Monday, March 12, 2012

A Gentle Rain


Most times in Florida when it rains it comes down with gusto, a real torrential rain. You can't even run to your car without getting soaked. But yesterday we were rewarded with a gentle rain all day long. The gentle rain reminded me of the rains we had in the mountains of California. Rain drops are very small and there's hardly any air space between the droplets. It's almost like a mist but not quite. Yesterday the rain came from the East instead of from the Gulf of Mexico. All the plants were heavy with droplets and I'm sure they loved the good soaking they got. Not to mention the aquifer since we are officially in a drought in Florida.


These two shell bowls went to collectors recently. The top bowl was tenmoku dripped on the rim over sun valley on soldate 60 clay. Soldate 60 clay shrinks almost 14 percent. The bottom bowl was sun valley on Windsor porcelain clay. The sun valley glaze is a Laguna premixed Cone 10 glaze which turns khaki in oxidation and blue in reduction. Both clays are premixed from Laguna Clay.  The Windsor is a special order and is one of the best Cone 10 porcelain clays I ever worked with for hand building. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

7 comments:

  1. Those are two fine bowls.....beautiful shapes and glazes.

    I know about drought....last year at this time we were still hauling water as our dug well had run dry. ( Not quite as bad as it sounds as we took water from the pool and have very kind neighbors.) But then we still had snow on the ground too! This year my daffodils are out......nice!

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  2. I used to fear drought in Fl and can remember when Florida was in Flames as the newspapers put it.
    Love that top plate and glad both have found good homes.

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  3. Beautiful bowls. This potter appreciates info about clay and glazes and firing too! Have a good day, Linda!

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  4. I'm always amazed by the colors of your pieces!

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  5. beautiful tenmoku bowl, glad they found new homes.

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  6. Minnesota is way behind in moisture going into Spring. There are concerns either that the rains will come all at once keeping the farmers out of the fields for planting, or we won't get the rain and the crops will suffer. Such is the life of the poor farmers!

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  7. Hi Smartcat, thanks, those bowls were from my high fire days at the college. Wow, scary having your well go dry. We worried about that when we were lived in Arkansas we had one of those shallow wells there too, lots of folks there had their wells dry up but ours never did thankfully.

    Hi Patti, thanks, I remember when Florida was in flames too, all across the country we heard it on the news even in California where we lived. Florida doesn't have planes to fight the fires like California does.

    Hi Barbara, thanks, I thought someone who high fires might like the info so I decided to include it here, glad it's of use.

    Hi Black Pumpkin, thanks so much, sometimes they amaze me too, and I am happy when they do for the right reasons. Ha.

    Hi Michele, thanks, that one I had to take to Fresno to get fired about one and half hours from our home, the sign of a real pottery addiction I think.

    Hi Ms. Sparrow, thanks, yes all around folks are worried. Just this morning the news said all the way up to Chicago it will be in the 80s, much too early in the season to be that warm.

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