Thursday, September 30, 2010

How do we come up with NEW ideas? Where do we get our inspiration?

I had another pottery/design related dream the other night. Many of my ideas (good and BAD) seem to come to me in this way. Sounds sort of “Hand of God ish” (but if you know me, that is not it at all, it’s just random neurons firing). These “dreams” usually come around the time that my mind finally starts to drift off into unconsciousness, but before I fall completely down the rabbit hole, I will get a flash out of nowhere, usually an image, of a new way to possibly approach a problem I have been mulling over in the very deep dark recesses of my mind, or even just something completely new that I have not even been considering. I am not one for sketching, never have been, so sometimes these ideas get lost for a couple of days until my brain unearths them again. I do try to sketch them occasionally, but I can never seem to get down in 2D what my inner eye clearly sees in 3D. Anyway, back to the dream the other night. My sister asked me a while ago if I would make the centre pieces for her wedding next year, and being the best big sister in the world, I said sure, no problem, what do you want? She wants a simple single stem vase out of white white white porcelain, approximately 9 or so inches high. Not being one to do things the easy way, I don’t want to just extrude hollow cylinders and glaze them clear....how boring. I got her to accept a little blue (not much), and perhaps a little lustre. My vision was that of a very narrow cylinder, maybe 2 inches wide, 9 inches tall, thrown without a base, and perhaps a little wonky (not dead straight). The base of the vase will be a circular slab slightly wider than the cylinder. The top is a thrown, shallow domed cap with a narrow neck just wide enough for a single flower stem. I will attempt to make a few variations for her to have a look at and make her decision.
I have had a few of these dreams, and they don’t always work out, but the ideas linger and will sometimes morph into something completely different once I get to the studio and start trying to flesh it out in clay.
I often wonder how different artists get fresh ideas for their work. I am lazy, and I don’t like doing the boring stuff like research (I do surf the web, but that is pretty passive research, and can be done when you don’t want to do something even more tedious, like laundry or dishes). Some authors say that they feel like they are just a conduit for a “higher power” that is writing through them. That sounds to me like they have no talent except for typing, I think that is a lame answer. But how does everyone else create something completely new from nothing? I guess my work is pretty internal, I don’t seek a lot of outside inspiration for what I do (unless I am ripping something off that I saw on YouTube for a pottery demo).

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Oh my aching back!

I was teaching again last night, and all of the newbies came back (good sign). I ended up demonstrating how to throw several different forms off the hump, like mugs, bowls, bud vases, little closed in orbs that could be turned into lidded jars etc. Wouldn’t you know it, the first piece that I cut off went flying off the mound. I must have been distracted as the wheel was definitely going way too fast for safe removal :)

I ended up spending quite a lot of time with a couple of them, working on coning up, getting the feel for when it is centred, and just generally trouble shooting their problems. It seems to be mostly hand position, and not utilizing the geometry of your body to assist you instead of working against you. Essentially just small adjustments here and there and they were on their way. I am sure it will click sometime next week, or if they manage to get into the studio for practice time on the weekend. After all this crouching down my back is a wee bit touchy this morning, but I will work the kinks out I am sure.

Here are a few filler pics of some of the stuff I am working on

 




Monday, September 27, 2010

The weekend

I was able to get into the studio for my Me Time on Friday. It was just me, Lorraine (another self directed student on Friday nights), and another student named Dave who does quite well on his own, and doesn’t ask too many questions unless he is stumped.

I was able to get my dinner plates, side plates, and salad bowls thrown, but not much else. I always go to the studio full of ideas, but I seem to always lose steam at about 7:30. Not surprising as I get up at 7am and work a full 8 hours in the office.

I did my usual 5 hours on Saturday at Ceramics Canada. I was actually kinda productive there, in that I was able to resurrect a painting of mine from near death. Amazing what you can do when you slap another coat of thick modeling paste on and obliterate the nastiness from previous attempts at artfulness...I left it to dry there, so still not sure what it looks like, but It looked 1000 times better than before. I should say that I have absolutely no painting skills, so I create according to my abilities. My paintings are purely abstract, and I work primarily in goo. That is, I use a lot (I do mean a lot) of modeling pastes, acrylic gels etc to build up texture. Then, I use the squirt method. I use acrylic inks and they come in little glass bottles with eye droppers and I just squirt away. I do use a brush, but that is used mostly to move the ink around and add water to help it flow. We (the potters that work at CC) formed a little painting group that meets the 1st Sunday of every month, so my work this Saturday was in preparation for next weekend.

After my 5 hours at CC I went to the studio and put in some more time there, approx. 4 hours. I trimmed, and finished off some of my boat forms. I will try to take some pics tomorrow night. I do like the form, so I picked up some ^10 Bmix to make some for the salt kiln.

