News and Pots

A brief bit of news before I get to some pictures and updates on my studio work over the last week or so.

I'm very excited to announce that I've been selected to be a part of the 35th Annual Clear Lake Art Sail on July 28th in downtown Clear Lake, IA!

Clear Lake is my childhood hometown and I always looked forward to the weekend of "Art in the Park" as it was called in those days, wandering the rows and aisles of tents filled with who knows what you might find. As such, I'm thrilled and honored to be heading back that direction this summer as a participating artist.  So now the work begins again.

It's been quite a while since I've done an outdoor show so I will be putting some elbow grease into updating my booth setup to accommodate, but I'm feeling good about the amount of pottery in my stock at the moment, and so I think the time between here and there will still allow for plenty of the summer experimentation I was looking forward to.

Which brings me back to my time in the studio this week.  Did some throwing last week, but most time was committed to trimming and decorating of bowls.  The throwing time was pretty minor however, and the only item of note was a set of vase/bottle neck studies - still an area of annoyance and importance in my work.  I decided it was time to put some effort into experimenting with neck/lip shapes and styles on something other than a vase that reflected a full effort. Instead, I could play around with the neck at the top of a centered cylinder and cut it off when I found a finished result.

The top results of my neck studies.

Of course putting it all together is another story. It's not just the lip/neck that counts, but the way it relates to the shoulders of a pot and the relative sizes and all the interplay. So still getting there. Seems kind of silly to be doing this kind of work, or I feel like it's the kind of thing I should have been doing years ago, rather than having infrequent moments of success and generally mediocre vase tops. I've always known what I was going for but never committed any time to working out how to get there. Better late than never, I guess.

Spent some time this afternoon trying to put these experiments into practice.

Vases! Depending on how these trim down, the majority may be keepers!

So, threw some vases. Also some other stuff. Here's an illustrated guide to the rest of the work.

 

All of last week's bowls. Or at least some of them.

Some big bowls this afternoon; 6-8# each. Going for a rounder shape vs. tall.

Some mountains.

I think that's a 9-pounder on the left. Vase on the right has a lot of potential, if nothing else.

And so that's that. It's still my intent to spend some time this summer working on bigger pieces. I'm also going to throw a handful of test pots to throw in with the next firing to explore new glaze combinations and potential bleed effects.  I'd rather do that sort of learning on little test pots than good 6 pound vases. So that's that.

Oh: and a very Happy Mother's day to my favorite mom, Anita Langholz (that would be my mother, if you couldn't figure it out). Always one of my biggest fans and favorite supporters, even if she is always nagging me for butter bells and sourdough bowls. I'm glad she's my mom and I love her very much. Not afraid to show it.

It's a few years old now, but it's probably one of the better pictures of me and Mom out there. Happy Mother's Day!

Opened the bisque firing Sunday night. One cracked plate, but otherwise all clear! I just love the vibrancy of those blues, even after just the bisque firing!

"Top Shelf" pottery. At least, the "top shelf" of the kiln. 

Got just about everything into this firing - a couple larger pieces that just didn't fit. And then, Monday night I found another little vase hiding in my studio - totally would have fit in the middle of that shelf above. Oh well. 

Jungle-pup wants to help me glaze. Or she's stalking me.

Krystal's away on business for a couple days so it's just me and the pup. She tolerates my extended glazing sessions slightly better than Krystal, but still gets a little bored of it after a while. At least I'm glad we're out of the stage where she was constantly trying to go swimming in my glaze buckets.

The work. Mind the box in upper right filled to the brim with 40+ small bowls. Also, the 30 mugs still in the kiln.

I made a fair amount of headway on the glazing front last night. All the mugs, mountain vases, smaller vases, and small bowls made it into the glaze firing, plus some other pieces. I think I still have a full firing worth of bowls left to glaze. 

Also trying something new with this glaze firing, hopefully I'll have something exciting to share when I crack the kiln (Tonight? Tomorrow? Probably tomorrow.).

Things I've Been Doing

So, what have I been up to, you ask? Here's a sampling of the things that have happened in the last week or so.

Shoveled my way out of a minor blizzard. Predawn shoveling is my favorite workout!

And then hanging out in the springy sunshine with the dog. It's just the Midwest, yo - that's how we roll!

Of course with weather like that, sometimes it's best to just stay in your basement and make pots.  So I've tried to do some of that lately. Some days are better than others. But that's the way it is.

Itty-bitty bowls! I'm thinking these will be known as "adora-bowls." Say it out loud if you don't get it.

Some more regularly sized bowls.

