Earthen Red and Lentils

Today I did some slipwork and then threw a couple pieces. Above are plates of different sizes and a bowl... I am ready to try a new slip design. Gotta think about that some.Also did some sgrafitto on a yunomi for Peter Mayer. Listened to a bunch of songs that he wrote and wrote down a phrase from each of my favorite songs. Above is the list of phrases that caught my attention... the sgrafitto tool, and the yunomi. Check out his music at the link above. It's really, the best.
Here are the yunomis. This form comes quite easily. They'll need to dry some and then be trimmed.
A bunch of people were in the studio today... maybe because it was raining out and because it was Saturday. John threw a bunch of cylinder/mug forms and evidently, a juicer which is on the wheel in the pic.

I also went to Earth Fare, one of my favorite stores (I love to buy organic food!) and decided to not buy my favorite soy protein powder. It may sound gross, but I begin each morning with some of that in orange juice. Yet, without work (gosh, I really need work!), I've got to save $. So, I bought just a few things. I was hungry for indian food, so I got some lentils and made lentils with a little of cumin, onion, and salt. I bought lentils also because they have lots of protein. Any lentil recipe ideas? I am a bit picky about food, but willing to try some new recipes, although I don't have alot of spices. Oh well...

Tomorrow I'm going to throw some new forms and I'll post some new pots on my etsy site.

They're Out

Latest round of pottery came out of the electric kiln today. All are earthen red clay, fired at cone 6. Most are glazed with just Ron's creme glaze. Some have a bit of Ron's green on them. I hope to take some closer pics tomorrow. All in all, I'm pleased. I'm learning so much in all this. I really like how the chalices turned out.
Here are four of the yunomi teacups still in the kiln waiting to be unloaded. I really like the simplicity of these forms. Follows my desire to live simply. I'm encouraged by this in the midst of so much uncertainty. Am hopeful that I can find work in the next couple of months. Can't imagine life with out pottery these days. Have some slipwork to do on more plates this weekend.
On another note, thanks for the comments and keeping in touch with this blog. This whole blog thing is such a surprise for me. I really like it and have learned MUCH from reading everyone's blogs posted on the right. This 'blogworld' is a wonderful community.
More tomorrow!

Thursday

There's just always something going on at Clayworks. Had great conversations there tonight. It just so fun to be a part of the community there. Put slip and etched some sgrafitto onto these two teacups and two plates for an order. More slipwork and throwing at the wheel to do tomorrow! I really enjoy etching words onto pieces. I hope to continue making teacups, bowls, and plates with that personalized touch. Will post a pic of these when they're done, to give an idea of the finished product, with the realization that no two are alike.
Greg was also teaching tonight and he brought in some of his bowls to show his class. These bowls are glazed in creme with the rims barely touched in Tahitian blue? (I think) glaze. I like that effect and I think I'll try it on some of mine own too.

Greg also is selling some of artist Tomoo Kitamura's handmade pottery tools that are pictured here. These are great ribs and wire cutters and tools. If I needed one of these, I'd surely get one.

Also glazed this teacup for my friend, Ashley. It has writing on the outside and the spiral design that I really like on the inside. It's glazed with Ron's creme on the outside and Ron's green on the inside, all on earthen red clay. I'm eager to see how it turns out.

Glazin', Glazin', Glazin

Long day. Tomorrow I'll post about what I learned in class yesterday, but I wanted to share about what I got done in the studio today and post a pic. Also trimmed some other plates.

Glazing! All of these are in Ron's creme, except for the yunomi on the right that will have Ron's creme glaze on the outside and Ron's Green glaze on the inside of the yunomi. Had to remove some of the green glaze from the outside that had dripped... and am waiting till the pot dries again before adding the rest of the glaze.

All are made with earthen red clay and are ready for the bisque kiln. Put a few green drops and a spiral design on a couple pieces.

Tomorrow is a slipwork day. :)

Class Surprise

This piece by Gary Rith was the class surprise last night. Ron received it and brought it in and it quickly caught our attention. Below are Ron (on right) and John, pottery artists and bloggers, who are amazed that they're seeing a real Gary Rith one, after reading Gary's great posts. How fun! Ron also wrote about this in his blog, so check it out here. Thanks, Gary for sharing your work!

My One Piece

Here are two pics of my one piece from the barrel firing on Saturday. I'm pleased.
Good colors. I like the variations of black/grey.

I wish this was functional--- although I'm sure I'll find a good place in my home for it. :)

Foam?

