Seventh Day Prizes... back to the beginning

In the beginning.... Pour Horse was started in order to make Renaissance Faire pins and stuff. In resin. Why pins? They are easy to do and can be sold cheaply. Why Ren Faire? It's a fun place to sell in. So, we made a bunch of different resin pins and little statues, and turned up at a small local Faire. And did poorly. Barely sold enough to pay for the booth rental. We tried again, same result. What we figured out, was that unless you were selling food, or hats and costumes, you weren't likely to make much money. The people selling at the Faires just liked to go. At least, those that sold at the little Faires. The big one is different... if you can get in at all as a vendor! Anyway, we didn't do it for very long, and by the time we switched to ceramics we were mostly doing horses. But we did a number of pins in that transition, just goofy things. I actually sculpted these (shown below), with some help from Kristina. Nose Picker, Tongue Sticker, Headache, and Shouter. Of all of them, Shouter is probably the rarest. He's patterned after a gargoyle that would be on the side of a building, and the rain water from the roof would come cascading out of his mouth. We probably should have called him Hurley, or (up)Chuck, but somehow he became Shouter.

So, the prize today is a complete set of Ren Faire ceramic pins, and the winner is... Lisa Gruetter! Congrats, Lisa!

Sixth Day Prize is Rather Odd

Every time a slip casting is made, there is a chance that something will go wrong. Maybe It's too thick or too thin, or it doesn't drain entirely. Maybe something sticks in the mold, and tears off, like a leg. Maybe you leave it too long, and it cracks because it gets too dry. Each casting is supposed to be between the thickness of one nickel and two nickels, which is the optimum thickness. Consequently, we always had rejected castings hanging around. We used to cut the heads off, to keep track of how many castings we lost... but if the head was still nice and damp, heck... we could do things with it!

Ever notice how much Suspiro looks like an ancient Roman marble carving? Neither have I. Nevertheless, this Suspiro head was made to look like it was an old Roman or Greek marble statue that had broken apart and been buried for eons. We carved nicks, cracks, and holes in it... and then rubbed it with mineral oil tints (which are not fired on, they are oil based and just stain the bisque permanently). An absolutely useless little thing, but it was the kind of silliness that we did in between more serious work. We were always experimenting, and the mineral tints seemed like an interesting thing to try... but they aren't even enough in application. You couldn't, for instance, "paint" a horse with them in realistic colors.

The winner of the Suspiro Marble Head is Mel Hinkle! Congrats, Mel!

Fifth Day, and a Useful Prize

This prize has a strange story attached. You see, even though I just do low-fire pottery, **out of a mold**, which is considered something like a cross between kindergarten art and cheating in the wider ceramic world, I do read a ceramics list where the real potters post. The gals and guys who make their own glazes, and raku fire, and talk with knowledge of bentonite and manganese. And I struck up an email friendship with one gal. Or at least I thought it was a gal.

Generally (she says with a slightly Victorian air) I am not in the habit of striking up conversations with men on the internet. It's just easier all around. There are plenty of women out there with like interests. And I don't have to worry if Hubby is looking through my email, that he will come across some guys name and pause to wonder.

So, I thought that I was speaking with a woman. A very strong and interesting woman, who has led an adventuresome life... but the name was Marcy. Marcy, you know. Silly me. After a while, enough information came through that I began to second guess either my sanity or the gender of the person at the other end. Finally, I found out that Marcy was a guy (old family name, third in the line as I remember) and he was a military man who does pottery on the side. So, we will go by his nickname, Tig. But I just wanted you to understand the cognative dissonance of the beginning.

Tig and I talked about porcelain... he throws porcelain on the wheel. Up in the Northwest. We decided to do a run of mugs together. I made a press mold of Otto's head... it was the strangest mold. It was curved. If you don't think *that* was tough!! It had to be curved because porcelain doesn't stretch well, so if you are going to apply it to a curved surface, making it curved in the first place is useful. Then, Tig threw the mugs on the wheel, applied the pressed heads, and glazed them. He did me a huge number of test mugs, but all of them have various problems... like me, he doesn't waste flawed pieces. But the winner of this piece can, if she likes, trade this good solid regular production mug for a slightly flawed test. I picked two colors for production... amber and green. We sold quite a few. Tig was ecstatic... he had never sold as many pieces at once. He made me another shipment, more than I had orders for. So I've used some of the last ones for prizes at shows and gifts to friends, and they have come in handy. People write and mention that the mug design is very sturdy and nice.

