Pots and Pictures

Productive studio evening. It's always nice to be able to say that, especially when I really feel it. I had a solid 3+ hours, which came to around 2h45min of work time before clean-up. Let's see what was accomplished:

1. Decorated and applied handle to special order mug. Handles are finicky, but this one went well. I may have to make more of these mugs; it's officially my first "handled" mug to also feature signature sgraffito work. I'll get a picture up of this one later.
   
   
2. Decorated small bowl - this one was trimmed on Tuesday, so it was ripe and ready to be decorated. I've attached a picture of the process below.
   
   


3. Decorated plate - this one is 14.5 inches across, and I'm pretty pleased with the way it has turned out thus far - it's very similar to a series of plates I did for my Senior Project, which can be seen here. Here's a posed photo of my hand decorating the plate, and finished. Yet to do with the plate: trim, dry, fire, glaze, and fire again, all without inducing cracks or warps. I can do it. Yes, I can.
   
   


4. Trimmed and decorated medium bowl - this is the smaller of the two originally seen here. That's 12 inch bat it's sitting on, so it's a decent sized bowl at the moment - probably 9 inches across, 9 or 10 inches tall. It will shrink before it's finished (10-15% shrinkage - don't know the exact stats on this clay body), which is one of the side-effects of working in clay. Everything large is just a little less impressive when finished. Oh well. Here's also a picture before it's decorated, with a little flower pot I made this week as well.
   
   
   


5. Trimmed and decorated large bowl - the larger of the two here. There was a lot of clay left in the bottom of this one, I discovered while timming. I need a decent amount left in the bottom to put a nice foot on it, but this was significantly more than I needed. However, the last large bowl I did, the one that didn't survive, had less clay in the bottom then I wanted, which I'm willing to blame for its demise.
   
   I'm slightly disappointed that I left that much clay there, because it means that I probably could have pulled another inch of height and probably of an increase in diameter, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Here's the bowl, upside down, of course.
   
   


6. Threw the pieces for a larger vessel. The one on the left (below) will sit on top of the other, and we'll have a decent sized pot without having to wrestle 19 pounds at a time. The advantages are just that - you don't have to center the same amount of clay, so the throwing process is theoretically easier, at least at this point in my life. The disadvantages are that it does take more time, more steps in the process. But then, it's not like throwing 2o pounds of clay is necessarily any faster.
   
   
   I may have to throw a new bottom section, as I'm not so sure I like this one - there's a lot of clay in the bottom half that shouldn't be there, which translates into it being wider and shorter than it needs to be. Even so, it may work out for me. It may just be a squatty little pot.

So that's it - a pretty decent list of accomplishments for a mid-week turn in the studio. I also was able to get shots of my newest work, which will be added shortly. I'll leave you with a few of the bowls I threw for Empty Bowls, all glazed and finished.

Overdue

Here's the pictures from my Monday night glazing, throwing, and new pots.

Empty bowls, glazed and ready for firing.

Recognize those red pieces?

Here's some greenware - dried and ready for round one in the kiln.

The only thing I threw Monday night - it's 15" across, 8" tall.

It will be 20% smaller by the time it's finished.

Finished work. I was happy with this batch. There's some pretty things there.

Had some experimenting in this kiln load - something I haven't done for a while.

(left) This is actually just clear glaze. The bowl was the Calico clay with some blue slip trimmings kneaded in. Neat effect. Not sure it will go anywhere, but interesting.
(right) An attempt at a "checkered" style that my uncle, Tim Langholz, used. Not bad for a first attempt, but still a long way to go before I can do it justice.

Jury Duty

It's 6:42 am and I am prepping to head south for jury duty service. Even though Fort Collins is the Larimer County seat, I have to report to Loveland. So I'm up early and won't get a run, and most likely will just be sitting around all day. Oh well.

Was in the studio for some glazing last night - all those Empty Bowls I threw needed glazing! Also got a decent load of finished glazed work, and threw another decent sized bowl. And then was back home to watch the new episode of House.

Photos will be up later. For now, I should probably shower and get ready for my first real commute ever.

Bowls, Bowls, and More Bowls

I was able to get out to the studio this afternoon for a solid 4 hour block of work. It's amazing how much more productive one 4-hour session is vs. two 2-hour sessions. I think it mostly has to do with the fact that I only have clean up once, as opposed to twice. Because it's a co-op studio, I don't get to leave my mess from day to day, but have to clean everything up each time. That means giving the wheel a decent cleaning, putting all my tools/junk away, and mopping my area. For some this was a normal part of taking a pottery class. Not how I roll. I really enjoyed my studio style at Luther where I put forth a sincere deep-cleaning effort once a semester.