And more bowls.

And back into the groove with some mountain bowls.

So that's what's going on. I actually have a couple of events coming up this spring, so one of these days I need to start thinking about doing some firings. More information about those shows can be found over at my recently updated About the Artist page.

So there you have it. Oh, music? This week in the studio I've been listening to NPR Music's (mostly) downloadable suggested listening mix from SXSW 2012. It's nothing if not eclectic (folk, metal, hip-hop, alternative, latin, rock - and that's just in the first track! j/k) and chock full of artists I've never heard before. While lists like this (70 songs deep, eclectic) come with plenty of songs that I listen to once and decide that's enough, there are certainly some gems in the mix as well. So check that out if you like, and let me know if you find anything good in there!

Busy Weekend (and still one day left).

I've had a busy weekend so far. But a good kind of busy. Pottery, non pottery. All good things. Well, mostly good things. There was the 30 inch vase that I had to trash, but it wasn't too much time loss (section thrown; pieces thrown quite nicely, quite quickly; went a bit too far dry before joining, too much weight in the top half; the pull of reshaping and the added weight caused some issues in the support on the bottom of the vase. I'll be trying again this week.). But productivity was not lost on me. This is what I woke up to this morning:

Them are glazed pots in there.

So of course yesterday was filled with the accompanying sort of messes of glazing and such.

Not the final arrangement: still playing with the best spacial arrangement.

It only took me 4 hours to glaze this kiln-load. Had the table cleared before dinner!

Speaking of dinner, the First Course: garden-fresh grape tomatoes and basil on an olive oil brushed whole wheat crust, topped with feta and just a touch of mozzarella. Grilled. Fabulous. Needed more tomatoes, which we had. Had I known, it would have not been a problem. As it was, hardly a problem.

Among the other things that happened yesterday: we started the morn with a 14 mile run. My longest run to date, Krystal's longest run in nearly 7 years. When we were within a mile of home (we were delirious - debating whether or not rhinoceros are hoofed mammals or not. Because seriously, if you've determined that you're trying to guess a horned, hoofed, herbivore native to the African plains that isn't a cow, buffalo, antelope, or goat, this is an important point. I'm pretty sure they're not hoofed, and I convinced Krystal* as such, but seriously.) - so, let me restart this thought. When we were within a mile of home I observed to Krystal that the Marathon will just be this, twice. Not too shabby, I say. I think I can do it. I think it will not be fun. I think it will hurt. But yeah, I'll get medieval on those 26.2 if that's what it takes.

I also asked Krystal, somewhere around halfway (so, we've already run 8 miles) if going out and running for hours on end ever just seems stupid. She just gave me the look.

All that to say, by noon or so we were all cleaned up and ready to tackle the day with the rest of our tasks, like glazing and groceries and teaching Temperance how to dance. Because she's awesome.

Our dog is an awesome dog: she trains with power and love, our Dog is an Awesome Dog.

So that was our day. Running for the better part of the morning, teaching our dog to dance, buying groceries, glazing pots, grilling pizza. Ready to do it all over again. Except with less being on my feet. Cause I'm sort of done with that. Here are a couple more pictures of things that have been happening this week and last week and such that never got photographed or posted.

This one's actually in the glaze fire already, so a bit behind the times.

This one's drying. Discovered I have sore few of bowls in this style for October show. Time to kick it up a notch. BAM! (Must be channeling my inner Emeril this morning. Don't know what's up with that.)

Bigger mountain vase. Pretty nice balance to it. And the camera's autofocus needs some help apparently. Sorry!

Well, that's all I've got for now. Still working on shots of the last firing, and there may be new pots in view by bedtime tonight. As you saw above, the kiln is still glowing. In fact, it needs to drop about 2000 degrees before I can open it yet. So that may be awhile. But I'll certainly keep you posted.

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to keep your Sabbath holy! Or at the very least, restful!

___________________

*in Krystal's defense, when we play the "Guess the Animal Game" she normally goes places like "Grevy's Zebra" or "Reticulated Giraffe." Most people are all like, "Horse" or "Cow" or "Bear."** So, she's hardcore, don't think otherwise. I'm willing to say this one was just misstated.

**In my defense, she has met her match. She may know the rare specifics of Blank Park's collection, but I'm all like, "Amur Leopard, BAM!" or "Narwhal, BAM!"*** Yes, in fact there is such a thing as a European Bison, and that's why I kick butt at this game. And I've got a secret weapon for the next time around. Been saving it for years. She'll be like, "What? Can't be!" and then I'll come home and bust out or Guide to Wild Animals of the World and be all like, "Read it and WEEP!"

