Celery and Paint Spill

The tray above is one I made my first year working with clay. It's about five inches square and two inches tall with the handles. It fits neatly in a drawer and I keep my favorite earrings in it. It's made of a real groggy clay called Rod's Mix and is fired to Cone 10 in reduction. The glaze is called celery and it breaks to the nicest brown at the edges. I like how the sides lean out slightly. I am sure at the time it was by accident, but sometimes accidents turn out OK. The school didn't have the recipe for this glaze, too bad it was a real winner. This tray is small but it is so handy I should make a few more.

Speaking of accidents, today I asked Gary to hand me a box on a top shelf of the entryway closet. On the shelf below was a can of house paint I keep for touch ups. When Gary pulled the box down from the top shelf, the box hit a can of paint which fell on the floor and the cover came off and coral house paint ran all over the floor. Gary was mortified thinking the floor was ruined. I asked him to run and get some old towels and paper bags and I sopped up most of the paint with the towels, putting the towels in the paper bags. While I was doing that I asked him to get me a bucket of water and some clean wash cloths and the scrub brush. After I sopped up most of the paint, I washed it all with wet wash cloths. Then Gary gave it a good scrubbing with the brush.

Normally I'd take a photo of the before, but in this case I'm sure you understand. I had to act quickly before the paint settled into the grout on the tile floor. Thank goodness the paint was water based and not a dark color. We were so lucky. It could have been worse, I do have some black paint in that closet. It's a full can, the coral color was almost empty but even a small amount ran and splattered everywhere. The grout is still a little damp, but I don't think I can see any paint. I've since moved all the paint to the lowest shelf. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.