If only the Production department...

If only the Production department worked as hard as the marketing team! Ha! So now I have cards to hand out with the purchase of a piece of my pottery, price stickers to place on the pieces for sale, a logo for Heather Hilton pottery, a blog, and more pictures than I could ever use...hmmmm...

Now I need to actually turn some pottery! I guess when you consider that I had a few extra (unpaid) employees in the marketing department it makes a little more sense, but I have got to get back at the wheel!

Thank you to my Marketing team: Robert Hilton & Dawn Crouse Photography! As my dad would say "thank you till you are better paid" ha!

Some days you just can't get it up!

What?...hey wait...get your mind out of the gutter! I am talking about pottery!

Today was just one of those days where everything I touched tore apart. So frustrating! After a few hours of trying I just gave up!

Not happy with anything I did today, but really liked the couple of new glazes I bought a few weeks back. Maybe if I get anything turned, I'll be able to try them on a few pieces.

only a potter would give the gift of clay!

  So, as I celebrate the anniversary of my 29th birthday (I stopped counting a few years back) I got a really cool gift.  Picture this...

dad walks in with a bag of clay (not unusual yet) he holds it out and says "happy birthday" (odd, but hey he is a potter, I am aspiring to be a potter, clay is not really the most out of the question gift to give I guess) So then the curiosity gets to me...I pull out the clay block and the real gift arrives...

check it out I'm legit!

My own signature pottery stamp!  The best part is that it was a surprise, and a lot more work for dad because he didn't have a single thing with my signature on it...except a finished pot.  Took some creativity but he pulled it off!  Thanks dad, really great birthday gift!  



April ain't foolin!

Only appropriate that I spend April Fool's day throwing mud around!  Didn't get very many pieces made today (only 3 turned, in fact) but I'm working on a few new ideas that I hope work out for some neat items...a soap pump, a lotion dispenser...we shall see!

turning on April Fool's Day 2012

Yesterday dad and the rest of the Hilton Homeplace crew worked their fingers to the bone processing 3,000 pounds of clay...(glad I missed the hard work, ha!) I can't believe how much work goes into preparing clay! (and I thought the turning was the hard part!)  Thanks to Dawn Crouse for always being nearby with a camera!

Should've paid more attention...

...to that chemistry teacher!  So mixing glaze and changing colors sounds a lot more like my chemistry classes than art?  Geez that was a million years ago, and thank goodness dad remembers that stuff! 

  I had a few things that made it out of the kiln ok.  Copper carbonate turns into this really cool metal looking patina.  I painted the rings and designs of these two with the copper.

pretty cool metal look right?

  There have been a few other pieces that turned out ok.  Some bowls, a few little things with faces, or flowers, or other designs.  I like the dogwood bowl ok...think next time I will make the flower petals out of some non-speckled clay, kinda looks like the bugs got a hold of this flower...ha!



speckled dogwood (native to Newton, NC) ha!  



Not sure when I'll be back up, but if I only manage 3 or 4 pots per visit, it will take me all year to fill a shelf full!  Gotta pick up the pace...October will be here before you know it.

I have gone nuts!

...well, I've gone acorns to be more precise. I spent today working on a few hand built pieces rather than turning.

I made a few of these acorn spoon rests before the Holiday that were kinda cute, so I thought I might make a few more...that is until my pattern decided it wasn't going to work exactly the way I had planned...(we will blame the tool not the user, ha) anyway...with some minor modifications I was able to make about 2 dozen acorn spoon rests.

Necessity is certainly the mother...

...of all inventions! I wanted something that could make foot rims or decorative lips on my pottery. I searched EVERYWHERE for potter's tools shaped like the ones in my mind's eye! What did I find, you ask? Nothing! So what do you do when no one will sell you what you need? Well...you make your own of course!

So I explained to dad what I was looking for expecting to whittle myself a tool from a Popsicle stick and sandpaper...but NO!! (not in this family!!) ha! It never hurts to have a family full of eccentric "junk" collectors! Between dad's accumulation of gadgets and my grandfather's collection of oddities there's probably a tool to do just about anything you can dream up! Anyway, back to the story...

I had a lesson in milling machines, lathes, bandsaws, belt sanders, and even a drill press...I mean who has their own milling machine? Really?

The result? Two amazing little tools that have added a little flair to the foot of each pot! I think they will be put to great use! Thanks for the "shop class" dad...glad we both still have all our fingers!

my what a lovely foot you have...