***I'd also like to point out that she required three (3) reliable sources to convince her that Narwhals were real and not just fantastical. Yeah, take THAT!

Pots and puppy and pMusic.

So, I'm about due for a "real" post. With more than fifty words. I'm also due for some real throwing time, and while we're at it, a vacation that includes white sand beaches but excludes being in the car for eight hours. But that's sort of another story.  So we're almost done with July, and I'm almost done with this week, but I have been progressing with pottings and such.  Also, this:

Is that our dog?

Tempy got her hairs cut (almost two weeks ago, now?) and did just fine.  Much more traumatizing for us than her. She's acutally pretty relieved about not being so fluffy, which is a good thing, given the current heatwave.

Speaking of which, you know you live in rural South Dakota when everybody just leaves their car windows down in the office parking lot on account of the heat. I haven't yet figured out, culturally, if it is appropriate/expected/necessary to lock the doors when you leave the windows down.  Cause, you know, seriously?

So anyway, Tempy got her haircut and has recovered quite a bit already (in the cuteness department) but it was really touch-and-go there for the first couple days. Suddenly it was all, "Oh, so there really is some poodle mixed into that doodle after all!" And then yesterday she got all shaved down again for ye olde snip-snip.  Also known, on our itemized vet receipt, as an "ovariohysterectomy." I think. I'm too lazy to get up and go check the receipt (it's in the other room) but that was a pretty intense word when they could have just been all: SPAYED.  So there's that. 

Ah, yes: pots.

Well, I got some out of the kiln. Overall it was a very good firing. Good results, good colors, good glazing, good time.  Fired to the right cone range, which is always a plus. Unfortunately, totally had a cracked plate in one of my sets. Bottom of the kiln, last plate out. Think about it: unloading five levels of pots, each one more satisfying. Success! Colors! Bowls! Plates! Vases! Yay! Then you unveil the bottom tier and there are four plates, sitting pretty. Beautiful. The glazing was perfect. One by one you pull them out, check the feet for any glaze mishaps, and hand them off to the wife (or hubs, or studio assistant, I mean, whoever helps you with these things), and then as you take number four, the last thing out of the kiln, you see that the plate has cracked along the pea catcher, a deep crack (all the way, actually) that runs for about 120 degrees around the flare of the plate. Kinda sucks. So THAT set, commissioned, bought and paid for, will not be shipped and I'm back to the wheel.

However, if anybody wants three BEAUTIFUL matching plates, just let me know.

The firing. I liked it, overall. Some pretty colors, and some colors that needed to be tried, even though they're not quite pretty.

This set did turn out (the blues). On the right you see a sample of the now trio. Some test bowls in the upper left to play around with some overlapping glaze combos.

The bowls that went to the plate. These I did send merrily along to my patron. They'll just have to wait on a set of plates that doesn't decide to ruin my otherwise perfect firings!

So that was the firing.  I'm in a hurry to get on to the next round as I have a couple of time-sensitive commissions/projects that don't have a whole lot of wiggle room. If I don't get more throwing time soon I may have to fire a less-than-full bisque kiln which would be less than ideal. But we'll see.  I still have a couple weeks before I get to that level of crunch.  But I'd rather not push it.  In the meantime here are my throwing projects over the last couple weeks:

Some bigger-ish bowls of the slipping variety.

Drying bowls. They're pretty inside, I promis.

Mountain 1, drying.

Mountain 2, dry. With bowl. Bowl might not pull through. It's a bit clunky for what it is, in almost all ways.

Vase, on the wheel.  I think this one will go all mountainy, too.

That's what I've got for you. Also, I recommend that you hit up NoiseTrade this week for the debut EP from Leagues, a new group full of musicians that you may have heard otherwise. Free this week only, it's a fun little set of songs and well worth your time. To finish up, I'll leave you with a couple of things I'm very much looking forward to this fall: new records from both Switchfoot and MuteMath.

Here's what we've got to look forward to:

(Watch on YouTube, or listen to the first single at Switchfoot.com)

(Watch on YouTube or remix your own version of the video!)

New pots, throwing, and a helper in the studio.

So I got a picture of the hot hot kiln posted up here in the middle of the week as a teaser.  Cause I'm cruel like that.  But seriously, I did do a glaze firing this (last?) week.  

Bisque.

I had quite the pile of bisqued pots stacking up and I figured I'd done about as many test firings as I was going to effectively do with regard to all the mountain vases I'd been waiting on.  So I did it.

My glazing helper.

