I has been a little nutty on this end...
A week ago...
(It feels like 5 years...I really couldn't emotionally type this up before...)
I was just about ready to fire my kiln...
(About 2 pm: The kids would be coming home in about an hour...)
The lid was open.. I was on the other side of the room organizing or cleaning up after all of my glazing, that I did not rush through...
I did some the day before... etc...
The glazes that are (for months, years) stacked up over by my window got tripped up by some UNKNOWN SPIRIT...
OR at least MY spirit must not have made sure everything was secure because I start to sense...
THE TSUNAMI.
Yes.
It was a fricken' "Glaze Tsunami".
Now... it's one thing if ONE bucket falls...
That sucks...but generally it is manageable...
What happened here was a domino effect.
So... a bucket in the back started to fall and the 2 rows of buckets in front and before you know it...
about 18 buckets (we will discuss WHY I have all of these dang glazes later) from 1000g batches to 3000g batches not only flooded my studio BUT SPLATTERED ...
unglazed pots...A little into the just loaded kiln... up on the top shelf to hit my son's recently made and drying PLATYPUS...
Trust me...solids and liquids everywhere...
It was bad...
I start screaming, "HELP!!!"
(My husband had just come home-I could hear the garage under the studio)
I was covered, the studio was covered and YOU KNOW HE was thinking...
"This crap better not flood through the wood floors and ruin...the ...blah blah blah..."
I honestly thought I might pass out...
Needless to say... I was a TOUCH overwhelmed.
So...I just say... "Please get towels..."
He brings me ONE.
I have a moment of..."Seriously? Am I on camera?"
Which escalates into...
"MIKE!!! TOWELS!!! A LOT OF TOWELS!!!!"
and he is freaked...like...a deer in headlights...
He says, "All of our good towels?"
I was FREAKING!!!!
I say... "Yes... I need to sop this stuff up..."
I knew I needed to get the liquids out and go for the solids....
Anyway... After WWIII (now we have had a Tsunami and a War in my studio...not very Zen...),I continued to clean...put on my respirator...he took bags of towels out back which I would later hose off...)
Needless to say... IT WAS A LOT OF WORK...
AND EXPENSE...
When I thought of the Mason Stains alone... and I had JUST MADE A TON OF THESE GLAZES...
SO I WAS SICK...
I survived...
MIKE COOKED DINNER... hmm... a truce...
The kids were sensitive to my feelings...
I was wet and freezing outside hosing off the towels...as much as possible...
I really just felt like...
I should have sat on my hands all day and I would have been more productive.
I wondered if the Universe was trying to tell me...
"ENOUGH with the ceramic work...
It sucks...YOU suck...
Go to the DAMNED mall and spend about $1000 dollars next time because that would be less cost than this fiasco of time and $..."
This IS how I felt.
Now... I don't feel that way anymore.
BUT.
I still wonder..
Needles to say...
(Well obviously I feel the need to say it...)
Everything is in pretty good shape now and I had Mason Stains UPS'd from Ceramic Supply(Lodi, NJ) and began to measure chemicals and remake glazes the next day...
I still need to do a lot of sieving... but I am in pretty good shape...
I put the towels eventually in the wash twice and I didn't ruin THEM!
The studio has some remnants of LE DISASTRE but I feel "safe" again... and I put up an Ikea shelf from a previous booth set-up for some of the glazes... I have a cabinet... but all of the smaller chemicals go in there... so not there is LESS stacking:
I presume that you are wondering why I need all of these DAMNED GLAZES...
Trust me... we are on the same page...
HOWEVER... there is a method to my madness...
I am trying to achieve some interesting surfaces in my work that frankly an electric kiln in oxidation makes it a little hard to do...
BUT..I and making headway..
Layering and interacting glazes are allowing for some positive outcomes...
Keep in mind that I also fluctuate between wanting loads of color and NEUTRALS...
This is my cross to bear but I feel like I am getting a handle on it...
Now at the same time(always nice to have lots of variables changing and moving...) I have wanted more fluidity and freedom in my work, my expression and less preciousness...
So... I have this going on:
I am altering and allowing more fluidity... and I am still incorporating my other techniques... avoiding being too gratuitous at times...
