The night before Christmas...

That's always what the night before unloading the kiln feels like. Buzzing with the anticipation... will it be the Easy Bake Oven I always wanted or will it be socks... or worse, socks like my sister's hole-y (as in full of holes) Christmas socks. There's a good story there (with even better pictures!) But I digress.
I had the kiln programmed to fire off this morning. I stopped by the school at 3 to make sure it shut off ok and that there weren't any unforeseen power outages or some other catastrophe that would have tanked my efforts. Everything looked good and it was down to 1200 degrees. Good news, I should be able to open it up hopefully early afternoon (as I can't hardly wait any longer.) This firing will be the first ever glaze fire that has been completely my own work. In fact I had to load the kiln twice as when I got to the top the first time I ran out of space, requiring me to unload all the way back down to the bottom to re-organize. To say I'm nervous and excited is an understatement. I have untold hours of production, 18 hours of glazing and all the hope I can summon into this endeavor. I'm looking now for the payoff.

I know my family is invested in this nearly as much as I am as the first thing I hear when I talk to them is "Well??" To which I reply, "Not yet." Thanks guys. I appreciate your support. Once I get the results you can bet I'll be posting photos. After that I still have to bone up for sitting in front of my wares, watching people pick them up and then set them down only to walk away. A position I have never been up for putting myself in. Every artist is their own worst critic but I'd say it gets worse when you interpret other's perhaps not as positive as you would like reactions. Fortunately I'll have the big A there for life support. I haven't even tried computing what I'd look at bringing in if I were to sell everything. Something about not counting your eggs. I'll know more tomorrow.