Our good friend John X. was hanging out with us this week (isn't it great to have friends in transitional periods of life?) so he helped me out with this mess.  Mostly keeping me preoccupied so I'd not dwell on how much I hate glazing.  I have no idea what that expression is that he's making, but he's a cool cat.  He also tried his hand at waxing a couple of pot-feet, which certainly was interesting.  I didn't do too well at that either.  So we loaded up and fired the kiln on Wednesday night.  Medium-speed ^6 firing, took 8h36 to fire to completion.  We unloaded Thursday night after dinner.

Is that really a kiln-load?

Another kiln with moderatley mixed results, kind of.  I stuck with what's been working - which is rather uniform across the board.  The brown slips on my mountain vases still aren't providing a whole lot of contrast under these glazes, but boy are those blues spectacular!  Definitely some good stuff in there, at least. 

 Yesterday (Saturday, for those keeping score at home) John decided he wanted to learn how to pot, so I gave a couple demonstrations and let him take a crack at it.

Sure looks like a natural.

He did pretty well, for day one, with no experience.  Let's just say that if he continued to grow as a potter at the rate he demonstrated during the two hours we spent in the studio, and threw every day, he'd probably surpass me within a week or so.  Sadly, I don't think that's quite how it works.  But he certainly did very well for a first time in the clay.  I threw him a couple of demonstration pieces - first a bowl, then a vase - working through the process, and then coached him through the steps. He took to it like a duck to peanut butter.  Which is to say that ducks, I would imagine, really enjoy eating peanut butter, but probably aren't meant to try swimming in it.  It's actually a pretty horrible simile, but I liked the sound of it when it first hit "the page."

My demonstration.

John's pots.  Not bad!

So that went pretty well.  John took off this afternoon and I went back into the studio with a fresh breath of inspiration and ambition.  And so I threw some big jars.

#3

#2 (left) and #1

I'm not sure whether these will get a sgraffito treatment or if I'll just leave them to be glazed for color.  I might mix it up, but these will probably get slipped up and carved to pieces.  I think I favor the B-clay for glaze-only pieces. 

Keeping me company in the studio this afternoon was a little new music, followed by something older.  My studio selections, in play order and, coincidentally (or not?) also alphabetical order!

King of Limbs, Radiohead - good studio background music.  The more I listen, the more I realize that this one starts out really promising and peters out after only five or six tracks.  Since there are only really eight tracks, I guess that's a pretty good percentage of the album that stays solid, but then, on the other hand, there are only eight tracks.  But overall it's really enjoyable.  Not sure that it really stacks up anywhere near the top of their canon, but worth listening to.

Love, Liberty, Disco, Newsboys - this is my favorite from CCM's golden boys from the Gold Coast. Mellow with nods to classic funk/soul/disco, I think it's one of the most interesting albums from them musically (the guitar work on this album is phenomenal - quick licks, bluesy leads, and soul the whole way - and the rhythm sec) and also mature lyrically.  Call it nostalgia, but I think this offering from 2001 is pretty near the peak of their output and is undeniably one of my "Desert Island Discs."

Much Afraid, Jars of Clay - their sophomore release, and possibly my favorite.  The album starts off a little unsteady as "Overjoyed" tries to find the tone for the record, but is solid from track 2 onward.  By the time you hit Track 5 "Frail" (beautiful guitarwork, haunting lyrics) it's onward and upward as the boys wrestle some heavy stuff.  Lead singer Dan Haseltine has recently started writing about where some of this music comes from - not in an attempt to say what the songs should mean, but what the music has meant and, specifically, trying to address the places and times in life that the lyrics came from, which is really fascinating for a fan like me.  One of the things that I (and Krystal, too) have most appreciated about Jars, and Haseltine as main lyricist especially, is that they are willing to write music that deals with life in the hard places in a genre/market ("Christian" music) that so often seems to shun music that doesn't deal in glossy answers.  Haseltine's lyrics come from places real and raw, and it's powerful to read, in his own words, the story of the songs and where they came out of his life and the life of his bandmates.  The result is music that is true in a way that has too often been in short supply.  All that to say, if your interested in post-grunge, alt-folk this is a very solid album, reglardless your religious orientaions.  If you're interested in reading more about the stories behind the songs, you can find them at http://www.danhaseltine.com/.  As of this posting, he's most recently unpacked "Portrait of an Apology" which is definitely a standout track on this album.  

All that to say, I threw some pots and listened to some music that I really really like.  And I hope you'll check it out because you might really like it too.  Happy Sunday, and please try not to let Monday get the best of you.