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.).

The (Last) Week's Work

In addition to the glaze firing, I also did get to do some throwing/trimming/studio work in last week. All sorts of trimming and decorating. I'm reaching my self-imposed deadline for production of new work for my October show, so gotta really crank out a few more things this week before It's fire-fire-fire mode!

 

And lots of pots waiting to be glazed. Gotta get on that sooner rather than later.  In the meantime, Switchfoot's new album is streaming on ESPN.com right now (why ESPN? Because they have good taste, obviously). And it's pretty grand. So that's what I'll be doing from here until the record releases. And then I'll just be listening to my copy. Because it is really that good.

Back to the studio. Not a lot of time yet to do quite a bit of work still. In addition to work, household stuffs, and running for hours at a time every weekend. It's been a full fall here. Not sure why I thought that was a good idea.

But yes: back to the studio.

Heat Wave!

It's been hot around here, and I've been busy. Our heat index (think opposite-effect wind chill) has been well over 100 degrees for the last couple weeks, but it's finally starting to break. I think we've been steadily in the high 80's for the last couple days, so of course I thought that would make the best time to run a firing.

Well, that and some time sensitive pieces that have been sitting on my greenware shelf for just a little too long. So the bisque ran last night.  Could have fit another 3 or 4 vases in the top shelf, but I didn't have any more, so that was just too bad. But like I said: time sensitive. I set it up to preheat for 3 hours (holds temp at 180 to help get all the moisture out before hitting the boiling point for water) and then ran a slow cycle. Firing completed mid morning (not optimal - but I didn't get the kiln turned on early enough last night) in 14 hours and some change.  Sitting around 600 right now; might be able to unload before bed. Glazing this weekend, and another firing by Sunday night.  Then it will be new pots.

In the meantime I've been making pots. I just haven't been blogging them. And with purpose. I've been selected to show at the South Dakota First Lady's Art Showcase, which coincides with the Governor's Invitational (Pheasant) Hunt. Kind of a big deal in this state. That show will be October 21-22, and I need to make a lot more pots between now and then. So I need to get better about buckling down and cranking some work out. I'm very excited about this opportunity, and also a little freaked out about not whether or not I'll have enough quality work pulled together by the time the show rolls around. I basically sold everything worth selling before our move - everything that was left has slowly been whittled down as gifting away and such. And a lot of time since establishing my current studio has gone to test pieces and special orders. Which are essential (the former) and much appreciated (the latter), but haven't left me much time for building up general stock. So here's hoping that I won't be a complete dud at showtime. So that's what I've been up to.

Well, among other things. Krystal and I are in training for a fall Marathon (the weekend before the big art show - crazy?) which will be my first, and her third. So, that's taking a lot of time and energy and effort. The good news: if the pots aren't done by the weekend before the show, I've probably done something wrong anyway! And I don't have to travel, as the show will be in Pierre!

I also have taken some "good" shots of my last firing (good being relative - I've mentioned before that there's a reason I'm a potter and not a photographer) but haven't gotten them edited yet for online consumption. So here's a little teaser.

Trying to get more detail shots to compile a glaze chart for folks who want to order something. Easier to e-mail out a chart than e-mail a whole swarm of photos and try to connect which one we're talking about.

Sorry for my failings at being online: believe me, this time around it means good things for the artwork. Hopefully sooner than later, and have a great weekend!

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.

Lobster! Crab! Tomato Basil!

Yes, I'm talking about bisque.  Not the soup, but the pots.  They were fired just fine, and unloaded quite merrily.  No explosions or anything like that.  Also, I made it home safely from my 24 hour whirlwind tour of the tristate area.  Here are some pictures:

The bottom of the kiln.

The top of the kiln.  First to be unloaded, second to be uploaded.  There's something Biblical about that...

Experimental slips.  Red and green and yellow.  We'll see how they glaze!

Finally, as long as I was running around outside (in the garage is like outside, right?) with a camera I thought I'd show y'all how winter drags on up around here.  But we're hopeful!

