Wednesday, July 28, 2010

I need an assistant (or a clone)

I was driving to Timmy’s at lunch today to grab a coffee and a bagel, and I was thinking that I was going to have a long overdue and well deserved night out tonight. Dinner and a movie with a friend, how nice. While I was at the drive thru window, I get a call from Dave “the task master (not)” Settles to see if I would be able to teach for him tonight as well as tomorrow and Monday. He is leaving on holidays tomorrow morning (must be nice), but his travel insurance didn’t arrive in the mail today, and I guess he has to do a lot of last minute running around. So, I cancelled my night out, and will be teaching tonight, tomorrow night, closing up on Friday, opening up and closing on Saturday, and Sunday, teaching again on Monday, and then teaching my regular class on Tuesday....whew, not much time off for me this long weekend I guess.

On another note, I really wish taking pictures while driving was easier. I was on my way home from class last night (I was teaching), and the sun was setting behind a bank of stormy looking clouds. They were all tinted the most beautiful pinks and purples. I tried taking pictures with my phone while driving (I was being safe, and only doing so at lights, or when no one was looking). They all came out blurry, or dark, and did not capture the true beauty. Oh well, I guess you had to be there...

So back to the title of this mini rant/post, I need an assistant cause there is so much that I HAVE to do, and twice as much that I WANT to do (rarely do the haves and wants ever overlap). I wish I could clone myself so that I could be in two places at once...

 

 

Monday, July 26, 2010

all fired up

I managed to get a kiln load fired on the weekend. It was OK. Nothing jumped out and said “woo hoo!, look at me!”, there were some pretty major problems with some of my pieces. It seemed that every teapot had some glaze crawling in spots, and one pitcher stuck itself to the shelf. Otherwise, everything else was ok, but nothing super spectacular.

I still have some of the backlog left to fire, but it will have to wait until I fire a bisque load before I can fire another glaze load. No pictures this time. It was just too hot, and I was getting tired and sweaty by the time I had unloaded the kiln. It is finally summer time here in Calgary. I think it got up to about 30 Celsius on the weekend, and combine that with a cooling kiln, it was pretty toasty in the studio on Saturday. I might take some pics tonight, I am taking a few things over to my parent’s house for them to pick from. They need a gift for somebody out in Vancouver when they go out next month.

One last thing....it’s my birthday today. One last year before 40....

 

Friday, July 23, 2010

Tonight

Tonight I will be glazing and loading the kiln. I need to clear the glazing backlog so that I can start filling the shelves for a bisque. I am running out of time for the dinner ware show, and I need to make enough for a bisque firing so that I can begin testing the lustre that I want to use (if it ever arrives from Ceramics Canada that is). Firing my own bisque is new to me, I usually just stick it in with the students work. Now I am going to have to be more prolific in order to fill the kilns in a timely manner.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Here's the plan. Post pictures of pots as they come out of the kiln. I might even have 1 or 2 tonight.
I never take enough pictures for one reason or another. My batteries on my camera always seem to be dead, my phone is not charged, I forget, or I am just too lazy. Hopefully this will make me take pictures on a regular basis. People are always asking if I have any photos of my work, and I have to say yes, but nothing recent. So here it is, my assignment to myself....take pictures, lots and lots of pictures.

Cup and saucer

Caserole - top view

Caserole

Pot w/handles close up

Bowl w/handles

Fancy pot

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Potters - The ultimate recyclers...or should I say hoarders...

I am sitting here at my office job (the one that pays the bills), and I received a Fed Ex package. I opened the pouch, dispersed the contents accordingly, and then rolled up the Tyvek pouch and put it in my purse. I have been saving these pouches lately to see if I could use them in a pottery related way. Tyvek is pretty durable stuff, so I thought it would make great masking material, or stencils etc and could be reused as it is not easily damaged by water.

It occurred to me while I was putting it in my purse that I have a lot of stuff like this that I don’t throw out because it could be used in another way somehow. I think my pottery “career” is feeding whatever hoarding tendencies I have. I see it in everyone that I meet at the studio that sticks around longer than their first 4 weeks. The owner of our little studio has been known to go dumpster diving for various odds and ends like pvc tubes, foam, etc...

My own personal hoard includes things like the central plastic cores from adding machine tape – makes interesting texture if the end is pressed into the clay and then expanded on the wheel; popsicle sticks from some popsicles I bought; little nuggets of cured fimo or sculpy – they make interesting marks when impressed into the clay; the metal hanger from hanging folders – I have not found a use YET. One of the funniest things that I have seen someone recycle was a brush purchased from the Salvation Army Thrift store for $0.25, all the bristles in the centre were missing, but the outer ones were still there, they used it as a texturing tool. I have kept wooden skewers, plastic stir sticks, old cutlery that I have reshaped on the grinding wheel, plastic cutlery. Recently I was laminating some business cards at work, and I kept the plastic trimmings with the thought that I could use them to make a random cross hatch pattern when glazing (I have not done that yet, but I will get around to it eventually).

I was at the studio a couple of weekends ago, and a couple of people came by wondering if we had anything they could salvage like car batteries, metal, anything. I told him we were potters, and the likelihood of our throwing anything away was pretty much nil.  The entire studio, aside from the kilns and wheels, is pretty much scavenged or donated, like old kitchen chairs with the stuffing coming out of them, cobbled together shelving, old doors used as table tops, etc. At the old studio, someone donated a really old and rusty printing press to us, as Dave (the owner) thought it could be used to print on clay (he never did fix it, and probably had to pay to have it hauled to the dump when we moved to the new location).

Monday, July 12, 2010

It's my birthday (in two weeks)

My Wish list

I don’t enjoy asking for stuff, but people want to know what I want for my birthday, so here it is.

