one of the bushes burst. yup that’s right. the 3 bushes are not out of the kilns yet but i peeked in on the medium bush (which had become one of my favorites) and the top had fallen in. i was soaking it for a long time so that the water wouldn’t make it explode, but at the end of the day it was stupid short cut taken in construction that caused the damage. i’m not sure if it will be repairable, but i went ahead and fired it hoping it will be. given the time crunch, i ended up with two parts of the bush with very different amounts of dryness. the bush was a sweet leather hard, and if there had been more time for it to dry with support it might have been ok, but popping that leather hard bush into the kiln with a heavy, built up area that was still a lot softer and speed drying it just didn’t work. it collapsed.
rough, but that’s the way it goes. the kilns fired off, and tomorrow they will be cool enough to unload. tuesday morning in nice light i will spray them with glaze and fire them one last time. other than that i am in full mixed media mode, trying to prepare for installation friday.