See that?  Grass!  Unbelievable!

I guess we're still ten days away or so from the first day of spring, but we're very optimistic that the snow is on its way out.  Maybe.  But we wouldn't be surprised by another blizzard sometime next week. You just get used to these things after a while. 

That's it for now.  Glazing on the horizon.  More throwing, too, I hope.  Have a great weekend and don't forget to set your clocks ahead tonight (for those living in areas that observe Daylight Savings Time, that is).  

It's Been a Busy Week(s), Part I

Sorry to leave you with the massive cliffhanger (not Stallone's) with regard to my last firing.  But as I say so often, life happened.  I was especially non-ceramic last weekend, which was a three day weekend, on account of when you have a three day weekend it's important to spend it relaxing and lazing and reading and watching movies.  Especially when your wifey will be out of town for the following week, which means more pottery time then.  So we had a wonderful sort of lazy weekend.  Between, of course, backing our car into three-quarter-ton Silverado's, snowdrifts, and garage doors.  But that's another story for another time.  I will say that Krystal and I share blames in these incidents.  No, I will not share how they are divvied up.

In any case, the bisque firing (completed on Monday, January 10) came out just fine; everything was pink and quite bisquey.  Here's the top portion of said bisque load. 

Bisques!

While I didn't devote too much time to pottery last week/weekend I was able to sneak in a few hours here and there to take care of a few things.  Mostly trimming (bowls that I guess I threw Mon/Tues the 10/11?) and decorating some of my Arizonas.  The results of that work would be below.  Beyond "would," they are, in fact, completely below, and quite thrilled about it.  Enjoy!

One Arizona, trimmed, carved, and drying.

Two Arizona, trimmed, carved, and dried.  I really like the shape on this on, and the more prominent lip.

Some bowls, part of a special order.  Wanda: these bowls are for you!

Some spare bowls to go with the above order.  Because you never know what might happen between throwing and completion!

Serving bowl, also to go with the above order.

This one's a mystery bowl.  It's on my camera, but I don't seem to have this bowl anywhere in my studio.  Bizarre?

So that brings you up to speed on last week.  Stay tuned for Part II. 

Pottery

Well, it seems it's time to be getting back to pottery.  I've been in the studio for brief periods over the last couple weeks, dabbling in this and that.  Nothing horribly exciting, or interesting, and for my part, nothing too much fun.

I've been putting together a few mugs recently (several, but not many).  I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here before, but I don't care much for mugs on account of the handles.  Handles involve making one piece of clay stick to another, and matching disagreeable consistencies of clay, and pulling handles.

Now, there are many ways to make handles for a mug - extruding (think Play-Doh Fun Factory) is quick to do, but involves quite a bit of clean-up on the tail end.  Think again of the Fun Factory: not much fun to clean, and if you don't, the Play-Doh gets stuck in the press and in the molds and dries and is messy and horrible and the Fun Factory is broken.  Except that ceramic studio-quality extruders cost significantly more than the Fun Factory.  So there's one way.  You could also of course roll your own coils, or press out a flat piece of clay and cut your handle to shape.  This is good if you're not interested in a uniform strength and durability.

All this to say that the way I make handles is the way I was taught to make handles, and as such, I consider it to be the best way to make handles - by pulling.  Which has little to do with the pulling involved in throwing.  But it makes sense.  You begin with a stalactite shaped bit of clay (stalactites hang from the ceiling of a cave, because they must be fixed tight to said ceiling.  Stalagmites are mighty because they're on the floor, and regularly are bigger.  I think.  That's the way I was taught to remember).

Stalactite.

So you take this stalactite and with wetted hands pull downward on the clay, tightening and pulling and lengthening the clay.  It's like milking a cow, supposedly, except the clay rarely knocks you down and spills its handles all over the floor.  But sometimes it feels that way.  After a number of pulls you get an ever-lengthening tail which you may pinch off and set aside to firm up for later use as a bonafide handle.

