Handling Mugs - Swirled Mugs and Textured Mugs

Here’s a few more videos, these were posted separately on my social media sites. I’m just getting them added here on my blog.

This first video shows me finishing one of these blue swirl cups on the wheel - adding the cobalt slip and the spiral shape. The latter half shows me adding a handle to the same style of mug.
The latest batch I made of these had a slightly narrower foot and handle, and I think I like the design change. I’ll make these same tweaks in my next batch of swirl mugs.

Slipping, swirling and handling a cobalt swirl mug.

This next video shows me handling these wide mouthed swirl mugs. These mugs were made in Laguna Rods Bod clay. They were glazed in Tenmoku (outside) and Goldspot, and were fired to cone 10 in Reduction at the Desert Dragon Pottery Studio in North Phoenix. This is one of my long-time favorite glaze combinations, in fact the recipes used for these glazes came from my Ball State glaze recipe book.

Handling Widemouth Swirl Mugs

This last video is the most recent, it shows me handling a textured mug. I love how the transparent glaze flows around the texture on these mugs! The handles are a bit smaller on these, as it’s a shorter style.

Handling a textured mug

Throwing a large gray and white swirl mug

Highlights of me throwing a large swirl mug (video is about a minute).

I’m using cone 5 Bmix clay, and the slip is made with the same clay and black mason stain. These were fired to cone 6 in my electric kiln.

Typically my mugs hold around 12 oz, but these are a bit bigger. They all hold 16 oz.

Handling a large swirled textured mug.

I’m using Rods Bod clay here. These were glazed in goldspot and tenmoku (on the outside), then fired to cone 10 in reduction.

Throwing a small cereal bowl

Currently, this is how I’m making my soup/cereal bowls, I do a large and small version (this is the smaller version). I do salsa bowls as well, which are a bit smaller still. All include the swirl shape, and typically I do not trim these at all. I like the challenge of throwing a nice bowl without the trimming step, and I think the shape of the bowl and rim are better for it!
In the past I haven’t posted many bowls for sale, I’ve mainly done them for custom order or sold them at in person events. I do hope to start offering bowls like this in sets of 2 or 4 later this year.

Throwing a Swirled Oil Bottle.

These are a bit challenging (and fun) to throw 😃
I made this over the summer, and I just got the finished bottle back from it’s glaze firing!

Creating a Kiln Shed

I have 2 electric kilns at my studio that sit in the back corner of our property. I’ve always kept them well tarped up when they were not in use, but they really needed a shelter. My husband had access to a shipping container, and he had the great idea to simply cut a shed from that. Luckily he had access to the proper tools and a friend to lend a hand!

The slideshow below shows some highlights of the shed creation, before it was installed.

Cutting down the first side

The 3 sided box that we began with was trimmed down to a size that would suit my needs but also fit within the allotted space.

Cutting down the second side

My husband Jake assists as our friend Mark makes the final chop down the other side of the shed.

Cutting along the bottom

We wanted the shed to sit right at the top of our block wall, so we needed to take a bit off of the bottom to keep that height down.

Reinforcing the bottom

Steel angle bars were welded onto the bottom 2 edges of the shed to reinforce those edges and improve stability.

Reinforcing the back bottom

Another angle bar was used to reinforce the back and bottom of the shed.

The shed is ready to travel home

Jake strapping down the shed for the trailer ride to our house (and my studio).

The shipping container had already been chopped up some, but there was plenty left for our purposes. We cut about 6 feet off of one end. Ideally, we did not want the shed to stick out above our property wall, so we flipped it on it’s side and cut a bit off the bottom. The bottom was reinforced with some steel angle bar. Then finally, we loaded it on a trailer and drove it to the house.

Getting the shed past the garage and house and installed in the back corner of our property was tough! It required everyone’s full attention, so I did not get any pictures. It was a massive relief when we finally got it into place with my kilns inside, and with no major disasters.

The shed finds it's new purpose

And just like that…I have a shed!

It was a bit rough looking at first, so we added a coat of paint to match the shed to the wall and our house (which is this same deserty tan color). We cut up a couple of pool noodles to fill in the gap along the top, between the wall and the back of the shed (see slide 2 below). We painted them to blend them in; time will tell how long that paint will last on a pool noodle. But it looks nice for now, and the kilns are well protected.

The Kilns are covered

The shed was blasted with a coat of this deserty tan paint, so it will blend a bit it’s surroundings.

Pieces of Pool Noodle

We cut up a few pool noodles to fill in the gaps, and we painted them to match.

The finished shed looks pretty nice, and it functions very well! I have to duck to get under the lip at the top, but once I’m in I can stand up completely. It also provides some shade from the afternoon sun, which is a huge bonus.

Below are 3 pictures of the finished project. I’ve been using this shed for a few months, and so far I’m loving it!

View from the shelves

A side view of the shed, as I’m unloading the small kiln after a bisque firing.

View from the front

Shows the front of the shed as I’m unloading a small bisque load.

View from the side

Shows the shed from the side as I’m unloading a glaze load from the big kiln

Throwing and handling a textured slip mug

Here’s a few video’s of me making a textured slip mug. First, a video of me throwing the mug, and then adding the slip and texture near the end. The second video is about 30 seconds long, it shows me working on the handle, and shows the finished mug at the end (and in the thumbnail).

This is a cobalt slip made of the same clay that I’m throwing with - Laguna cone 5 B-Mix. When finished the slip will be blue and the rest will be white. This first video is about a minute long.

This video shows me finishing the shape and attaching the bottom part of the handle. This one is a quick 30 seconds.

Our big move

Back in March of 2020, my husband and I found the perfect house for sale, and we decided to make the move. It was exciting but also scary, as these were the very early days of the pandemic - the days when no one was quite sure what was going on, and toilet paper was hard to come by. There were of course some hiccups, but we had our house bought in April and immediately started some improvements. An electric line was run to the planned kiln area, and a door was added into the side of the garage for easy access from the studio area to the kilns. We were finally move-in ready on Memorial Day weekend, and we made the move from Goodyear Arizona to nearby Avondale Arizona.
Our new home suits us perfectly! It has a gigantic garage intended for big RV’s, but of course we had other plans for that space. Jake now has plenty of room to collect and restore cars, and I have a nice portion of that space carved out for my studio.
I really did love my old corner studio, it was tiny but it was enough. Moving into this new space and figuring out how to best utilize it is still a work in progress, but it’s been a wonderful space to work in. Here are some pictures of the move and of the initial studio setup.

Moving the kilns was Stressful! Especially this big old girl, I have probably had her 12 or more years which isn’t all that long, but she was already pretty old when I got her. We were able to get the 2 pieces moved without much damage to the firebrick inside.

I’ve changed things around just a little since we initially set this up. The kiln shelves were moved next to the house where they’ll stay shaded later into the day. And we’ve added some decent rock to this area so we’re not tracking so much dirt into the house.
Yes my kilns are still outside. I do tarp them carefully when they are not in use, and they are both manual kilns. I do hope to improve this setup someday, but this works really well for me now.

My studio is a nice size, with plenty of shelf space. I was a little overwhelmed when these first pictures were taken. My old studio had a flow, and I had to figure out what that flow looked like in this space. But it did not take long for me to feel at home.

These last 2 pictures show the current setup. My glazes are stored on the shelves against the wall to the right of my wheel (shown in the picture on the right). The sink is just a bit further up that same wall. Slips are stored on and under the table right behind/beside my wheel for easy access. There is ample shelf space between the wheel and the door for my pots in progress. It is so nice to have enough shelf space for a large kiln load of pots, with room to spare for green ware overflow or bisqued pots ready to glaze.