Not the best day

My second vase still has not been fired.

Okay, it didn't go in the first time cause I didn't think that it would be completely dry in time. It is absolutely necessary that the clay be completely dry before it is fired, and I dislike using heat guns and such to speed up the process. I'm afraid if my pieces don't dry slowly that they will crack, and I only use the heat gun when there is just no way around it.

So that was to be expected that the vase didn't get fired the first time around. The second time it didn't get fired was because we had moved the vase away from some of the other stuff, because it is an odd shape and has delicate points at odd angles and such, and we just thought it would be safer on a different shelf than the other stuff waiting to be fired. So when he was loading the kiln he didn't see it and forgot about it. So we moved the vase right next to the kiln and sat it on top of the kiln that isn't working at the moment. So there's no way that he wouldn't see it.

The vase still didn't get fired this week, and there was no explanation for it. Just that it would get fired next time for sure. I think at least that the little test pieces are in the kiln, so I should at least be about to test some glazes soon. But it sucks that we're halfway done with the class and so far I haven't finished anything and I've only finished forming two vases and one of those hasn't even been bisque fired yet.

Either tomorrow or next week I will have to move this very heavy plaster mold from the backroom of my house to the school ceramics lab. I made the thing about a year ago but didn't have time to use it. Since I wasn't sure that I would be coming back the next semester I was careful to take everything home. So now I have to take it back to school if I want to try it. Great. The thing is just too damned big. I may not be able to use it anyway.

Today or tomorrow I should pour plaster to make molds for my spiderweb bowls and plates. The molds will need at least a week to dry out before I can use them. I've decided that they just have to be done before spring break.

Doesn't look like I'm going to have time to do anything extra to raku, unless maybe it's just a different version of the bowl or plate. Oh well.

I haven't told the professor that this might be my last semester. Of course, it could always be a student's last semester. You never know. Stuff comes up, and you end up not coming back even if that's what you had planned to do. But I had a deal with my husband to take two more semesters, so this is the end of that deal. Not that we couldn't make a different deal, but so far we haven't made any concrete plans for next fall. So the professor is happily going on about all the stuff that he's going to teacher next fall, like a special throwing class, which he expects me to sign up for, and I haven't told him anything different.

I have found a new Murphy's Law. Whenever I absolutely must walk from the ceramics lab to the main building and back again (particularly when I have to carry something heavy), it is either raining and/or very cold. So of course today is raining and getting cold, and I have to go to the main building to buy more clay.

The weather cannot make up its mind here. We have a beautiful 70 degree day, and then it rains, and then it doesn't rain but it just looks bad all day, and then it goes back to near freezing.

So a little while ago it snowed a little bit, but the ground wasn't cold enough for it to stick, so no big deal. Then the next day it was a beautiful day again. Only today it is snowing again, and it is getting colder so maybe it won't just go away this time. There's talk that we might not have class tomorrow, but it's just too so to tell. Today and for the next two days, my husband has to work a bit west of here, in a place that is normally like a hour or maybe an hour and a half away. Crap. That's where the snow and bad weather is right now. So he's going to have a long and possibly slippery drive someplace, and it will probably all be for nothing because all of his customers are probably watching the news and thinking that they should just stay home. I have warned him to take the suitcase and such with him just in case he might have to get a room instead of coming home. I hope he remembered that stuff this morning.

I think that they have actually said winter storm warning now. So not just snow that melts away. Messy stuff. Wrecks. Maybe power outages. Crap.