Distressing Distressed Clay

I am really loving how my latest stuff is turning out.  The dark brown clay looks beautiful under the white glaze.  I just can't get enough of it.

modified coffee mug

The top image is a mug design inspired by my friend who is something of a coffee fanatic.  He asked me if I could design a mug that wouldn't have a handle but that could be used while the coffee is hot.  So instead of making a handle I used two slabs and made a built-in coffee sleeve.   Plus I think it looks kind of cool and modern.

There's only one problem.

The insides of all of these vessels is pitted and pocked, which means none of them are food safe.  I now have four great bowls or cups, including the modified coffee mug, and I can't use any of them because they're just not sanitary.

tea cup

Sigh.

One of my bowls is in line to be re-fired with a transparent glaze inside to hopefully seal all of the pits, so we'll see.

I have about five more things ready to trim either today or next week sometime.  I will have to come up with a different way to glaze the insides.  My theory is that the glaze is too thick inside, because it's not pocked on the outside and it's all the same glaze.  I'd like to have a nice solid white inside of the mug, but I might have to change my technique.  Right now I'm dipping the bowl quickly in the glaze but I might need to brush it on watered down and then coat it with transparent gloss.

Another problem is that I am really struggling to find time and energy to go into the studio lately.  I'm up to four days a week where I volunteer (I got my LCAT limited permit, yay! now I need 1000 client contact hours...) and I am trying to work out in the evenings, so I am missing the open studio hours and the evening classes are too full for me to try to sit in the back and work on my own.  It's been two weeks since I've been able to work and I'm not sure I'll make it today as I had planned.  Well, we'll see, I am mustering up some energy as we speak...