Meet & Greet continued, and Satisfaction

I drove out to my sister-in-law Angie's cottage Friday afternoon, and after a short stop at her brother's cottage to say hi, we went to the gallery. And were the first ones there. Which was actually good, because it gave us a chance to walk around and look at everything with an unobstructed view. The gallery is really a neat building. It used to be a Post Office, and has a lot of nice architectural details.

The gallery:

One of the artists makes metal fish like this one. He also made the fish on the side of the building in the pic above, and smaller ones for wall hangings. You can see part of one of the smaller ones in the background of this pic:

Angie makes decorative bird baths from recycled glass & ceramic objects. Each one is different, and each has something quirky/fun going on. Here are some samples...

Somehow I didn't take any pics of the display of my work. Oops. It was a fun night though, and we met some lovely people.

On to the Satisfaction bit... I fired a bisq kiln Sunday/Monday, and just unloaded it. I have a major cold spot in the bottom of my kiln, and was trying to figure out a way I could use the space. Answer? Lower fire glazes. I tried firing some buttons and beads on the lowest shelf, and it worked! YEEHAW. Needs a bit of tweaking - of course - but I am mostly pleased. Except for the tan ones, I'm not so into the texture of these. They were the only buttons I had ready to fire though, so that isn't a big deal. I think they need 1 more coat of glaze, and no texture. And I need to be more careful about getting more crystals on each piece so there is more variation in the color:

textured front. I like the tan one on the upper left, but the others... meh.

Smooth backs, which I prefer.

See how the top bead has that bright glob of color? I want more of those, which just means paying more attention when I brush the glaze on.

All in all, it was a good experiment. :o)