Today was mostly spent trimming and decorating, with some throwing mixed in. I finally made it to the bottom of my Empty Bowls donations - they're all nicely trimmed with good clean feet - and they are now drying in prep for their first firing. It's important that things be dry before they're fired, otherwise the water in the clay will expand with greater force than the clay can handle, kind of like putting an egg in the microwave (or so I hear...). When that happens you end up with little pieces of bowls in your kiln, rather than little bowls. Believe me, it's a bummer when that happens. I once blew up an entire stack of plates. It was not fun.

After trimming and applying some decoration to the Empty Bowls pieces, I moved on to finishing the Red clay pots I started this week. They're decorated with a blue slip (liquid clay body with colorant added; cobalt oxide gave me what will be a lovely shade of blue) which I then carve through to reveal the clay body underneath. It's kind of like drawing on a frosted window. Kind of. This technique is called "sgraffito" and it's a particularly nice effect on the red clay - strong contrast. These also have nicely trimmed feet on them, and are now sitting on a shelf to dry for firing.

The trimming and decorating when the clay is "leather hard" - it's firm enough to hold its shape, but still is soft enough to carve into and has some "give" to its shape. When it dries to the point where it's ready to fire, or bone dry, it is considered "greenware." This is its most fragile state in the process. Some terms that may be helpful to know.

Anything not yet fired is still salvagable if something goes wrong - as long as the clay is still raw, if a piece isn't working out right, or it breaks, or cracks, the clay can be recycled and nothing but time has been lost. Clay recycling can be done many ways, but the simplest and cheapest way is to soak in water until the clay has been reconstituted as a sludge, and then spread it over a drying surface, such as a plaster slab, to let the moisture out. When the clay has firmed up on the slab, it can be removed, wedged/kneaded, and used again. Voila, more clay!

I recycled this batch of red clay scraps today. Scraps from trimming pieces, wet slop from throwing, and pieces that don't meet my standards find their way into scrap buckets to be recycled.

Finally, once I was done with all of the trimming, decorating, and recycling, I got to throw some more bowls. They'll be ready to trim and decorate later this week. They were a lot of fun to throw, not too much drama involved.

On a sadder note, the vase that I began work on last week did not survive today's studio visit. A series of poor choices on my part led to its demise. It was cut from the wheel, wedged, kneeded, and thrown again. I think one of the bowls in the picture used to be a vase. It happens.

So, that was it for this Sunday. I'll be back in the studio this week sometime to trim those bowls up and maybe do some glazing too!

Empty Bowls

Last night I had the extreme joy to participate in throwing for an Empty Bowls fundraiser for the Larimer County Food Bank. The Guild donated the clay for us to throw bowls, which will be given to the food bank for their fundraiser. Guests have the opportunity to pick a bowl of their choice, and then use it to enjoy a soup dinner. The food, the bowls, and the time are all donated, making it a great fund raising event in which all proceeds go directly to the food bank.

In short, last night was a throwing party. Though it was a smaller turn-out from the potters than I expected, it was still great fun. There were about a dozen of us throwing, and five or six upstairs hand-building their bowls, while the great Joe Aiken cooked us a sweet cajun dinner. I believe I've mentioned before that sometimes I just want to go in and throw and turn my music up loud and not deal with being social, but this was a great time, and great people.

Potters at work.

I discovered something last night: I love throwing. A lot of my work is very simple, formally, with a stronger emphasis on the decorative aesthetic - something that might indicate the decorating is my favorite part. But really, I love to throw. If somebody called me up and said, "Hey, I've got a hundred pounds of clay here - will you throw it for me?" I'd probably have to say yes. Because I love it. I love the centering, I love the mess. I love the raw work, pre-trimmed, pre-finished. I love cranking them out, bowl after bowl. I love the process, I love to throw. Makes me think that going into production work might not be so painful after all.

Aside from a mix-up over whether the clay we were using was in the right firing range (It wasn't. It's a good thing we caught it, or the first 20 bowls produced would have melted in the firing. Yes, clay can melt.), it was a good night of throwing for me. I threw in the neighborhood of 20 bowls before they told me I needed to stop. So I went on to trimming them (trimming = turning them upside down and putting a nice smooth foot on them, so they don't scratch your dining room table. a good trimmed foot is also aesthetically pleasing) until it was time to go home. I still have lots more trimming to do.

My contribution.

In any event, it was a good evening spent with good people for a good cause. Our "quota" was to produce 40 bowls for the food bank. Somebody counted that we were closer to 70. Good work, Northern Colorado Potters Guild.

Now we just need to trim, bisque, glaze, and fire them again.

Special thanks to my lovely wife, Krystal, for sharing me with the Guild on a Friday night. After I finished, we went to Perkins for a slice of pie and some conversation. It was great. The pie, that is. And the conversation.