Tall crackpots

Ceraria pygmaea

Picked this up in a trade approximately 10yrs and staged in this 6" diameter pot about 5yrs ago and there it stayed...

Until today...staged The Ceraria in one of my crackpots, a 5" oval. Thinned out the canopy of branches and shortened them about 2". I'll let it gorw out some before I remove any more limbs.

This container was an experiment to see if I could make an oval form from a round pot, it worked and I set on the shelf and forgot about it. A couple of days ago I was looking at the Ceraria and the pot color, I got the idea to glaze it with a similar color of the original container.

Pots are drying

I have about 20 pots drying currently, largest has a 18" diameter and not in this photo, biggest here is 14" wide. All are crackpots except the top right, it's made with rice as a burn out material leaving an interesting surface texture. A variety of clays used this time around, Black Mountain, Cassius Basaltic, Stoneware 1C, Santa Fe, ^6 Frost porcelain, Toki Paperclay and Dover White.

Commission pot complete

The final dimensions of the commission pot are 11" inside diameter with a 4" depth, manganese wash to highlight the fissures and opted not to glaze the rim. Staged the Operculycaria, pruned to shape and delivered it last night....and forgot my camera!! Grrrrrr...


Received an email from a grower with an Alluaudia montagnacii that had a height of 12", he wanted a black with vertical fissures. Had this pot sitting on a shelf waiting for an idea what to do with it. A manganese/3124 frit wash was applied to make the cracks and surface darker. This pot is 4" wide.

Pistachio shino on Black Mountain crackpot

Mirabils jalapa

1st time this Mirabils has flowered for me since bonsaied 2yrs ago. Pot is 12" wide, caudex 6" diameter at soil level and 6" tall.

More from my last firing

3.5" round, manganese wash applied too heavily

2" tall square, should have stayed with 2 coats of glaze the 3rd caused the some running onto the shelf

3" square, chattered with oxide wash

5" round thrown rice pot

3" tall octagon

4" tall round RIO wash

1.5" tall kiln accident, over fired the clay causing the gasses to escape too rapidly and pitting the glaze. Love the look!

2" round porcelain

Some glaze test pots

Iron matte with saturated iron on the rim

Translucent green with green crawl over manganese wash

Desert sage

Pistachio shino

Another Pistachio shino

Black mountain body with clear satin on the ribs

Manganese dioxide wash

Peking blue crackle orchid pot

Cassius Basalitic body naked (no stain, no glaze) dirt pot

A storm's a comin'

Our 1st rain of the season is scheduled to hit Monday evening so I brought in all my resent creations that were drying outside. There spread out under a tree and did not look like I had that many but when they are all grouped together there's quite a few, 40 in total. Now where to put them? I'll probably bisque them as it will be easier to stack with out breaking any.

Also have a load in the kiln now, mostly a test fire. Trying a 3 new recipes and a couple of commercial glazes as well as a few oxide washed pots. We'll so how they turn out in the morning. I'm doing a slow cool fire so the kiln will run for about 14hrs, the load was started at 2:30am.

Commision pot, bisque firing

Bisque firing was successful! no explosions, no cracks and no separated feet. Now onto the glaze samples, I have a couple of colors in mind so I'll do some test tiles this week to how they work the clay and the oxide wash. Stay tuned....

Leutchenbergia principis

You now me, I'm no cacti person but when I saw this and the size of the trunk I had to have it! This baby is 20" tall, has a base diameter of 5" and 2 branches. The guy I got it from told me it was field collected approximately 30yrs ago.



Now to make a pot worthy of the beauty....

Loading the kiln

For a bisque fire this morning with a variety of pots, some cracked, a few chattered, a smattering of altered shapes, a couple of handbult and one commission pot.
Besides the custom job there a few pots I'm eagerly anticipating there finish. Out of all the crackpots in the load the one I'm excited about is the brownish pot in the center of this shelf. Had no idea it would fissure the way it did and have no idea how it is going to turn out.