The last week's news

Havn't been blogging lately as there is not much news about the new studio. The builders took measurements last Monday, so now we are waiting on the steel to be measured and powder coated.
This week has brought awful weather to work in but lots of good rain and windy conditions.
I went to my son's place a couple of times to use his mig welder in his shed and cleaned up a gas blow in the bronze on top of the sculptures head. I also sat out under the new pergola to do some metal work on this bronze I have a commission for . I set up a table and stool and worked for an afternoon on it but it still needs some work with the air grinder and that is tucked away at the back of the loads of stuff from my shed.

Good news is that my daughter, Lisa and her family have just received the keys to their newly built home, so yesterday Lisa and I began packing up most of the kitchen and managed 2 trips to the new house with a trailer load of boxes and managed to unpack most of it.

Shaun has flown back to New Guinea for work, he says for a rest, as he helped quite a bit with Lisa's fences and helped us pull down the rest of the shed and jackhammer the concrete floors and helped us get the scrap steel off the property.
We even went to the movies twice with him which was a nice change.

Erin was in the State Championships for Level 5 National stream Gymnastics, and although it took an hour to get over the other side of the city and over 5 hours at the competition, Erin received top placing in the State for Vault and came 4th in Uneven Bars and their club placed 1st in teams and Erin placed 6th overall in individual scores.
She has a competition this weekend at Port Pirie, and in November will go with teammates from her club to compete in the Nationals at Canberra. I would love to go this weekend to watch her, but have work to finish to give to the foundry as they are over here next week and are picking up new wax peices for casting back in Melbourne.

I am longing to get my new studio up and running, as I am trying to work in the family room with a towel on the floor to catch the fallen wax, not always sucessfully.
will post images tonight from this post.

Such a mess

White Strilitzia almst cut down, It was leaning on the back fence


Part demolition of my shed to put up new pergola.

Pergola completed and sheds demolished with concrete partly removed.

View of shed demolished in pile

View of cleared area that will be my new Sculpture studio, can't wait to get this mess into order again

Monday the boys got to work demolishing the rest of the sheds and jackhammered the concrete so there was clear space to measure up the new studio for me and a garden shed come workshop for my husband. The place is quite a mess with stuff from the sheds everywhere under tarps and under available cover.

They measured up the available land today and we will have drawings back in a couple of days. It will yake about a month still before it is ready to move back in.

I caught up briefly with Angela on Sunday as both our family and hers were celebrating a Father's day breakfast in the local Italian Cafe. I am on my way to the TTG Potters Club today so I may catch up with Ang there.

Gas Kiln Bricks go to a new home

Belinda came today and removed all the bricks from my gas kiln They will be lovingly reshaped into a permanent pit firing kiln and also a Pizza Wood oven.
Thanks Belinda for the box of goodies from your garden.
The pergola is finished but now the rest of the shed has to be pulled down on Monday to be measured up for the new studio, plus all the cement and floor bricks that i have swapped pots for in exchange are to be pulled up and removed by Shaun and Jai on Monday.
Happy Father's day to all dads tomorrow.

Big Mess

Pergola mess

Back yard mess

White tree strilitzia needs to be moved.

Not a good photo of glass from David's class.

With David Reekie and my glass from the last firing.

Electric kiln

Gas kiln empty

back of shed with gas flue

Front of shed

Pergola with stuff from shed.

I'm not sure I should have started this!

I have been working on clearing out my studio/shed for the last three weeks now and I have ended up with 3 pallets stacked full of gear covered with a tarp and loads of other stuff under the pergola. The garden has been shifted back against the a metre from the fence so a pillar can be put in to hold up the lawn side of the back yard. Actually 2 pillars went in amid the downpours of rain today.
The builder is going to build the new pergola against the back of the house whilst we clear the two sheds and pull all the concrete and brick floor up, as the back of our block isn't squareand we are building up against the boundary and it is a job to get the angle correct whilst the sheds are standing.
We need to pull down the old gas kiln and move the electric kiln out of the sheds but the rain hasn't stopped for a few days,and we need some help with shifting the heavy gear.
I hate the mess the yard is in but I will have to be patient until my new studio can be built so I can regain my space again.
Hope Ang is having a great time in the UK.
David Reekie will have left to go back to the UK also.
Well that's all for this post except to say I unloaded a whole kiln full of bisqued pots that had been stored in the gas kiln and I found some were dated 1989, and also found a mother and baby possum living in the kiln chimney having made a sleeping area on the damper bricks.I found them when I tried to pull out the damper and found it heavy to shift.

New studio to be built and the old one removed

I haven't had a chance to take some photos of the glass that came out of the kiln but i have done some basic cleaning of the pieces. The second piece isn't exactly how I planned it to look as the head was supposed to be milky white but the colour has gone into the head and I should find out on Sunday as the class group are having a BBQ and I should see what every one else has done.
We were invited to The Lord Mayors evening last night and I caught up with a few old lecturers that I had back in the 70' and 80' so it ended up being a pleasant evening.
My husband John and I went out to dinner seeing we were dressed up.
I have been in the garden today as we have to get sone tree stumps grubbed out ready to have a pergola built as well as pulling down the shed which has been my workshop since the 80's and now needs to be redesigned to be able to do some taller sculpture. It used to be my pottery and I won't be throwing out all my potting gear but it needs a major overhaul and with the pergola also being built there is a lot of cleaning up to do as well as sorting out the old shed.