To the Northwoods and Back Again

I'm pleased to announce that in spite of spending 22 hours on the road this past weekend I have continued my streak of productivity. Friday saw us headed North by Northeast to Duluth, Minnesota, for the wedding of my dear friend, fellow artist, and sometime-brother, Alexander. It was a wonderful wedding, with much merriment and mirth and dancing and such. And you should click on his name there to check out his work. One of those folks that just oozes creativity. Kind of makes you sick, actually. But seriously, he does some phenomenal things in digital/illustration/mixed-media/printing/typography that are worth checking out.

So we spent some time driving through the Northland and accompanying Northwoods. Beautiful country, beautiful time of year to be there (as opposed to, say, January). If only we'd had time to stop and hunt for wild blueberries, it'd've been perfect. 

The woods. There are roughly 10,000 lakes somewhere in that picture. I think. Stunning view.

In the Northwoods, you can even look stunning while chatting it up with your mother-in-law. Well done, Krystal.

In an attempt to avoid the myriad stretches of construction on the interstate between there and here (and for a change in scenery on this drive we've been doing oh-so-often) we pulled off and took the back highways for the last couple hours home. It included Krystal's first visit to the world's only Corn Palace. I've been before, but Krystal needed to experience it. I think it also fits into the "stunning" category. And to think, after all these years, nobody else has even attempted to take the "world's only" qualifier away from the Mitchell Corn Palace. I mean, really?

I'd like to know just what it is we're voting "yes" to in the mosaic up there.

For those not in the know, yes, that building is covered in corn. Ears and shucks and tassels and all of it corn. I hear tell that the exterior mural is redone every year, which is why it isn't all rotted out. And of course everyone there was thrilled to meet Tempy. Because she's perfect.

But yes, this is supposed to be about pottery, right? So, despite all that driving I still got to do some throwing and other sundry pottery projects this weekend, last week, this week thus far. I'm working hard to stay productive and harness all that road-weary pent-up anxiety into something positive.

I made more slip. And put it in a nice big jug. And put a pretty blue label on it. Yeah!

Threw these big bowls Sunday night after 7 hours on the road. That's what makes me a go-getter, I guess.

These bowls are all dried. Not a particularly "active" process on my part, but it's shows what I  produced last week, I suppose. I'd like to note that I spent a few seconds trying to turn "productivity" into a verb before I settled on produced. It's been one of those days.

My little corner. It looks like a potter lives here. Also, this vantage point shows you exactly how tall I am. Bam!

And that doesn't even show the trimming of large bowls or throwing of additional large pots or recycling of 25 pounds of clay that have occurred. Take that! I had a picture of this little vase from a different angle, but I thought the overhead shot of my workspace had a better feel. Artists call this "view point" or "perspective" and it tells you something about the "agency" of subject and auteur, but unless you're really into art you really wouldn't know anything about that. No big deal.

All that to say that I've been staying busy and will continue to stay busy as long as allowed. Which might not be long. I'm getting tired of busy, to say the least.

So keep up the good work, and I'll see you here again soon-ish.

A real post?

Well, the wifey's been out of town for the last couple days which means I've actually had time to devote to clay and such.  There it is, there are pros and cons to bach'ing it for a few days.  Mostly cons, though, I'd say.  Tempy and I sure tried to stay upbeat, but it's hard with our Krystal absent.

So forlorn, sitting in the rain, waiting for our Krystal.

Somehow being pathetic is cuter when you're a thirteen pound fluffball.  So we're ready to not be alone anymore.  But as I said, I got to do some potting of substance.  In no particular order:

A veritable smorgasborg of plates.

Some bowls to match the blue-trimmed plates.

Plate to match the blue bowls.

Plates trimmed and footed and drying.

Recycling clay! It's really not that thrilling at all, except that it's been a long time coming and needed to be done and it's been a while. So these are the things that excite me these days.

Bowls to match the plain white plates.

So that's what's been happening in the studio.  Lately I've been enjoying the tunes of Foster the People's full length debut Torches as well.  We heard one of their songs on an iTunes alt-rock radio station a couple weekends ago and were intrigued enough to look up who they were.  Picked up their album when it released later that week and have been enjoying it pretty regularly since.  Electronic-minded dance rock - Maroon 5 meets The Killers on tour with Kylie Minogue.  Check them out below - "Pumped Up Kicks" and "Houdini" are favored tracks off the record.  Good music for a morning run or a stretch in the studio.

