Lots of candy has been given out in spite of pouring rain and now, as I write, there are loud fireworks exploding all around the neighbourhood. While it’s been raining I’ve been happily busy in my studio. At last I have space in a salt kiln scheduled for November so my recent work has all been stoneware.

Yesterday was devoted to mixing more slip to spray on the bone-dry pieces and latex-resisting and spraying them. It’s time-consuming but satisfying work and now I can hardly wait to see how the ‘red’, yellow, blue and green react to salt.

Meanwhile I had to clean up my wheel today in order to switch clays. I’ve had a fun commission to make a Toucan jug bird. Lots of people think my jugbirds are toucans but I’ve never tried to design an actual one. I’ve googled toucan and I see there are several colour variations. The  picture I’ve been sent shows fabulous colours. But what a huge bill he has!

My Blue-Footed Booby Jugbird has found a home in West Vancouver. I’d like to make another one like him before I let him go. And a customer at the Gallery of BC Ceramics has made a specific request for a green bird. It’s so nice to work on these kinds of orders.

Next week I have the artists coming here for another ‘Painting Raid’ and I have some plates ready for them. Sally has asked for a curvaceous vase so it’ll be fun to see how she tackles a 3D surface.

Just recently I’ve had some improvements made to this blog, including installing Feedburner. This means that readers can now click on the green envelope or the red box top right above each post and be registered to receive notification by email or RSS whenever I add new material to my blog. New spam filters also allow you to make comments more easily, so I hope that those pottery-keen types who read my notes will now identify themselves and occasionally record their thoughts too. The link is to the website of my kindly web assistant in this matter, Avrom Digance. (some potters may remember his dad, Len Digance)

http://www.webninja.ca