This morning I got a chance to have a good look at the failures that came out of the kiln which was pretty much everything.
It was not the Chinese wire. That was in just a few dolls and it was fine. It was some other wire, slightly thicker.
I found the roll of wire. It was labelled nichrome wire, it was on a black plastic roll, it looked like all the other rolls of nichrome wire.
Or, no it didn’t. The label was subtly different and the other end didn’t say the name of the manufacturer. There was no name of manufacturer. Did I buy this years ago, thinking it was the right one and find it to be no good? Is that why I had put it in a different drawer? When you’ve been doing something for thirty four years sometimes you cannot remember the detail of every year.
I have kept a kiln book, Every firing has been documented. Not every glaze, china paint and roll of wire. If I were a very commercial maker I probably would have done so. I’m not doing it for the money, there are many ways to make money and none of them are art the way I do it.
Additionally one entire set of shoes, which means one entire doll, is no good. A failure. The glaze has bunched up into lumps. Now this I do remember happening previously. What I didn’t remember is which glaze did it.
The writing is on the wall, or, to be exact, will be on the glaze pot and is already on the plastic bag in which the roll of wire now resides.
I am now china painting some of the dolls which may be alright.
I was so happy about the new things, which will not now appear.
Fortunately there are two Miniaturas a year. Amazingly some exhibitors only go to one of them and so do some visitors.
Two is my number, so I’ll see you at the next one, just three weeks away.
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