Humping Along For Hump Day

Coffee in a blue flowered ceramic mug, NPR on the radio. Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. Nope. Today begins with a Kavarna morning (and all the goes with it--which today apparently includes NPR, slow Internet, and a stale chocolate croissant... *sigh*). Stacy (the Assistant) likes NPR. While I share the politics, I just never got into the whole public broadcasting thing. Give me some trash satellite radio any day. I just don't feel like having my awareness elevated at 9:03 am!!

Yesterday's work ended at 11:30 pm with one last (re)slump load in Middle Ground. I do seder sets for the Jewish Museum of New York once a year (not surprisingly, a few months before Passover) and from year to year I forget the issues with them.

This year I made the small plates a little too big, and I didn't get the first set slumped enough so I had to reslump them. I made the molds for them out of a piece of ceramic fiber board and they have a sharp drop from the rim to the bottom of the plate that takes both significantly longer and a higher temp than a regular slump does. Usually I slump at 1265 degrees for 15 minutes. To get these right, I do 1275 degrees for 45 minutes--and the cold spot in the front right of Middle Ground still keeps that spot from slumping as fully and I have to turn the piece and give it another jolt (after cooling it from the first slump, of course). So this year a bit of grinding followed by fire polishing, and a bit of reslumping and all of a sudden I am late to ship them. *Sigh*. They'll go out today.

The big order will go out Friday (whoo hoo, Christmas is saved, shoes for everyone!) as will all the other current small orders. I am still on track for taking next week off--if I can get my postcard designed today, my supplies list to the publisher, my Quickbooks data entered from last February on, and a couple of class offerings to Ed Hoy's today. It sounds impossible, but I look at what I managed to accomplish yesterday and I have hope.

The word on the new website is Joomla. There will be more words soon (a template has been picked and acquired).

In addition to getting articles reviewed and ad copy in yesterday, I also applied to the Decatur Arts Festival. I had been diminishing my presence in the local art fair scene in the last couple of years, but I think I need to change my stance on those shows now that I have a big above-ground (windows make an incredible difference!) studio. After much mulling I think it would be a good idea to replace the One of a Kind Show in December with a four-day Studio Open House/Holiday Sale with some of my local artist/friends in the new studio in November. But my local retail mailing list is way out of date. To beef it up I need to do a few shows around the area during the year leading up to the show.

Looking at what there is, it's too late to apply to the Dogwood Festival (and breakdown for that one is so hellish anyway). I need to figure out if I want to apply for the Marietta Art in the Park again. It was a good little show a couple of years ago and I had decent sales (and a good mailing list return). January, the month of the eyes-are-bigger-than-the-stomach syndrome (or in this case, the ambitions are greater than the energy). Time to throttle it back and get on to postcard design.