June Changes

Since Whatcom has moved to the Phase 2 of the Safe start reopening plan, Burnish will reopen for standard business hours starting Tuesday 6/16. No glaze appointments will be available in the week leading up to this as we focus all our time and resources towards getting the studio ready for scheduled, distanced open studio times. We look forward to seeing you back in the studio soon!

If you want to participate in the Phase 2 Membership Program, please read the information and complete the form on the Phase 2 page so that I know who to send scheduling instructions and invoices to. Thanks!!!









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May Glaze Days

While we are still in Phase 1 of the WA State reopening plan, glazing of student and member work using the 8 studio shop glazes can be completed 2 ways, starting Tuesday 5/12. You are not required to glaze or finish work at this time - you are welcome to leave your pieces as bisque at the studio until we reopen for normal operations. I also ask for your patience - this is a totally new, untested process and the only thing I can guarantee is that there will be bumps and hiccups...

If you were not a student or member before the state shut-down, we ask that you do not book an appointment at this time. More information on how we can help with glazing and finishing work for everyone will be available soon. 
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• Kiln Yard Time Slot: A glazing station will be set up in the kiln yard, you must wear a mask and come in through the gate. You can schedule 2-hour appointments. To start with, it will be 1 person per appointment. Depending on how it goes the first week we may increase that. Everything will be rinsed or sprayed down with a bleach solution between appointments. This does mean bleach will be all over, so wear clothing you do not mind possibly getting bleach stained. No studio aprons will be available, but if you have one of your own in your cubby I can grab it for you. A work table, a bucket of water for washing, a bucket of bleach water for disinfecting, wax, stains, underglazes, foam and regular paintbrushes, and the studio glazes will be available. 
  • Please only book 1 appointment for now so that everyone who wants a chance can get in. We will see how it goes for additional or longer sessions. 
• Video Consultation: For those who either do not feel safe, or whose pieces just need a quick dip or liner glaze in a single color. After you book your appointment, I will send you a link to a video call (most likely zoom). I will have all the pieces of yours I can find and we will go through them one at a time to select the color for each piece. It will be dipped in a single color after the call.

Type of firing: with the completion of the gas kilns we are transitioning the majority of studio work to be Reduction fired. This is a chemical process that will be explained in great detail another time. It does impact the way the glaze colors come out, and I personally think they look even better. However, we do have only minimal test tiles of what the studio glazes look like in reduction. The scary part is we will not know more about how slips, stains, combinations, etc will look until we fire several times. It's a Chicken or the Egg situation. You can't know how things will work without test tiles to reference, and we cannot get test tiles until you glaze enough pots to fill that really big kiln. This means I need you to be open to experimentation and some major uncertainty about the final product for this first round. If you have some special pieces, especially ones with highly decorated underglazes we can still fire them in the electric kiln but the more people willing to jump into reduction, the quicker we will fill the kiln, and the faster we will be able to have examples of what does and does not work. This is not exactly how I had planned on helping y'all through this transition, but given the circumstances we are just going to go for it. More information and instructions will be provided when you arrive for your glazing session.