Yeah, Yeah, It's Saturday, So What?

Coffee in the Alaska skyline mug to celebrate soon-to-be-former governor Frank Murkowski's resounding loss in the primary last week. Music is again "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen covered by Jeff Buckley. Word count: 2077. Again, not great but respectable. Yesterday's section was on the inclusion of metals and required a lot more research than other sections will. While I know a bit about what you can do and what you should never do, there are a lot of metals I have not experimented with and would still like to mention. I have always relied on the kindness of strangers....

What's wrong with the picture above? I'll give you a hint, I was tired and didn't check all the dams before it went it and the pattern bars... oozed. It could have been worse. Interestingly, the two bars did not stick together where they touched. Somehow cool enough to flow and cool enough not to stick.

Although this box did not turn out either (not fused enough and hairline cracked upon removal from the kiln) I am closer and am very optimistic about having it ready as the ultimate project for the book. My project review is scheduled for sometime around 9/8 and the box firing takes three days so I need to get another one in today. I also need to get the redo of the table in--now that I've written the section on metal inclusions I should get more predictable results on it, as well as the pocket vase, the re-fire of the mask and the S-curve platter and the garden stake.

Next weekend I have the Marietta Art in the Park festival and I have No Work. Also got a commission for one or two large pieces from Taylor Kinzel yesterday. So in addition to the book projects listed above I also have retail and wholesale work to do. Going to be a full weekend. Thank heaven for Dave. He is shouldering all Sprout wrangling--at least for today--so I can work.