Something rotten in the state of Newmarket
My taxes have gone up again this year. Which isn’t too surprising there are only two guarantees in life: death and taxes. Property taxes 2.34% increase Hydro …
Some old photos
I came across some old photos while looking for something on my computer. Zuimei and I in Xian, Zuimei in Shanghai, Me (25 years old) in Dort Kalesei in Turkey, My friend Neil and I standing in the Mediterranean, Me with hemp growing in Pakistan, and me playing a very serious …
Good Riddance to comments
With my work at the CBC, I struggled with explaining the value or ROI of certain tools or mediums, others are much easier.. Take TV for example. We can measure the lift of traffic to the website for any given advert. We were able to successfully measure the lift in …
A year in review
Every December I like to take stock of the year that just passed. Normally I would read through my blog posts and remind myself of what I had done but this year there were not a lot of posts. I am not entirely sure why though. Perhaps I was busy, I …
The French Canadian
Have you ever had a London fog? It’s a drink at Starbucks which is English Breakfast tea, steamed milk and vanilla syrup. At Balzac’s they offer a Parisian mist, which is essentially the same thing but with French Breakfast tea. Well I came up with my own I call “the …
Peter Clapham Sheppard
I recently picked up two paintings at an online auction. Peter Clapham Sheppard was born in Toronto on October 21, 1881. He apprenticed at engraving houses such as at Rolph, Clark, Stone Ltd. in Toronto, where he became a highly skilled lithographer. He received his art training at the …
More pottery samples
So I worked on another set of sample tiles. This time it was bronze, called Lamp’s Bronze. The recipe is pretty straightforward with nice results but I am having troubles with changing it. The base recipe is Lamp’s Bronze 7 – Ball Clay 86 – Cedar Heights Redart 7 – …
Lessons from pottery
I am learning some very important life lessons since I started throwing pots. The most obvious to me is patience. Patience is everything in pottery. First in throwing. If you try to rush a piece and pull to hard your piece will end up lop-sided and uneven. Since “there is …
Thanks Matt!
As I continue in my creation of my own glazes I look to other potters as a source of information. Matt Fiske’s Blog was one of the first sites I hooked into and in short order I read every post. I highly recommend you check it out. You can …
St.John’s Black
I have started making my own glazes. I found a great recipe called St. John’s black. Nepheline Syenite – 25 Alberta Slip/Albany – 75 Cobalt Carbonate – 5% But I wanted something more dense, so I tried working on the recipe by adding other materials. Going from left …