You bet it is. I told Tig that I wanted a good, big handle. Not some wimpy handle that you can only put three fingers in. I wanted a handle that I could stick my whole hand into, knuckle to knuckle, and I don't have delicate hands. And that's just what he did. With a little doohickey for your thumb, for a even sturdier grip. Military guy... what can I say?

A bit of trivia... these mugs come in left handed or right handed versions. Seriously!

The winner of the nice, sturdy, limited edition green Tig mug is.... Liz Strauss! YAY Liz!

Fourth Prize and winner!

This one is simple, and goes along with the last prize. This is a first-firing Hadrian, and it shows some 'swirl'. When I poured the tinted slip, it had a tendency to seperate during pouring, which caused the swirls. You couldn't seem them until after the piece was glazed... of course. Anyway, the biggest problem was that the heavily tinted slip didn't pour well. It took months, and consultations with experts, to figure out why and correct the problem. Oh, yes, those early Hadrians were a struggle. BTW, first firing pieces were marked with a star, so the whole first kilnload had stars on their bellies.

The winner today? Drumroll...... Jeanene Bernardin! Congrats!

The Third Winner... and a double test!

People get excited when they hear "TEST", but sometimes a test piece is only meant to test one aspect of the run.... like, the slip color. When I decided to do Hadrian in a colored slip, I had a book of slip color recipes from HR (given to me by Jim Renaker) but the company who made their pigments was out of business. So, I sort of had ratios, but not the real colors. Jim gave me a very delicate balance beam scale, and some instructions to figure out how to test colors.
Hadrian was a good choice for a colored slip horse... being a Dales pony, they traditionally don't have white markings. But I wanted a nice, rich, dark bay... which ended up being a problem. I started with a small, very precisely measured cup of slip, added a very small amount of dry oxide powder colorant (sort of a saffron color) mixed into water, and poured... no, not a Hadrian, the molds were new and I wasn't going to waste castings on slip tests. I poured Nomads. Why not? Nomad almost FALLS out of the mold. Two piece mold, too! So, I poured the Nomad, added in a little more slip, added in more colorant, poured again, and after the third or fourth time, started adding in a redder brown color. I made six total tests, from light saffron to dark bay. Didn't paint their eyes, hooves, or anything. Just slip color being tested...why clutter it up with details?
Just recently, when I wanted to test some print-at-home transfer stickers, I grabbed the mid-tone Nomad slip test to fire them onto. He has "POUR HORSE POTTERY" across his side, and a dorsal stripe across his back, both made on the computer... problem is, the transfers fire to a sort of plum/rust color, not black, so he is saffron colored with a plum colored dorsal stripe!

Anyway, drumroll.... the winner is Marge Para! Congrats, Marge!

The Second Winner

Day two, and the Random Generator gives us both the winner and the prize...

Since we didn't have much money, and did ceramics all the time, we started making Christmas presents for our family and friends in clay. They were mostly Christmas ornaments. The first one, I'm pretty sure, was Kristina's bat. She did sell a limited number, way back when, but their original purpose was as presents. I have two of the black bat, and one of the albinos, and since my kids are about as interested in the factory 'archives' as the dogs are, I'm giving away one of the black bats.

And the winner is..... drumroll..... Sandy Tomezik! Congrats, Sandy!

The First Winner!

The contest has 66 entries! I've enjoyed reading them all. From the sweet, humorous, or moving stories, to the scans of old advertising, to great photos of favorite pieces, every entry is treasured. Just for fun, some stats: the first person to enter was Tracy Wells, the entry from farthest away was Maria Sundin (from Sweden), the most moving was Carra McClelland, the entry with the most horses in the picture was Elli (HOW many Saucys do you have Elli?!!That's awesome!) I'll mention more tomorrow.

Here is how I did the drawing:
I put all of the entries in a folder, which sorted them by time/date. Counted them (66) Then I went to the Random Number Generator (www.randomizer.org) and filled in the fields. I wanted 15 sets of numbers (for fifteen prizes) one number per set, from the numbers 1 - 66. And in one second, I had the list. Printed it out. Totally random. I also numbered and randomized the prizes, after the first one. I knew what I wanted to give away first....

So, here is the first prize....



Yes, an old Saucy! Now, she does have a broken leg... nothing in those days stayed here unless it was broken or had a problem. Those were lean days! But she's been in the case all this time, so it's good for her to have a new home. She is going to... (drumroll...) #11, Cindy Dilks!!! YAY Cindy!! You will receive an email this morning!

Now remember, some of the prizes won't be as big or as valuable. Some are more 'funky' than others. Some have a story, or show a phase in the factory history. But every morning until the 15th, there will be a new prize. I also saved a really good prize for the 15th, the last prize.

See you tomorrow!