[Chris Campbell]

This is my favorite time with my work ... the drying time ... the lull between creating and 'making' where everything is still OK.

Creating is a constant battle for me between what I see in my mind and what is rolling off my hands.
Firing is a tension filled time waiting to see the inevitable cracks, slumps and warping.

So this is a wonderful time ... I get to turn them and cover them ... watch them and imagine them all perfect and ready to go.
Yes, delusional!!

What is your favorite time?

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[Mark C.]

You ask this just when I can really feel my answer . My shop is about 85 degrees with the heater on full blast the pots have been drying two days-this is not my favorite time. Two glaze kilns are cooling right now (two day cool) and this is not my favorite time. I'm going to throw a run of spoonrests with a hot shop later today-not my favorite time.
I will unload the glaze kilns later today and this as well as firing day is my favorite time-thats when I can see the fruits of my labor. I'm a glaze/fire potter who likes this process the most. No matter that I loose some or have a few hammer pots its all part of it.After I price and pack them for gallerys or shows its a bit of a let down and the cycle starts again.
These two kilns are my 6th glaze loads in past 4 weeks and I'm starting to get worn down before the 21 days of upcoming retail work also not my favorite though not bad time.
Mark

[voceramics]

Creating and handbuilding is my favorite time. My husband and I have worked together in the studio for a long time and we have our process down, so the making goes fast.

Neither of us enjoys glazing which is a shame, since we can't foist the work on someone else. We're working with new glazes so it's at that tedious point of detailed note taking and adjusting glaze firings.

Firing is nice because it feels like I'm working even when I'm sleeping. But our truly favorite time is winter when we start experimenting and working on new designs or new lines of ware.

[yedrow]

I like lifting the pot most because it feels like I'm on the up side of a swing (playground style, with long arcs).

Joel.

[DAY]

Opening the email that is a big order!
"Work is more fun than fun." Noel Coward

[Marcia Selsor]

I like the leather hard stage. It is still malleable.
Marcia

[koreyej]

The best time for me, consistently, is sitting down at the wheel to create. A good session of throwing always puts me in a great mood. I feel centered (haha), very zen. The whole world could melt away or burn down around me and I would not care. Too bad it is so brief! Then it's on to trimming, pulling handles, kiln loading and unloading, glazing, selling (ugh).

Not that any part of it is awful. It beats sitting at a desk answering the phone all day!!!

[Edith Marie]

koreyej, on 19 November 2012 - 09:18 AM, said:

The best time for me, consistently, is sitting down at the wheel to create. A good session of throwing always puts me in a great mood. I feel centered (haha), very zen. The whole world could melt away or burn down around me and I would not care. Too bad it is so brief! Then it's on to trimming, pulling handles, kiln loading and unloading, glazing, selling (ugh).

Not that any part of it is awful. It beats sitting at a desk answering the phone all day!!!

Hey! I resemble that remark...(sitting at a desk answering the phone and working on the computer all day, eight hours, five days a week! Only five years left until retirement, unless I win the lottery).....

I am a recreational potter for the past six years, five years belonging to a community (Helena Clay Arts Guild, http://helenaclayart...d.blogspot.com/ and the past year in my home studio. My favorite time of the process EVERYTHING, throwing, trimming, glazing, opening the kiln after cooling time is up and peering inside…

Edie.

[Cass]

it like when you score and slip two big things, the *smmoooch* you squish em together and some of the slip beads out....that sound, thats my favorite moment

[Diana Ferreira]

Touching the smoothness of a piece that was just wet-sanded. (I HATE the sanding process). But oh, to glide my fingers across the smoothness, seeing myself in the wet reflection on the bowl after a rinse. That is good! I am a tactile person. My fingers need to 'see'.
2nd best is opening a glaze kiln and look at the transformed work. During the raw and bisque stage my work is chocolate coloured. Once it reached temperature, it turns as if magically, black. It gives me a buzz every time :-)

[koreyej]

Duckie, on 19 November 2012 - 11:17 AM, said:

koreyej, on 19 November 2012 - 09:18 AM, said:

The best time for me, consistently, is sitting down at the wheel to create. A good session of throwing always puts me in a great mood. I feel centered (haha), very zen. The whole world could melt away or burn down around me and I would not care. Too bad it is so brief! Then it's on to trimming, pulling handles, kiln loading and unloading, glazing, selling (ugh).

Not that any part of it is awful. It beats sitting at a desk answering the phone all day!!!

