June 2025 - Pie Plate - Brie Baker - or not - 100 vases maybe, and a lampshade?

Preliminary attempt. This shade has a little bit too small of a hole for the lamp kit. It is so close to fitting. Fingers crossed the next one does.

Yeah - so I am apparently really bad at sticking to a plan.

June was a really different month than the ones preceding it. I was asked to assist with a commission that was 100 bud vases. I told myself that I would get the vases all thrown by the end of June. So this in itself was a challenge, and it was prioritized over any of my side projects. I did not quite make the deadline, but thrown into the mix in June was preparing a house for sale. Which took away 2/4 of the full weekends in June. I did get the throwing portion of this project done by the first weekend in July though - not bad considering I work 5 days a week and only get to throw on evenings and weekends.

The only reason a lampshade is included in the title of this post is because there was a day I had set down to start working on the vases and 2/3 of my attempts failed. So I decided to just grab a large chunk of reclaimed clay I had sitting and waiting for something to be done with it - 4 lb - I don’t usually throw big items - but it was happening that day. I made a large bowl with the subsequent plan to turn it into a lamp to hang over my pottery wheel.

I am not a fan of “the big light”. It needs to be announced when it is going to be turned on. So when I am working in the shed on my pottery I hate to have the big LED light on overhead - this is why I am wearing a baseball hat 99% of the time when I work. So I tried putting up a string of Edison bulbs with a softer glow - this went horribly wrong when the string fell from the ceiling and several bulbs shattered.

That is when the idea of a hanging lamp entered the chat. We ate still working out some kinks with clay shrinkage - but we will get there. Stay tuned to see results.