Handles.

Sounds easy, right?  So why to I detest handles so much?  Well, it never really goes that easily for me.  See, sometimes, if you squeeze too tightly at the beginning of a pull you end up with a weak spot in your handle.  You can either continue, with the aim of (willfully) installing a weak/flawed handle on your mug, or pinch off what was almost a perfect handle and start over again.  Assuming you find yourself with functional handles, you must then attach them to your mug.  Which won't work if the mug is too dry, but if it is too soft you will most certainly warp it in manhandling and installing said handle.  Which of course can't be too dry or it won't stick and will also crack/brack before you can bend it to shape, nor can it be too wet or it won't hold said shape, all the while leaving your fingers covered in sticky wet clay which you may transfer to your otherwise beautifully thrown mugs.  Angst. 

In short, I find that pulling handles is a chore with rewards not worth the costs and an effective means of wasting time and defacing otherwise beautifully thrown pottery.  I myself don't care much for handles.  If a beverage is too hot to hold, it is too hot to drink.  I am more than happy to throw oriental-style teacups (I have several available for sale, if you're interested), tumblers, and other handle-less vessels suitable for enjoying liquid merriment.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

That said, I generally only do handles when somebody is paying me, specifically, for handled mugs.  So I've been doing that these couple weeks, as I'm having difficulty finding cause to create anything that isn't commissioned.  So here are some mugs:

Two mugs with handles.

On left, see a lovely cup without a handle.  Wouldn't you like one for yourself?  E-mail me for purchase information.  Here ends the commercial.

I have found time for other things, such as glazing a slough of vases that needed glazing, if you can believe that.  In fact, in the time since I've posted I glazed these vases and got them out of the kiln, finished.  They're all for sale, too, if you're interested.

Glazing - after handles, my favorite thing to do in the studio.

These little vases stand 5-7" tall, and run $15-24, for the record.

This one will cost you a little more.  Contact me for pricing.

So, there you have it.  Glazing.  Buckets of fun.  Some other throwing has also been happening, so here are some pictures. 

Some commissioned pots.

"For Fun" throwing - this clay was lumpy and not cooperative.  I'm not sure if I want to decorate this one, glaze it in pretty colors, or just throw it across the room.

Another attempt at a commission for someone.  The first one wasn't big enough, and this one probably won't be either.  But I like this shape, so I'll keep it for myself if I have to.

And, of course, there are always more things to be glazed.

So that's been the studio as of late.  Krystal and I have been enjoying a more "relaxed" season of life this midwinter, with lots of reading, Scrabble, snowshoeing.  We started a big puzzle on Monday night, but I'm not sure how relaxing that is going to be for us.  We also somehow managed to kill an entire season of Angel (are we dorks, yes?) in less than a week, and are steadily plugging away at our Neflix queue.  On second thought, it's possible that we may need to shift into a less relaxed season of life shortly.

There was a memorial service for Ben Larson held last Friday at Luther College.  We weren't able to make the drive for it, but the service was broadcast online (video and radio) and so it was a very healing experience to celebrate his life with that community, if only by proxy.  It was a very moving service full of word and song and sharing stories of Ben's vibrant person and passions.  My brief thoughts on Ben and the disaster in Haiti were the topic of my last post, here.  More can be read about Ben at the links below.

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  A Dahl Blog by Chris Dahl, and The Whites in Tokyo by Brad White - Chris and Brad are Luther Alums who also served with Ben as part of the FOCUS ministry, in addition to so many other connections.  Their thoughts and memories are worth the read.
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  He Spent his Las Breath Singing - LaCrosse (WI) Tribune: Just one of the many news agencies to pick up his story.  Includes statements from Ben's wife and cousin, who were with him at the time of the earthquake.
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  Ben Larson, ELCA Seminary Student, Remembered at Memorial Service - Includes some of the comments from the multiple eulogies shared last Friday.