Written by Joshua Thomas Schroeder
Hi again everyone!
It seems most of you have been pretty interested in how things are going, so I thought I’d share some of my initial challenges with you.
First has been waiting for my glazes to arrive, and finding a good time for a first firing. November and December have been incredibly busy (in the best ways possible) and there just hasn’t been a good time to run the kiln. As it hasn’t been fired in quite some time, I want to be sure that I’m able to be fully present and watch the first firing closely in its entirety (which means dedicating 5-6 hours of a day to sitting in my garage). Aside from putting us a little behind schedule, this has affected our ability to offer completed pieces for our first sale.
It’s a bit of a win/lose for you guys. On the bright side, you get to choose your own glazes, rather than choosing from what I have done, but on the other hand, I can’t guarantee exactly what it will look like before it is finished. We are also operating with the risk that some of these simply won’t turn out, but with the holidays coming up, we really wanted to commit to getting some work out to you guys who have been so patient and eager.
The next challenge has been finding good lighting to take quality pictures of the pieces. Our lovely little home unfortunately does not get a lot of natural light. We tried a couple tips and tricks for using things we already had to set up a makeshift shooting environment, but the lighting is still not what I wanted for my pieces. So we made the decision to invest in a three piece lighting kit with the stands/soft boxes/etc. to really achieve the quality we were going for. That being said, that lighting kit has not arrived yet, so you’ll have to forgive us for the initial pictures of the unglazed forms.
That’s all for now, guys. Thanks again for your patience and understanding as I work though all of these new and exciting issues!
Iron Hill Studios 