keep centered

Behind the cut are bowls folks made for the Empty Bowl Donation that will take place this weekend. Really nice work.
People in attendance will be soooo lucky to get these lovely bowls at a bargain price AND donate to a good cause.
Thanks again to the generous bowl painters.
(If I forgot one please tell me)
( many pics )

My Spring Break starts after school today
and not a moment too soon!!!

It is my feeling that it lasts longer if I plan it, so I've planned it. Half of the plans will come to naught if those stupid 5" of stupid snow we got last night doesn't melt and I mean melt now!!! Are you listening snow??!!.

But after my plans achieve victory. Later in next week I am coming to Portland to visit handsome middle son. Then Saturday, April 5th, around 12:00 noon we are going to Daedin's with more nefarious plans. We are going to paint bisque bowls for the Empty Bowls charity I have been working towards.

You are invited to join us. It would be so wonderful to see you and to have you make a bowl for donation.
I will have plenty of bisqued bowls ready to go and some ideas for designs for people who are unsure of what to do. If you have ideas though, this is even more better. I will then take the bowls back to the studio, glaze fire them, then photograph them for you to see the final results of your good works.

In terms of what we will do, the bowl glazing will be more similar to scribal arts than vessel making. You can get just as elaborate as could be imagined on these, on the other hand if you are less than sure of yourself with scribal stuff even something like simple stripes can be very beautiful on bowls!!

I was originally thinking of us using maiolica technique, but there might be less bunping off of glaze if we use underglazes on the bowls and I put the overglaze on them when I get back home. However, I am more than willing to bring stuff for maiolica too if you let me know.

Which reminds me, if you can let daedin and/or me know we'll make sure there are supplies for everyone*.

It would be so good to see a bunch of people. There is even rumor of a Gavin sighting. How rare is that ;-)

I am writing this in the morning before I go to work and have had enough coffee, so I may not have all the info. but will either edit or write again when I am awake.

*Oh don't tell Daedin, it's going to be a surprise.

*joke heh, heh*

Alumina hydrate in wax resist with a suspender if anyone is interested.

In other news, I feel a little awkward about giving this information because of last years mighty belly flop....but my local potter's guild is planning on holding our EMPTY BOWLS event April 19th. http://www.emptybowls.net/ We have different people organizing it this year, so we have a better chance of success. My job description is to solicit bowls. (I still have gwen_the_potter"s generous donation in a safe place from last year).

We discussed this a bit on LJ last year, so now I kind of have a plan. My Spring Break is the first week of April, I am coming over to visit and if someone would like to host a workshop for working on these donations, whoever is interested could paint bowls, maiolica style. I started throwing a buncha bowls today and am making the interior slope gradual so they will be fun to paint upon. I think I have a cunning scheme to keep the glazes from smearing, then I'll take them back and fire them. I'll take photos & post too. In terms of messyness it would be fairly equivalent to scribal arts.

Since I have children in both Seattle and Portland, if there is interest we could do one in both places....or we could all decend upon daedin who resides in the middle heh, and not tell her.

The Food Co-op is donating the soup and bread, so after we cover building rental, which is about $70., ALL the proceeds will go to hunger organizations. The Guild decided 1/2 would go to Oxfam & the other 1/2 to a few food banks in little towns around here, which we hear, are really hurting.

I am excited about this. I love working on this project.