Monday, May 19, 2008

How I spent my Victoria Day Long Weekend...

For most people, the first long weekend of the summer (In Canada, it is the Victoria Day Long Weekend) means packing up a tent, or trailer, and heading to the mountains, or lake, or cabin etc. I am the exception to that rule. I spent my entire holiday at the studio, where I found my inner mug. I normally hate throwing mugs, but every once in a while, I take it on as a challenge to find "that perfect mug". I think I found that mug. The one that I can throw with ease repeatedly, has an interresting shape, allows for a comfortable handle, and allows for surface decoration and interresting glaze applications. I will need to see how they turn out with various glazes, but so far so good.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

pottery bomb

A bomb exploded in my living room. I have pottery from my sliding doors to my front door. The studio sale is in 3 days, and I have to wrap and pack it all before Friday.
At the very least, it is a great anti theft method. If anyone tries to break in, they would break their neck on my pottery before they ever got out again.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Tall, Taller, Tallest

On Saturday, I finished working at Ceramics Canada for the day, and decided that I wanted to go to the studio and throw for a couple of hours (scratch that, a couple always turns into 3 or 4).
I didn't have a set goal in mind, but I hadn't thrown anything large or tall in a while, and so I set out to throw the tallest cylinder I could in one go, ie: not in segments.
I wedged up about 1/3rd of a bag of Laguna B-mix, and away I went, made a relatively tall cylinder that became a vase, nothing too huge, just to get me warmed up. I would say about 12-13 inches high. next I wedged up about a half a bag of clay, centered it, opened, and pulled, collared, and pulled and collared and pulled and collared.....I pulled and collared more than the standard 3 times, as I wanted it to be as narrow as possible. After all, I'm not making sewer pipes. Anyhow, I soon discovered however that the height of the tallest cylinder that I can throw (unless thrown in sections) is limited my my arm pit. I can only reach so far down inside the pot before I can't raise from the bottom anymore. So...I figure I could have gotten it taller if my arm was longer, and I was taller, as it is, I made it to approximately 23-24 inches. The size of the finished bottle though is only about 14 inches, so it is quite amazing how much height you lose when shaping and finishing the form.
Another thing that I noticed while throwing these forms (Threw 4 over 2 days) is that if I am listening to my ipod with headphones, I am able to concentrate much more, but remain really loose, as opposed to when I am either listening to the radio, or nothing at all. The result being a much taller and better thrown and on centre pot if I have the headphones on.