Also in heavy rotation lately: the latest from Paul Simon (funky, enjoyable!), Bleach's eponymous "couch" album (10 years in, it's still on my desert-island discs list, on account of I'm never NOT in the mood for it), and I'm still rocking Foo Fighters' newest, Wasting Light pretty regularly, too.

So there you have it. You should check out any of these four musical recommendations: because I said so.  Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow!

Throwing and such.

Six day posting gap!  I don't feel so bad about that.  Ideally I could get more than one update per week, but I'll take what I can get these days!

I had a healthy bout of throwing/trimming/decorating/claywork this weekend, I believe Sunday afternoon.  Enjoyed some shuffled musical options which gave me a pretty diverse stuff to throw through for the afternoon. Started out with U2's 1983 (breakthrough?) War, which is certainly not one that I default to when I go looking for U2.  Which is often.  Ended with the latter half of Led Zeppelin's Early Days/Latter Days hits collection - again, not the side I normally go to.  Where Early Days has the big hits ("Black Dog," "Rock and Roll," "Stairway," and my personal favorite "When the Levee Breaks") Latter Days has some serious blues-metal psychadelic jams.  Seriously enjoyable stuff.  Sandwiched in the middle were M.Ward's Hold Time and the Man in Black's always great Live at Folsom Prison.  Now that's a soundtrack for the creative process.

So that was the listening experience on Sunday.  I also had a great time listening to quite a variety of stuff for some Monday night throwing as well, but it's currently escaping me.  I know it included a fair bit of the Jimi Hendrix experience, so there ya go.  Pictures below from my weekend's work.  Didn't document yesterday's throwing, but there was a bit of it.  Some vases, some bowls.  A couple of moderately exciting things.  Getting to the bottom of my fresh clay supply - guess I'll be needing some more soon.  Not much more than that, as far as news is concerned.

Recycling clay - time to make up for not having any more of the good stuff!



Bowl.  Still needs a trimmed foot, but I like the carving.



A couple of theses Arizona pots. 

Baby little arizona.

Playing with shape.  These will probably just get glazed.   Pretty bold move on my part.

Test plates - gotta find out how some of these glazes play on a FLAT surface.

Baby mountains, to test glazes.  Boo. 

So that's it for now I guess.  I'm looking to make some updates to my site/blog, visually and functionally, but I need to get some time to sit around and do that.  For the moment, I'd still generally rather be throwing then coding, but sometimes these things must be done.  So, maybe, if somebody out there nags a little bit, I'll get around to it.

Peace out, and stay warm.  Don't want any of my few faithful readers freezing away from me out there. 

Vases

I got a lovely 3+ hours of solid work in the studio last night, which was well needed and overall quite pleasant. I did some necessary trimming and decorating of some larger bowls, wedged and kneaded some recycled clay, worked some on the fundraiser plates, and tackled throwing some vase forms.

The practice was needed, and I'm pretty pleased overall. I've been out of practice with throwing tall forms (other than those couple very large pieces, which don't really count, as they were thrown in multiple pieces) and I think a few hours to sit down and throw only cylinder forms was just the trick. I'm not saying that I'm back on the horse at a full gallop, but I feel like I'm definitely trotting, and maybe even approaching a lope. Please reflect momentarily on the unexpected equestrian reference.

My first throw of the evening was a flop - openned too wide, so there wasn't enough clay to go as tall as I wanted, and the neck wasn't right, and so the shape and the proportions were out of whack. I sacrificed that vase to science, dissecting it to examine how evenly I'd been throwing (I'll try to remember to take a picture of this the next time I slice a pot open). The autopsy revealed that, aside from simply staring out too wide at the bottom of the pot, the throwing was decent. Between 1/2" and 3/4" thick at the base, which is acceptable, allowing for some trimming, and then tapering to a pretty uniform thickness from about midway up all the way to the top. That stretch stayed pretty close to 1/4", maybe 3/8". So, pretty decent thickness there.

So I scrapped that pot, which was not too much of an inconvenience - the clay was still soft, not too aquasaturated (it's a new word I just made up), so it was throwable after a little wedging and sitting out for a few minutes. The resulting two pots/jars/bottle-necked vases are below, along with one from this weekend.

This one I threw on Saturday. It's a little bottom-heavy, but not unreasonably so.

