Brief Update, Plates.

I've actually managed to be a pretty busy bee with regard to the clay this last week/weekend.  In and out of the studio.  Throwing, trimming, decorating, confering with customers over commissioned works.  Still feels like a lot of busyness, but most of that is my fault.  Well, as much as it can be my fault that all the time over the last month that normally would go to pottery has instead gone to family-related travel, houseguests, and sandbagging efforts.  But I've finally buckled down to getting some real pottery work done.  Looming deadlines are awful good for that.  Proper post with more pictures soon (hopefully, or at least this week at some point) but here's a taste of what I've been up to:

Took the clay on a field trip to my back deck yesterday; decorating in the sun is certainly a change from the chill of the basement.  By mid-July I should be quite content with the basement chill but for now the heat is still quite novel.

Part of the frustration/delay lately has also had to do with spending a lot of time waiting; waiting for pots to firm up so I can slip them, waiting for slip to dry so I can decorate, waiting for pots dry so I can trim them, and soonafter, waiting for everything to be bone dry so that I can fire them.  I'm very thankful for the fact that once I get things dry enough for the bisque there isn't a whole lot of necessary waiting involved.  Assuming I have the time, I can unload the bisque, head straight for the glazing, and reload the kiln within 48 hours.  Assuming I have the time, and don't screw up, I can go from dried greenware to finished works in 72 hours, assuming I have the time.  

So there we are, for now.  Stop back later for a better update, and have a great week!

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Throwing!

Some throwing actually occurred!  Nothing horribly exciting, but some things that needed to start happening for some special orders.  Despite having company in town for the long weekend, I was able to sneak away to my studio to get to work on some of these things. 

This will get a lid, and maybe a handle, as a special ordered item for a member of the local art group in town. 

Two plates.

Four more plates.  I have an order for a set of four, which means I'll probably be throwing 10-12 and selecting the for that match closest in size and shape.  I don't think I throw plates often enough, especially to make a matching set out of the gate.  But if I throw another 4 or 6 I should end up with two decent sets out of it.  We'll see what happens.

A better view of some drying pieces that are trimmed and decorated (compared to the post earlier in the weekend).

So there you have it.  Finally getting down to business, and hopening to have a brief respite from busyness for 10 days or so.  Maybe.  If I'm lucky.  So we'll see. 

That's it for this early post.  Have a great week!

Busyness.

Not the same as business, but life has been quite full lately. In the pottery arena, there's been a few things like this:

Please forgive the subpar phone image.  Some trimming and decorating.

More trimming, waiting and waiting and waiting for things to dry.

So that's where we're at. I have, I believe, more than enough pots to fill a bisque, but I have quite a few special orders that need to get pushed through quickly, so it's key to keep those dry pots around as filler for the project firing.  Of course, I do eventually need to start working on those projects... someday, maybe...

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Design, Dogs, Days

Well, I am still alive, though I've been a bit of a failure when it comes to the potting and the blogging and the pursuing of clay-filled days and nights.  Such is life.  But rest assured that I have not simply been twiddling my thumbs this fortnight.  Of primary occupation in regard to my temps libre has been that taking advantage of the nicer weather that begins to grace the upper midwest sometime between February and October.  We normally get a few good days in that window, and a fair share of them fell in the last week or so.  We (being Krystal & I) spent the better part of a weekend taking care of some outdoor projects - a church clean-up day, finally raking out the last portions of last fall's mess from our yard, planting our veggie garden, putting some perennials in the front of the house - hopefully they take!  We also had to make another trip back to Iowa for my brother's high school graduation (Congrats, Noah!).  Pictures to come, perhaps? 

On top of all that, I've been keeping busy with a fair share of graphic-design related freelance projects for Krystal and some other clients.  Here's a sample of something I recently did for Hunkpati Investments and The Harvest Initiative for their upcoming "buy local" campaign:

Not too fancy, but I think that sure looks pretty classy.

 If you're not familiar with what those two organizations are up to you should really check it out - neat stuff, lots of exciting news out of their camp lately.  Also, my wife is sort of the director of Hunkpati.  She's kind of a big deal.  Or something.  So that's been fun.  Little creative challenges that look in a different direction than the pots. 

Someone else has also been taking up a lot of my time:

A whole lotta this.

A fair share of this.

And if you're watching closely enough, there's even been some of this.

But there has been some potting over the last couple weeks - just no posting to prove it.  Here are my meager offerings of progress:

More test bowls.  Still trying to experiment with some combo glazes.  There are two less than pictured here (not counting the warpy one) because my studio assistant got a little peckish when I wasn't looking.

Little white plate.  Was supposed to be a bowl, but the bowl part got too heavy to support itself.  Oops.  So the bottom remained and voila le plate.

Big white plate.  This one is exactly what I set out for.  Nice chunky rim.

Bowl decorated tonight.  Pretty?

So there you go, and now I go off for sleepy times.  Bonsoir!

What I got.

Trying to do some throwing on Wednesday night - here's what I got. 

Blurgh.

Yes, that is a big (small) pile of failed pots.  So that's just about the way it went. 

In all reality, I produced a couple pieces, neither of which was in the range of what I was shooting for and definitely smaller than they should have been (dimension-wise) considering the amoung of clay that went into them.  So, frustrating.

A more real post later, maybe.  If I get less of this happening and more of crazy-awesome-productive-pottery going on.