started making pottery 15 years ago, I had a good friend who told me her mother used to be a potter. Her mom was serious enough with it that she had a garage studio with a wheel and a kiln. "Then one day," my friend told me, "she just stopped making pottery. She just walked out of the studio and never went back." "Why?" I asked. My friend shrugged, "She didn't want to talk about it, and I stopped asking." At the time, I could not begin to understand this, it made absolutely no sense to me. I think I get it now!

one piece, one glaze

Yesterday I put this pot up on my etsy site. It's a really old piece, I think I made it in 2003. Back then, one of my main muses was the lily pad and lotus flower, and I made a lot of raised relief designs with slip trailing, emulating the veins of a lily pad. Very labor-intensive, but the results were lovely. The shape of this pot was also very standard for me. I wanted a continuous and unbroken line where the lid met the pot. There was something about a typical pot where the shoulder has a little rise where the lid can rest that I just did not like. The shape seemed too conventional and brought down my design. I always had to fire the lids separate from the pot, which is kind of a no-no, but it worked for me.

This pot was glazed during a period of time when my matte green glaze was not firing out at all, it was coming out a grayish-green, like on this piece here, and it was making me completely insane. I could not appreciate it the way it was, all I saw was the way it should be. Man, the pots I marked down because the color did not satisfy me! It's kinda sad the way I tossed my children into the cold when they didn't please me, but good for the people who found them all covered in dust at my studio sales. That matte green glaze has made me insane several times over the years; it is an utterly beautiful and completely undependable glaze. I have referred to it in the past as my bad boyfriend glaze.

One time I wholesaled this matte green for a season, and I sold the hell out of it. When I started firing off orders, the glaze started bubbling. All over, really bad. The galleries get it, they love the wabi-sabi of bubbles, but the retail home accessories store in Dallas, Texas does not get it. I could not get a single piece out of the kiln without a bubble on it. Nowadays I only use it for my own customers, and I don't worry if there is a bubble or two on it. It's a picky glaze that likes to be treated like it's a superstar and doesn't want to be part of a production line. Hey, I get it. I don't call it my bad boyfriend glaze anymore, it's my special baby.

more kiln dread

My zen-like approach has been challenged in the last couple of days as my kiln craps out on me. We changed the elements in the kiln and then the kiln was not heating up. So I changed the relays, thinking they were burned out. Nothin’. I called around for a new transformer and found one on the other side of the Bay but I wouldn’t be able to get it till the next day. Rrrrrrr. Meanwhile, work has ground to a halt and there is a shelf of bisqueware that was supposed to be glazed and shipping out this week.

Things rarely go as planned, as usual. I went to my meditation class yesterday (yes, I finally took Hector’s advice and started a meditating class) feeling very pre-Japan: angry and frustrated. I came out of class feeling… better, but definitely in need of a large glass of wine. It's so easy to be calm and centered when things are going well, so difficult when they aren't...

I just got off the phone with yet another kiln tech who has his own theories on why my kiln isn’t doing its job, and I’m about to go test it out and see if he’s right. Cross your fingers.

kiln dread

word of the day:
kiln dread (/kɪl, kɪln dred/) adjective. Describes the fear, apprehension, and extreme reluctance potter's feel before opening their kilns after a glaze firing.
I have my ways of avoiding bad firings. I never load a kiln when I'm tired, in a huge hurry and stressed out, or have been drinking. When I'm programming the kiln, I make sure my attention is 100% focused on what I'm doing. If I have any feelings that a piece is not quite right, I don't load it until I have time to double check it. And I make deals and beg with god. Despite all of this, every once in a while I look at a cooling kiln and I think, "I do not want to know what's in there". One time, I accidentally programmed my kiln to hold at cone 5 for 13 hours instead of 13 minutes. Talk about major kiln dread.

good days, bad days

There are good days in the studio, and there are bad days in the studio. A lot of people think that because I get to play with clay all day, every day must be a good day, and that is generally true. There are even some days that are amazing. Today was an amazing day, and it was doubly amazing because I was rebounding from a very bad yesterday.

The bad yesterday started out normally: a big dose of coffee and an early start in the studio to finish glazing a big round of orders. The studio was toasty warm because of a firing the day before. When the kiln was cool enough to start cracking, I peeked in as I always do. I'm usually so excited to see what comes out of the kiln, but today my heart started thumping hard and I felt sick to my stomache. On the top shelf I had 5 of my cake stands with the little sculpted birds perched on them. From what I could see the little birds were... missing. They had fallen off during the firing. Insert your choice of expletives here as I paced around my studio, taking this in. The kiln was full of these cake stands, and I had made them all at the same time, probably making the same mistake in attaching the birds over and over. It was a fair assumption that all of them had fallen off. And these were for orders that were already a few days behind!

The rest of the afternoon was spent stressing out, calling accounts to let them know their orders would be late, and stressing out some more. I finally left the studio around 7, dreading the next day; I would have to ditch my plans to make new work in preparation for a show and re-make all the cake stands. When I woke up this morning though, I felt fine. I knew I had a full day of work ahead of me and probably no time to go to the gym or enjoy the beautiful sunny day outside, but I still felt good. I went to the studio and threw all day long, 75 pounds of clay total. The clay was at the ideal firmness that I like to work with, the texture perfect. The clay and I were one: all I had to do was think about what I wanted it to do and it did it. I amazed myself by throwing all the cake plates in under an hour, they just flew off my fingers. I didn't want to stop-- I threw cake stands, lidded vessels, vases, bowls. Finally, around 4:30, the clay started wobbling. The magic was over. I've learned that when the magic is over, don't push it. I turned off the wheel and went for a walk, thanking the clay gods-- or whoever it was-- for an amazing day in the studio.