-Mac Book Pro (I don’t need a large screen, but a 15” would be nice (I think the 13” would be too small)

-iPad – Cause I want to be cool in school.

-Subscriptions to Ceramics Monthly - scratch that, I work at Ceramics Canada, I can read it for free.

-New trimming tools (or a gift certificate towards their purchase)

-Video Camera that will sit on a tripod. I have started taking videos of myself throwing, and my phone is ok, but it is hard to get good close up’s, I have to prop it up on a lump of clay, and then there is the whole phone near water issue...

- Cotton T-shirts

- bbq with my family, unless the deck is still being reno’d, and then I would be OK with a dinner out somewhere.

-kitchen garbage can with a foot pedal operated lid

-toilet bowl brush

 

From the sublime to the ridiculous isn’t it...

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Yee Haw

Well, It is that time of year again. This city is full of “cowboys”, bad drivers, and road construction.

The Calgary Stampede is upon us again for another 10 days (not counting the Sneak A Peak tonight).

I will need to find another way to get to work tomorrow, as the galdarn parade will be blocking my regular route (grumble grumble). Oh well, at least I can wear “appropriate western attire” for 10 days at work (aka Jeans). I have not been to the “Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth” in a very long time (at least 5 years, and then before that probably another 5 or 6 years). I try to avoid it like the plague. Unfortunately I get to hear the midway at night, as I only live over the river from the fair grounds. I hear the outdoor concerts, and the fireworks, and the screaming midway goers at least until 12:30-1am. I shouldn’t complain, the Stampede does bring a lot of visitors and money to town, and I hope it brings people that like to buy pottery. One of the Galleries I am in (Centennial Gallery) is located at the base of the Calgary Tower in Palliser Square, and although the tower itself is probably not as big a tourist attraction that it may have been in the past (most of the buildings in downtown Calgary are taller than the Calgary Tower), Palliser Square is home to many other venues that can draw people, and hopefully their money. There are a couple of theatres (Vertigo, and Lunch Box), the Rocky Mountaineer Train leaves from there, and it is a short distance (1 block) from Stephen Avenue Mall ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Avenue ) which is an outdoor shopping area that runs for several blocks of 8th Ave downtown (1st to 4th Street).

Anyway, the Stampede is something that many Calgarians love to hate, and I will be right there hating and loving it with them. I think I will just make pots during this trying time :)

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

How do they do it? (and other stuff)

There are people out there that read a zillion blogs, and a zillion news feeds, and then find the time to actually write something every day on their blogs/websites about what they read. They remember to post a link on their site/blog to the site they found the inane info on, and then they have the nerve to tell the world how much time they have by writing about all the stuff they have been doing, reading and thinking etc... :)

I can barely manage my own blog, follow the few that I remembered to subscribe to, and then I only read a fraction of what comes up every day. It’s like people with PVRs or DVR’s. They record an insane number of hours of television and then actually find the time to watch it. I don’t own a PVR, and can barely remember to watch the few shows on television that I do like when they actually air. I have one night this week that I can honestly call “my own”, but just this lunch I agreed (so yes, it is my fault) to help the guys at Ceramics Canada out and do some mind numbing data entry for their new accounting package on Thursday night, so now my week is chock a block. I was Jazzercising Monday, teaching pottery Tuesday, Jazzercising tonight (I blame my mother for the Jazzercise), working tomorrow night at CC, working in the studio on Friday night, working at CC on Saturday, and I believe my “painting” day is on Sunday this week. If not painting on Sunday, then I will be opening up the Studio and working all day there. So yes, I guess my hectic life is my fault, and this stupid “working for a living” thing really gets in the way. My Mum called last night and asked if I would go to Writing on Stone Provincial park with her if I have a day off sometime. I hemmed and hawed, sounds nice, day in the country, not a care in the world, we’ll see if I can scrounge a full day somewhere to go do this and see the petroglyphs etc...

Except for my working for the “man” job, and my Saturday gig at Ceramics Canada, I could choose not to do any of the stuff that I have listed above, but my life would be pretty boring. My house might get clean, and my bank account would be a heck of a lot more robust, but I would still be bored. I wonder if I have AADD (just kidding).

In case you are wondering, I am writing this post in between phone calls and other work type stuff. My dream is to be able to sit on a nice veranda with my laptop (macbook please) and a nice cup of coffee and leisurely pontificate on all things pottery, but alas, I am typing this at a desk, in an office building. My cup of Joe is not good, and right now it is cold, so I need to refresh my life sustaining beverage soon.

In my random web surfing, I came across a fellow potter/blogger who is posting about her month long residency at Medalta, it made me soooooo jealous. That is another dream, go somewhere pottery related for a nice long stretch and totally get into the clay. When I was in Ireland for the week long salt fire workshop with Marcus O’Mahoney, I found it really really hard to get into the clay. It might have been the vast quantity of baked goods that we consumed during the day (every time we turned around we were sitting down for a “break”). We ate a very hearty breakfast every day, then at about 10 am we had a tea break that consisted of tea or coffee, some kind of bread like soda bread, and spotted dick, and scones, crackers, cheese, etc...Perhaps the carbohydrates overloaded my synapses. Then, on the heels of the elevenses, we had lunch, then a 2 pm tea break. We usually finished up around 4pm, and then it was on to dinner. It’s truly a wonder that the Irish are not an obese nation. After dinner it was down to the pub for a pint (you can’t just have one you know). The day would end with a long stumble up the road to the pottery where we would fall into bed and start again the next day. To get off that tangent (it was a nice tangent though), I really want to get a way for more than a week or 2, at least a month of concentrated focus on clay. I got a lot out of my trip to Ireland, don’t get me wrong, but I know that a month would lead to soooo much more. Ok, head is out of the clouds for now, I should probably get some actual work that I get paid to do.