I need to trim some plates tomorrow and am on the lookout for foam for a trimming bat... yes, high density foam.
It's not at Michael's. Any idea where I can buy some to glue onto a bat? It needs to be a few inches thick and about 13 inches or so in diameter. I'll cut it into a circle. Hmmm Suggestions needed! I may just need to break down and buy one.

Cold Sunday

This afternoon we gathered at Clayworks to get a closer look at the pieces that were in the barrel. It was so cold outside- 40 degrees or so, and the wind was strong that I took quick pictures and not surprisingly, they weren't that good.
Elaine is a great handbuilder and made some hearts, which I think turned out well. The big piece is hers too, I think.
Most of the pieces in the firing ended up being black... or variations of black. I really liked Becky's birds.
This was the first firing though where some pieces exploded. In this case, Becky's birds. Here's a few heads, a tail and two middle sections. Wonder why?

After the barrel firing was over, I decided to make some plates. Here are four. Everything shrinks in the kiln here so these will be smaller.

Also made a medium sized bowl and another tumbler.

Meanwhile, Minke is working on her sculptures of women in different poses. She also surprised all of us by bringing us gourmet ham and cheese sandwich making. So, it was fun to be spoiled and enjoy time together chatting. Time in the studio is always unpredictable!

Barrel Firing #?

This was the result of the barrel firing yesterday. I have much to share, so I think I'll include a few blog posts.

This one was much different in that we just put the pieces into the barrel and didn't add anything like seaweed, etc. Just sawdust, sawdust, and more sawdust. Jim Whalen has been a recent workshop leader at Clayworks, so my friends wanted to use what they've learned in this barrel firing and also do a firing in prep before the next second part of his workshop. Some had terra sigilata on the (a clay mixture) and others had been burnished. I put one piece in that had simply been bisque fired. It really didn't look like the others. In the pic above it's the whitish one under the orangish one on its side at (about 11 o'clock).

The above picture was taken at about 8 o'clock in the evening, after the flame had died down. The entire barrel firing didn't take much time. We decided to unload the pieces today to make sure everything had cooled.
These are some of the pieces before hitting the barrel.
I heard that including these would bring good color, so I put a few in mine. Sweet gumballs? I forget what they're called.
We put the pieces in two layers. Above is layer #1. My piece is the whitish one with the gumballs in it. A variety of birds and some hearts too. Beautiful colors in this pic.
We used sawdust of different consistencies.. .some really fine sawdust and others that were more coarse.
Here, Becky, Elaine, and Verna? are adding more sawdust to the barrel.

In all this, I've lost track of which numbered barrel firing this is... oh well.

Finally, once the match was lit, the flames spread quite rapidly. Will show the results in the next post. The first pic in this post was taken just before we all left the studio.

Working on Finding My Own...

These days, I'm working on finding my own style... my own look in pottery. This means finding out what kind of clay, form, and designs I like best. Most potters I know or have followed have pots with a distinctive look- you can guess who the potter is just from looking at one piece. That is my goal eventually. This is what comes easiest for me these days. Here are the pots getting ready to come out of the electric kiln. Mine are the chocolate brown ones with the spiral slip.

I really like this look: the earthen red clay with the white slip and Ron's creme glaze. The glaze produces small chocolate brown specks that show up on top of the white slip. Will put some of these soon on etsy. Many of them will end up in my cupboard... :) The yunomi teacups are excellent for coffee and have already been put to use.

Some more bowls...
How I wish I could make a living doing this... oh, and I brought some earthen red clay home as tomorrow the studio is closed during the day until 4:30 pm. Maybe I'll do some handbuilding with it while watching the KY Wildcats play the TN volunteers in basketball? :) Clay is much more fun than basketball. Oh well... Also I put some slip on the communion sets that I'm making. Three very similar looks. Here they are, before going into the bisque kiln.

I wanted a simple, natural kind of look. I used the spiral shape because communion calms and centers the self, and I didn't want attention drawn to just the chalice and paten (small plate), so I made these. The chalices are more or less identical. Hard to see, but I poured the sides of the chalice with the white slip, leaving a distinct edge. I'll take better pics next time of the sides of the chalices. I had to make pinholes in the bottom of the chalice stems, so they wouldn't blow up in the kiln, because there is air inside the stem part. Will be great to see these when they're finished!

Oh, and I finally purchased some new supplies today, (bats, bat pins, and a sgrafitto tool) thanks to a Christmas stocking stuffer gift from my parents. These will help so much. Thanks, Dad and Mom!

