Today was another exciting day in the studio. After stopping by my C&C to surprise them with brownies I began the day by trimming all 16 swallow nests, which was tedious at first but I soon got into a rhythm. After trimming I decided to make five new glaze tests one of which is green and the other four are a variety of brownish red. During the morning Judy Tuefel stopped by to see what I was doing and suggested a few recipes from the extensive boxes of glaze recipes to try. Up until that point I had completely avoided the recipe boxes which are all student made glazes because I had absolutely no idea which of the gazillion scribbled recipes would turn out. In the morning I also made two 1000 gram tubs of the two glazes (turquoise and ocean green) that I liked the most from my last glaze tests. Here are what those two glazes look like:

I left Catlin around 12:40 and drove to the home of Wally Schwab in Aloha. Wally Schwab is an amazing potter and past Catlin parent who I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to visit. When I got to Wally's house he led me down stairs to his show room space. Wally explained to me that he designed his house so that he would have maximum space for a showroom and studio. The showrooms are full of both functional and decorative pieces some of which can be seen on his website, http://wallyschwab1.home.comcast.net/~wallyschwab1/index.htm. Wally has spent years teaching and has also experimented with practically every kind of clay, glaze, and firing technique. At this point he almost exclusively uses a high fired gas reduction kiln. After getting a tour of the entire show room space I was led down another flight of stairs into his studio where I got to meet one of his two apprentices who was a past student of his. It was really exciting for me to see a working studio and get a step by step tour of how everything works. The studio includes a glazing section stocked with chemicals, two large gas reduction kilns and a one smaller gas reduction kilns, multiple wheels, and racks of pots. I was really inspired by both how beautiful the shapes were and also the interesting glazes and decorative glaze applications. Just when I was thinking about how envious I was of both the clay bodies he uses and his ability to use a high fire reduction kiln he offered to give me some clay so that I could throw some things and then bring them back to his studio to get fired. After a conversation about the financial side of pottery and the difference between pottery as a profession and as a hobby I headed back to Catlin carrying my prized bag of porcelain. Every time I meet with an artist I get so inspired by what they do that I want to go back to the Catlin studio as soon as possible to start my own work, but this was especially true with Wally Schwab who I think with no doubt can be called a master potter. Here is a slide show I found of Wally in his studio: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/portlandcraft/sets/72157622699382563/show/

As soon as I got to Catlin I sat down at the wheel with a ball of porcelain and started throwing a bowl. Porcelain is a much more plasticy smooth clay than what I am used to using and at first I felt like I was in pottery heaven. It was not until I was ribbing the bowl that I realized why people say porcelain is a more difficult clay body to work with. Basically the bowl which had been perfectly sturdy only moments before inverted itself and collapsed. For the time being I gave up on porcelain and spent the rest of the afternoon throwing with the Pat Horsely and Trail mix cinnamon clay bodies. Here are a few of the things I made:

I think i'm going to get my courage up tomorrow after visiting the zoo with the first graders to try porcelain again.