A Day in my Ceramic Life

There are many hats you have to wear when you’re living the artist’s life and like any job, there are many parts to it. I often make a list to help me keep on top of what needs doing and how soon. As I was making the one for this week, I decided to make one of everything that goes into running my ceramics life. Wow! It was longer than I expected!

When you tell people you make ceramics for a living, that is exactly what they imagine–making ceramics. They also briefly imagine that it might be like that scene in the movie Ghost, but I digress. In reality, I don’t just make ceramics, I run a small business, so I thought it might be interesting to give you all a glimpse into my everyday life.

I divided the exceedingly long, master list into four categories–Making, Teaching, Maintenance and Business.
I’m always doing a combo of tasks from the categories but depending on the day/week, different areas will get heavier emphasis.

Let’s take today as an example: It’s Wednesday and I know I’ll have the Fairfax Farmers’ Market later in the afternoon. So, right after I finish this newsletter, I’ll pop out to my studio in the backyard and check things out. The first thing I always do is evaluate my ongoing work and decide what needs to be done. If it’s feeling too dry to work on I’ll mist it down or I’ll open up the plastic so it can dry a bit and firm up. There’s always more than one project going so I’ll start work on what ever one is most urgent and ready to go.

I already feel the pressure of making the bowls to go in the gift bags for the Over 90! celebration but my octopus plates are getting dry and I really have to get the sgraffito finished on them.
But there’s a new wrinkle, the last firing in my electric kiln errored out on me. That means I have to trouble shoot and fix that kiln before I can run any more bisque or lower temp glaze firings–and that means soon!

One thing I definitely have to finish before the Farmers’ Market is loading my gas kiln for a high fire run on Thursday. Oh, I also have to load the truck with the necessaries for the market.

So, given the time I have available, I’ll work on the electric kiln Thursday, load the gas kiln for the glaze firing first and try to finish one octopus plate. Then load the truck and get all the mundane things ready for the market. Luckily, it’s just around the corner from my house and studio!

This is just a tiny sampling of a day in my ceramic life. There’s always some task to do with teaching and the business end of things too. I love it! Being my own boss and making a living with my ceramics brings me tons of joy and satisfaction!