Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Girl Scouts in the Studio Garden



Cooling Coffee in the Denver skyline mug (why can't I get to it while it's hot these days?), "Oops!...I Did It Again" by Richard Thompson on iTunes. Yesterday was a Good Day. The brownies (little girl scouts) came to the studio to help me plant the front garden (in payment for the Valentine's plates they made here back in February). It rained in the morning, then it stopped and they came and planted, then it REALLY rained--and watered in all the new plants. I love it when a plan comes together! Now I just need to make a sign "plantings by Siyeh Glass and Brownie Troop 29438".

Today I need to run up Olympic Kilns to get some kiln shelves and to look at their kilns for casting kiln ideas. Looking at expanding the hotshop next year and adding an area for a couple of big casting kilns... Oh the dreams on a sunny, cool, pollen-free day!

3 comments:

Bill said...

I'm not into brownies.

I prefer fudge. Though it could be maple or vanilla or even swirl, but I prefer chocolate.

Nice garden, though I didn't see any tomatoes...

Cynthia Morgan said...

Hey, Brenda...if you're up at Olympic, ask to look at their raku kilns. In terms of casting, much better choice because of the bell shape with the gantry (although you may want to get them to strengthen it).

The nice thing about them is they're very configurable (you can get them sans controller and then go get a Digitry to run multiple casting kilns at a time), you can have them put in windows for charging (if you need them), and you can modify them with additional top/bottom elements.

But the nicest thing of all is that the bigger and heavier your molds, the less back you'll break getting the bloody thing into the kiln. Get a lift cart, and all you have to do is raise it to complete the mold, lower it to wheel it over, and then just scootch it into the kiln. No trying to maneuver a heavy mold DOWN into the kiln...or BACK into a front-loader. Makes a huge difference, and the Olympic rakus are relatively inexpensive.

Dee said...

cynthia, i told brenda she needed to find out what you use since you do ALOT of castings! the raku kilns they have make alot of sense for this ;)