Hey! I resemble that remark...(sitting at a desk answering the phone and working on the computer all day, eight hours, five days a week! Only five years left until retirement, unless I win the lottery).....

I am a recreational potter for the past six years, five years belonging to a community (Helena Clay Arts Guild, http://helenaclayart...d.blogspot.com/ and the past year in my home studio. My favorite time of the process EVERYTHING, throwing, trimming, glazing, opening the kiln after cooling time is up and peering inside…

Edie.

Edie,

I did my time at a desk myself, attached to a phone. That's why I said it! ANY part of the clay process beats that hands down. Especially a good wood fire...maybe this spring.

[Mark McCombs]

So far in my short pottery career, I would have to say my favorite time starts towards the end of a run when I am thinking about what I will be making on the next run.

[Lucille Oka]

I think it depends on what part of the process I am doing at the time. If I am handbuilding a large vessel and it takes days and days, I enjoy looking at the completed work. If I am throwing I like the action of the throwing. If I am trimming, I like the feel of the tools gliding through the clay. If I am ready to fire I like figuring out and planning the most economical stacking of the kiln space. I have a box that I use that is the same diameter as the kiln interior and I move things around in it to get the best stacked load; it's like a puzzle. I also like unloading the kiln and examining the ware.
I like firing. I like the 'aroma' (my daughter says 'fumes') of a firing kiln.
I have discovered kilns in places that others were not aware of by the aroma. I usually say, 'there is a kiln around here some place'. It is exciting just to know that there is a kiln around; the possiblities of claywork going on. I just enjoy it all.

[Doulla]

I love the planning phase especially when I am going to sculpt a new animal and need to gather information about it. I enjoy the sculpting and the time when the piece is leatherhard which is when I always think it looks best. I hate opening the kiln to be disappointed by some of the results of the oxides which havn't turned out the way I imagined. It does me good when customer's tell me 'you are so clever'.

[TJR]

I like seeing all the freshly thrown pots laid out on ware boards waiting to dry. I usually can produce 60 mugs in a run. Or dinner plates all spread out. I like trimming when it is going well, as in the clay is the correct leather hard state. I don't mind loading a bisque and firing it. I hate sanding. Like making glaze tests. Hate sanding bisque. Love decorating. I decorate ALL my work. Love dealing with the public at sales, and seeing their happy faces when they lug out their pottery purchases. It's a great life!
I guess leather hard would be my favourite clay state.
Tom[TJR]

[trina]

I sometimes procrastinate at various stages but once I get going it's all great!

[GEP]

My favorite point in the process is right after I trim/assemble the pots. They have a sense of "newness." And this is when I allow myself to put a checkmark next to those items, either on a wholesale order form, or my own to-do list. That checkmark is really satisfying.

Mea

[SmartsyArtsy]

Such a tough one to answer with only one time in the process. I love the quiet calm when I am refining a sculptural form. But when I am glazing I am in the zone and stimulated with the excitement of color choices. That's when I lose track of time and my pain!

[Pres]

Chris Campbell, on 18 November 2012 - 02:31 PM, said:

This is my favorite time with my work ... the drying time ... the lull between creating and 'making' where everything is still OK.

Creating is a constant battle for me between what I see in my mind and what is rolling off my hands.
Firing is a tension filled time waiting to see the inevitable cracks, slumps and warping.

So this is a wonderful time ... I get to turn them and cover them ... watch them and imagine them all perfect and ready to go.
Yes, delusional!!

What is your favorite time?

For me it is all about the ideation, the time of designing, and redesigning. I often commiserate over a form or technique for many months before I get to the actual construction or throwing of the form. Many of these are combination forms where the slab and thrown bits have to be figured out to make certain they go together.

Throwing for me is too much fun, and enjoyable in itself. Many times I have done nothing more than sit on the wheel and throw with no intent of ever finishing. Just to see how thin, how tall, how far I can stretch the shape without losing it. It all goes back into a bag in the end to be rewedged. However, all of these things get me to understand the limits of my clay and myself. I guess I am too much a hobbyist/experiemnter anymore, and not into as much production. Yet at the same time, have several orders that I have been trying to finish up before the end of the year, and some that need to be done for the Spring as I will be away during part of my busiest time next year.

[Benzine]

I like finishing/ smoothing my works, when they are in the leatherhard stage. Everything looks so clean in contrast to the way they look once they are bone dry and bisqued.