I am working with a stoneware clay... now... and I have applied some slip of the dark chocolate brown stoneware that I love and I will probably throw with it too...
I am enjoying and exploring and ...
Oh by the way, looking to sell work for the holidays...
So... That's what has been up.
DAMN! Universe trying to tell you something? :)
ReplyDeleteI love that green cup and the oatmeal colored pithcer, you are getting some really nice results! After the ^6 redux class I just took, I am seriously thinking about white only. Color is beginning to boggle my mind.
Sorry for all the loss, I feel ya!
Oh My Goodness! I was on the edge of my seat as I read this post...(my husband would have also gotten 1 towel, sigh). But here you are, you made it- on the mend AND making gorgeous things!! I LOVE the new direction in colors- so rich and earthy, yum, yum, yum! The universe is not telling you to stop- no, maybe to be more mindful, but definitely DO NOT STOP!!
ReplyDeleteA big cyber ((hug)) for you
:)
-Kathy
you handled that much better than i. i would have been binge drinking while sobbing during clean up.
ReplyDeleteglad to hear the new glazes are almost mixed and ready to go...hang in there!
ohhhhh...shit. that is a bad one, so sorry. just know that you are not alone..every single clay person can sympathize and i'm glad that you're safe and mentally back in place.
ReplyDeletehug from montana.
Holy Crap. The only thing missing is Larry, Curly, and Moe.
ReplyDeleteFunny.
ReplyDeleteAt least NOW...it's funny.
oh my goodness girl! I have been there like the girl with her finger in the dike- a 30 gallon trash can of glaze with a leak is nothing like what you had- so sorry!
ReplyDeleteBut look at how you dealt with it.
Someone else might have just shut the door and MOVED!
and about all the glazes- we understand- in my next life I am going to do just whit- well maybe green then again there are those blues and browns.....
Me too..... I once knocked over (I'm clumsy sometimes) a ten gallon batch of iron saturate glaze that hit the wall hard enough to splash everywhere and seep thru the wall to the outdoors. Fortunately it was more of a mess than an expense.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend ever since? Shopvac.
I don't mean to sound like Bill Clinton here, but Judi, I feel your pain. Six months ago I was glazing and went to use one of my favorite glazes. It had hard panned. So I got out the drill. Well it was so hard panned that when I went to mix it the bucket went flying and all the liquid with it. All over the studio and all over me. No one was around to help. It had already been a bad day. I lost it. After washing out my pants (luckily they were light sweat pants) all I could do was sit down and cry.
ReplyDeleteI impressed with your response and your recovery. Who knows what the message was from the universe, but I doubt it was You or Your work suck. Both are awesome.
Oh Judi - that sounds like a nightmare!! No fun, but glad to hear you're emerging none the worse for wear.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are the best.
ReplyDeleteWow. Am late reading your post, but it was fun to see others' comments. Sounds like it's all under control. It's a cautionary tale for me to SLOW DOWN, especially hard as the busy season is heating up.
ReplyDeleteI am just catching up on 'my' blogs, Judi, and ....Good Grief!! what a mess. BUT, sounds like you have come through it.. I would have been a mess physically and mentally too. AND great looking pots coming..Years ago one of my mentors and teachers had many glazes and I vowed not to follow that path...but..., like you firing cone 6 I am always looking for something more so have tooo many as well, but I am definately trying to edit..
ReplyDeleteBetter week to you!
Wow Judi, you're amazing! To get going again the very next day after a disaster like that! Yay you! I think I would need to have been admitted into a mental hospital!! I'm not surprised you couldn't write about it at first!
ReplyDeleteI love the way your work and your colours are evolving. :)
omg Judi. I'm just reading this now. sigh.. has the same thing happened to me? YES.. well not quite *that* many glazes but it was at a point when I had a bag of bad ingredients and all my glazes were screwing up.. meltdowns in the kiln, you name it. I had one freshly mixed bucket of glaze that worked and I was very protective of it. SO what happened.. A strange dog showed up and decided to have a fignt with my dogs IN my studio. It was like slow mo.. the entire 10 gallons of glaze went EVERYWHERE! Nothing was working. I didn't come back into the studio for 4 days.
ReplyDelete