Kings Creek Pottery: Shino Heaven

Cool sign hangs in the workshop room
(touched up by instagram)

This Memorial Day weekend I had the great pleasure of attending another workshop at Bailey Pottery.

Get this: a Shino workshop with Lou Raye Nichol, Les Richter, Jeff Shapiro and Regis Brodie AND the expertise of Jim Bailey, all in one place in one weekend.

Shino Heaven!

I, however, have a ways to go before I get to Shino Heaven... my high iron stoneware is not compatible with shino that includes redart (!!). I will write a separate post about that debacle.

On to better things~

We started the weekend with a Friday night glaze fest- and oh what a fest it was!! Potters dunking, blowing on pots, waxing, slipping (no falls, thank goodness), and speed drying with fans. We made a good mess, for sure.

the wax and slip table

There was so much to learn and to think about- techniques for glazing, about my own practices (as held up against these pros), what to think about when creating pots for shino glaze, how to work with carbon trap, what is chemically happening in the kiln, history of shino, and the tea ceremony (which I was woefully lacking knowledge of). It was an honor to listen to professionals with so much experience. I have a new appreciation (and love!) for Shino.

As usual, it's an exciting environment when potters get together. The space at Bailey provides a great atmosphere for fostering that energy. People were sharing information, trading business cards, talking all things shino and other pottery practices. It's just such a great community to be a part of, really I feel blessed to be a part of it in my small way. I mean, I love blogging with you all- but connecting in person is even better :)

Glaze test samples

I had wonderful table mates: Carol who flew in from Chicago, Pam from Connecticut, and Kim from upstate NY, like me.

Carol, Pam and Kim

A really special part of the weekend was when Jim announced that he had a Malcolm Davis piece sent to him by Malcolm a while back. Jim added this piece to the kiln to give homage to Malcolm and as an offering to the kiln gods.