A Day Away

I can tell that when I have a day away from the studio these days. It's usually not good. It has been very challenging not having work. At least my home looks better today as I cleaned.

Yesterday though, a lot happened in the studio. Above is the work I glazed plus my four new yunomi teacups. :)

I also did some slipwork and added slip to several bowls and yunomi teacups. I tried a new method... taking a small sponge and dipping it into some pouring slip and making a spiral design while rotating the piece on one of those shimpo (whatever it's called thing that spins pieces in a circle). So, the four on the bottom and left in the above pic had that slipwork.
Here's a closeup of that new slipwork. I'm eager to see how it turns out with the Ron's creme glaze on it.

A side view of some of the slipped pieces.

And, four of my yunomi teacups came out of the electric kiln. They quickly made their way home, but not before a few pics. I glazed a bunch of others too.
These pics aren't the best, but the pic above and below show my latest favorite form. Earthen red clay with white slip, glazed in Ron's creme. If you look closely, you can still see some of the spiral slipwork through the red wine in this pic. :)
Now, my shelf is almost empty. Pottery is saving me these days. I'm thankful.

Class Wisdom

Tuesday at class, Ron did a demo of a kind teapot that Ron Meyers makes. He showed us how to put the different parts together. Above, he's cut and putting a slab on the bottom of the wheel-thrown body of it. It's got a parallelogram kinda shape. Quite different. I like it. Maybe one afternoon, I'll make one.

Ron's always available to help give tips to our throwing. On this night, he gave me some great feedback about my trimming and making the foot (bottom part) of the pot. The goal is to have the foot be symmetrical to the inside of the bottom of the pot. Hard to explain; I knew this, but I 'get' it in a different way now. Ron drew this:

The wine is mine. After this, I went back to all my 10 pots that I had trimmed and re-trimmed them; they look even better now and are a bit lighter. Thanks, Ron! Soon, I'll post the results of this...

More Sgraffito

Lately, I've been doing more and more sgraffito.... words that is, not images. Etched the words on this plate a few days ago. Maybe in time, I'll etch images; words seem to come more quickly now. It's what I made for my sister's recent wedding.

On a different note, does anyone know how to upload pictures to blogspot so after they are uploaded, they can be enlarged with a click on the pic? Sometimes that happens for me; at other times, not.

This is going into the bisque kiln today.

Not always...

Not always. This is what rarely happens to one's pieces. These two cups were in the electric kiln with glaze on them. Everything put into the glaze kiln is SUPPOSED to have been already fired in the bisque kiln, but something was put in there that hadn't been bisqued. (Fault is both the one who loaded the kiln and the creator of the piece, putting it wrong the shelf). So, it exploded and ruined all of the pieces in the kiln. My thumb even got cut too as I ran it over the pieces. In the pic below, the bowl is also ruined and the other bluish piece.

I was disappointed because I really liked the form of these two cups, although I was experimenting with the glaze and didn't like how that turned out at all. There were pottery shards on the inside bottom of them. They were ruined so I threw them out.

Oh well... Such is life sometimes, huh?

The pottery world isn't perfect either.

The day did get better as I made three yunomi teacups. They are each made with about 1 1/4 lbs. of earthen red clay. The shapes came quickly. Tomorrow I'll trim them and put slip on them as well as on other plates too. There's glazing to do too...

My clay shelf is full! (the middle one) Thankfully, the day got better. That is always a very good thing.

Oh, and I'm reading Hannah McAndrew's blog more closely these days. Her slipware work is incredible!

Chalices

Chalices: Time consuming... beautiful... harder than it looks.

Patience required.
Made my first chalices today. Made the top part yesterday... Tough to make the bottom part. It messed up on many more stems of the chalice before I got four that were good. I have a few friends interested in purchasing communion sets, which is wonderful. These are made with earthen red clay. they're smaller than they look and they'll shrink for sure. Next, I'll make several different sized plates. Overall, I"m pleased...

Made them in two steps:

bowl part... top part of chalice (in this pic, turned upside down). Then I made the stem (or whatever it's called) and slipped and scored the two pieces together.

This all took so long. Got one of my bowls out of the bisque kiln and it had a few cracks in the bottom. That was the first time that's ever happened. Put glaze on it anyway to see what'll happen. Made another bowl...

Things just didn't come easy today. Yes, I tell myself; there will be days like this. Didn't even have time to run.

Oh, yesterday, I also finished this plate by puting a sgraffito spiral design on it. I'll do some different glazing with this one.