Bottle Vase #1: I'm not yet satisfied with the shape of this one, but there's a decent amount of clay yet to be trimmed off around the foot. I like the lip on it, though. We'll see how I feel when I get back to it this weekend. If I toss it, it was still good practice and well worth my time.

Bottle Vase #2: I was much more pleased with the shape of this one. I'll be able to trim the foot to shape, but it won't require much. My favorite feature is the whole neck/lip portion. Really hits on the shape and feel I'd like to be getting with my vases. I'm excited to take on more of these.

That's the summary of the evening. I also enjoy my Tuesday evening's in the studio because friend and fellow potter Hide Igaki teaches a beginner's pottery class. First of all, it's fun to watch other people developing a passion and interest in pottery in the early stages. It's a good time.

More though, Hide is a skilled potter, and a terrific teacher, and it's good for me, even as someone who's been throwing for a number of years, to go back and be reminded of the basics, or to watch Hide demonstrate a way of doing things different from how I was taught. It's always good to go back to the beginning, pick up a few things you missed along the way, or ponder a different way of doing things.

I don't think this is an idea exclusive to pottery.

New work from the kiln last night.
Recycled clay.
Will probably be in studio tonight.
Pictures? Maybe.

happy wednesday to you all.

Pictures from this weekend.

Red vase - thrown in one piece, pretty consistent thickness from base to top, so I'm feeling alright about it. Still needs some shape work and trimming, in the bottom half specifically. At least this time the trimming is not so much about weight as it is about shape. As mentioned before, vertical forms are more challenging for me, but I'm getting there. It's all about the practice.


The clay was also less than perfectly cooperative, but it happens. I was working to combine two different batches of red clay, one which was too hard, and one which was a little soft. In short, the first pieces I threw with the clay were scrapped and rethrown. The centering process did a lot to homogenize the clay, work out lumps and bubbles, etc. In the end, the clay was pretty workable. Hence the vase. Below is the paten to match the chalice I was working on last week (2 weeks ago? Time flies a little...).

Dinner Break Update

It was time to eat some dinner. I'll head back into the studio for another couple hours when I'm full, and this time it'll be for some throwing. But throwing on an empty stomach is as poor choice; throwing takes a lot of physical exertion, and if I want to tackle a couple large pieces, I need to be filled up and focused.

The first leg of the evening's work was to deal with the clay I recycled. All 38 pounds of it. Here's a picture of 38 pounds of clay.

After it's been "recycled," it needs to be kneaded. Kneading the clay has two primary purposes: to homogenize the clay, and to remove all air bubbles/pockets. Here's a bisection of the clay displaying some lovely unwanted air pockets:

Those little streaks in there are the air pockets. They look small, but small bubbles cause big problems in the throwing process. Because an air bubble is not the same density as the clay, it becomes essentially a lump (lumps of hard clay are also removed in the wedging/kneading homogenization process) in the clay. With every pull in the throwing, the air bubble will push the piece ever off-center. Even if an air bubble does not cause any problems in the throwing, it will increase the chances of something exploding in firing.

I knead my clay using a double-ram's horn method, so-called because of the shape made by the kneading motion. Here's my ram's horn:

That's a decent picture, I guess. The horn is created when the mass of clay is rolled over the table surface while applying pressure both inward and downward. Applying the pressure in two directions simultaneously is what removes the air bubbles, squishing them with the pressure, rather than just moving the bubble around with in the clay.

I generally will knead about 10 pounds of clay at a time. It seems to be a nice amount to work with to be efficient without being too much clay to handle. Here's the finally kneaded clay, sans air bubbles. Nice and smooth, huh?

Finally, I got to actually work on some pots - trimming and doing some final shaping on the two vases thrown last weekend. All told, I was able to trim about 2 pounds of clay off, between the two of them. Both by necessity of achieving the desired shape, and also to remove some unnecessary weight from the base. In the end, trimming a pound of clay out of a vase is not too bad, and I'm pretty pleased with the shape I'm getting. Here's the two vases.

The one on the left has not been trimmed at all, and the one on the right is mid-way through the process. They stand about 10 inches high and perhaps 7-8 inches at the widest. I've since applied some slip, and they'll be ready to decorate when I get back into the studio.

I'm off - I'll give a final update when I return. As always, if any of the process was confusing, or you have a question about my working methods, leave a comment. I'd love to have an idea what my readers are looking for, content-wise. In the meantime, I'll just keep writing whatever I want.