Here’s how the mold came out.  I still need to do some cleaning up of plaster around the edges, and also there are some scraps of clay left in the mold.  It is still quite damp, so it will be a few days before it’s useable.  All the raised areas in the mold will be recessed on the ornament: all the better for glaze pooling. 

Today I was puttering around in the garage with Isaac when I came across a box of kiln stilts that I hadn’t seen yet (having been given a lot of ceramics stuff, I still haven’t waded my way through it all).  They’re all little, about pendant sized.  Nice to know I have about a thousand of them on hand

I don’t think I ever told the story of my journey with ceramics.  I was at work one day when Pete called and asked if I wanted a bunch of ceramic molds.  Um, I guess.  He was amping about it, and they were free.  How many could there be, right???  Well, they filled a snowmobile trailer.  I think at the time I must have been either hugely pregnant or Isaac must have been a newborn, b/c I didn’t have to do any loading or unloading.  They also gave us a ton of kiln furniture (which can add up to a lot of money if you buy it outright).

Ok, we’ve got a million molds.  What about a kiln?  We just missed getting a kiln from the mold people by about 3 weeks. I had seen them come up every now and then in the classifieds, so I wasn’t sweating it.   Pete happened to mention it to a woman he works with, and she said she had TWO and did we want to take them?  Cheap!  One was in pretty bad shape (but has a kiln sitter on it that looks to be in good condition, so I want Pete to save it for me); the other kiln was in premo condition.  And big.  Like if I slip I could end up with my feet waving in the air–and since Pete’s deaf I could be there awhile.

So we ordered some slip, had a ton of glazes given to us by yet another person who was giving up ceramics (Pete gets around at work), and started to play.  I had thrown some pottery on the wheel in high school and I’ve done some handbuilding, but I’ve pretty much taught myself through books and the web.  Because of tendonitis and/or carpal tunnel, I don’t think I’d be able to work on the pottery wheel much, even though I love it.  I can’t really remember how I came to make pendants, but here I am.  And when people say that opening the kiln is like opening presents on Christmas, they aren’t kidding.  Sometimes you get underwear and socks, and other times you get really cool stuff.  You never know….