Irritated and Annoyed

If this post had been titled two days ago, it would have been called 'disgusted and depressed'.
Yesterday, I would have said 'angry and frustrated'.
Clearly, I have cooled off a bit.

The reason for my distress is this:broken bowl in the garbage can

And this:atrocious tan color

And this:pasty, un-fluxed white, ghastly blue

And this:grainy, yucky off-white, thin background color

You would think that at this point in my career I would stop having seconds and failures, but no...

I still try new techniques with reckless abandon, new forms with irrational hope, new glazes with stupendous enthusiasm. (Something about the sound of that word ‘stupendous’, that seems to apply here).
The problem is, I anticipate every firing with expectations of the perfect manifestation of my most delirious imaginings of my latest experiment. It is, of course, inevitable that disappointment will materialize pretty much instantly upon unloading the kiln. Mournful, paralyzing gloom ensues, sometimes for days.

I know, I know, I should be ready for a percentage of failures. Yes, I have been doing this for years and years.

But this series has had nothing but misfortune from the start.

First, I used the wrong clay for my little baby tags (not porcelain after all) and they are ugly tan.

Then, Mick mistakenly glazed un-bisqued bowls and they melted on the spot (bye-bye, negotiating chickens bowl).

And the glazes for the dinner plates needed to be sieved (hello little chunks of crud).

And the glaze was too thin on some pieces, not beautiful at all.

Also, the wrong test glaze was applied to my new chicken plates, pasty and opaque.

Plus, the lamp bases were overfired and slumped badly.

Time to bring in the special forces crew.

Oh well, my blue & white tile almost always come out perfect. :)

See:

Actually, this cow had uneven eyes originally, so I put glasses on her and added little bird blathering away in her ear. Now she is an intellectual cow.

Shadow Cat knows how I feel:

I get knocked down, but I get up again.

The song is catchy, but irritating, and I love the Office, but these clips aren't the best quality.
I won't feel badly if you don't stick around for the whole two minutes.

Oh, wait, I just watched it again...it's pretty funny.