Senior Moment Monday

No beverage, "Last Kiss" by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers on iTunes. Just got back from an artwork exchange with Black Cat ArtWorks in Commerce. Elaine and Katie met me today and we spent a lovely 45 minutes chatting and sipping coffee outside the Starbuck's. Adult conversation is good. Most of my time in the past week has been spent in the sole company of a seven year-old, and while she is interesting and articulate I need to talk about more than bunnies, playdates, and what she doesn't want to eat.

Worked through the weekend to get the backlog of orders done that came in to Black Cat ArtWorks while we were at the Buyer's Market and I was on vacation. Started Saturday by breaking my 48" X 36" fiberboard kiln shelf into a lot of little pieces when I lifted it to turn it over. Most of it was just over 1/2" thick--and it started out 1" thick. That's what happens when you hand sand the surface smooth for a year. On the way home from Commerce this morning I stopped at Olympic Kilns in Flowery Branch and picked up a replacement shelf. Now I'm going to move the Dyson shelf from Bettina to Bertha (with a LOT of help) and put the new fiberboard shelf in Bettina. She's deeper and more insulated so I want to be able to use her for casting (she was designed as a casting kiln) and I can't with the thick baffled shelf taking up so much room. It'll be perfect in Bertha--and might help my cold corner problem a bit.

This coming weekend starts the 5-day Pate de Verre workshop with Delores Taylor up at Lori's. There are still two spots left so if you have an interest, I have a spare room...

This past weekend I got to experience a new kilnforming joy when I unexpectedly "burned" the irid right off the back of two Bullseye clear-irid-backed pieces. After I broke my kiln shelf I had to scramble to find suitable pieces of shelf material to support the load I had to go in. I found a piece of fiberboard about 24" X 36" X 1" in the closet and used it. Apparently it was a different sort of fiberboard than I usually have (who knows where it came from) and it should have been pre-fired. About 2-3" in from all sides there was a sooty blackness on the shelf and no irid left in the corresponding glass above it. Looks like some kind of outgassing from the shelf that chemically negated the irid on the glass. First time I've ever seen that one. Had to remake the pieces and that really slowed me down.

Now it's time to get to work. There were two things I meant to post about today. One was the shelf, and I have no idea what the other was. Senior moment on Monday. Maybe I'll remember by tomorrow--and maybe I'll forget again.