Whoa. I have to be honest, y'all, I thought I didn't do much this year. I think my eyes have been drawn more to the times I couldn't fire the kiln rather than the times I could... and would you believe I fired the kiln 36 times in 2015? 36 TIMES! Last year I only had 32, so just think... four months off, and I still fired the kiln four more times than last year. Any bets on how many times I'll fire it next year?
I say again; whoa.
I've spent the morning putting this collage together... I'll work on it for a bit, go do something else, come back to it, walk away... I think too much when I was working on it. My thoughts?
- oh, look, there's the old house, when I had to unload everything onto the floor, close the kiln, and load everything back up on top of the kiln for a photograph, not so much because I wanted to show off my kiln but with everything else that was piled and stored on the back porch, there wasn't really another place to take a photo... and I couldn't pile everything inside because there was no place that had a flat surface that wasn't already covered in so many other things. I do not miss working in such close quarters.
- well... that's a large gap in time from the last firing at the old house in March, and the first firing at the new house in August. What a long, long, hard summer.
- eight of those firings were in August, four of them within the same week. I sure could have used a second kiln, then... or better decal paper. That was an experience.
- hahaha, that one time I took the picture on the counter next to the kiln and almost immediately people were like, "wait, where's the yin/yang symbol? Why didn't you take the photo on it?"... I don't remember why I didn't... was it raining....?
- look at all those glaze firings. I sure coulda done Sharon and Rhea's dishes faster. I'm still not done with Rhea's. Sorry, Rhea....
- awwww, my first little boxy yarn bowls! I do still love them so.
- deviled egg trays sure are popular.
- I have *got* to get this decal thing under control, the fact that two out of every ten pieces doesn't work, for some random reason I still can't figure, makes me twitchy.
- did I mention what a long year this has been?
But, do you know what? There's nothing in any of these 36 pictures that I'm not proud of. There are things that didn't work out the way I wanted, there are things that broke, there are glaze and decal issues that happened, and there are some pieces that I thought would go gangbusters and yet they've had nothing but crickets... but I'm proud of each and every piece, each and every firing. I worked hard this year, and I worked well.
I can't wait to see what 2016 brings, and I thank all y'all for staying with me to find out!