Studio work

...is coming along, slowly but surely. Orders are starting to get finished and shipped off.  My glaze tests didn't quite turn out the way I was hoping, but it wasn't all a wash.  I've been hoping for a great semi-matt charcoal grey (the one I've been using has a green tinge to it- beautiful, but sometimes, one just wants grey).
I recently realized that I've been throwing on the wheel for 18 years now.  When I first got started (took my first ceramics class at 18 in college), I was told by an older potter that I'd need to be working in clay for 20 years before I could consider myself a 'master potter'.  The term seems a bit archaic to me now- not really something I would think about ever striving for, but at the same time, I did take the advice to heart.  I decided to slow down, take my time in school and really spend years honing my skill before launching out on my own with my own signature style.  Maybe it held me back a little, because it would be about 13 years before I started 'dahlhaus', but on the other hand I think I needed that time.  It gave me space to sort out my ideas, and to work out all the kinks that were going to come up.   And most of all it gave me the confidence I needed to really make the kind of work I wanted to make.