I went back to the studio first thing on Sunday morning and worked from about 9am-2:30. I managed to get a few things done in that time. I made some dinner plates for the salt kiln out of Plainsman P700 porcelain (I may do some carving on them, not sure), as well as 9 or so tall drinking vessels (haven’t decided if I will handle them or not). I am slowly trying to get enough high temp stuff made for this salt firing, and I am, my problem is that it is taking up all my shelf space for my other works that I have on the go, like the turning the table show, the Fairview sale, and now this CCAA Christmas sale.

Tomorrow, I will be teaching, and I have 4 newbies to think about, but now that I have done 1 basic bowl demo for them, I will jump back to more complex forms. I may introduce the boat shape. It is pretty simple to make, but requires patience. You have to let it get to the right state of leather hard before you start using the clay shredder to pare away the extra clay and smooth over the seam on the bottom, or I might do a covered jar for them. It requires patience as well, as I use the clay shredder to true up the corners and straighten out any unwanted curves. I’m trying to keep the demos interesting for everyone every week, so they don’t get bored. I did see 2 of the newbies on Sunday, it is always good to see them coming in to the open studio time right off the bat.

Oh, and my tea service was delivered in one piece and they apparently really liked it, so I can stop sweating over it.

I will be sweating enough tonight anyway, as it is my Jazzercise night. I only get one a week now, as the other class available to me is on Friday nights, and as we all know, mistress clay is a task master and I am chained to a potters wheel every Friday night. When I say chained, I really mean a daisy chain of puppy dogs and rainbows :)


This is a picture of one of my paintings taken last winter. It is a bit dim, but you can see the painting on the wall behind my television and all my plants.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Me time?

Finally, I might get some me time in the studio tonight. I always go to the studio on Friday night, but sometimes there are other students there, and that kinda cramps my style. One, as I am a part time teacher there, I do get quite a lot of questions (I don’t mind, but it can eat up the time); Two, I like to spread out when working, and if there is more than just the 2 of us that are usually there on Friday nights, it can get quite crowded, and I am a space hog.

 I am going to continue exploring the canoe form that I saw on Mandy’s page. I was going to work in some high temp porcelain, but apparently I can’t read and when I was working at Ceramics Canada last Saturday, I put a box of Plainsman H550 Stoneware in my car instead of the P700 porcelain.

Oh well, I will correct that error tomorrow. So right now, I am working with the last of my Laguna cone 5 bmix and Dove Porcelain. The Dove is going to be my dinner ware set for the Table Ware show (assuming I am in). I was not having much success with it last week, and I think I was just over tired and not reading the clay very well. My issues were when I would cut it off the wheel, the rim would flop down. I was thinking about the WHY WHY WHY, and I came to the conclusion that this clay is very thixotropic, and as soon as I add any force to the finished piece (in this case it was the centripetal force of the wheel, and the opposing force of the cutting wire) the clay transformed from a “solid” to a “liquid” (like quicksand) and the rim would become unstable and flop. So, to correct this, I think throwing the rim a little less flat will help with the removal. My other option would be to throw on plaster bats, but I don’t have room to store them. I use ¼ inch thick hard plastic bats, and they are fantastic bats, they just don’t release the ware if you don’t cut it off right away. I need to make a few more dinner plates, side plates, mugs etc..

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

On newbies

I had 4 new students in class last night. I always find it challenging to teach 4 newbies at the same time. It is hard on the mind and body, and you are always keeping an eye on 3 of them while you spend your time with the 4th. Essentially, I made 3 bowls with them (for them) so they could have them to trim next week.  There is always at least one that sort of gives up half way through the class. You can see it in their eyes. They want to excel right away and think that they just can’t do it. I reassure them that this is normal, and that they will not be making casseroles and teapots the first night, or the next....more like cat dishes.  They always ask the same question too, “what is the trick to centering?”. My answer to that is “practice”. They don’t always like that answer. The problem with pottery is that it just looks so darn easy, but it is so difficult to verbalize how to do it.

I teach the “Dave Settles Method” (If you can call it a method). Essentially, I start the newbies off with a run down on wedging, let them work on that for a bit, and then I do my demo. I usually keep it simple for them on the first night and throw a bowl or two. Here is where the Settles method comes in. I set them loose on the wheel with what they wedged up earlier and I walk away. I leave the room. I don’t even look to see what they are doing for about 10 minutes. Then I come back and see what they have done. Usually I come back to a lump of shmeered clay all over the wheel, or a tortured looking object that could have been a bowl, but it looks like it went through a wood chipper.

I tell them to start again, but this time I will be there to walk them through it. It is kind of like the laying on of hands at a holy roller tent revival, except I am not “curing” the sick and infirm or casting out demons, I am trying to show them what the proper pressure feels like, what it means when I say this is or is not centred, etc. And so on down the line until they all have at least 1 pot made.

So today my back aches, and I slept in and was 15 minutes late for my non clay job (oops).

 

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Life is funny

I was just thinking about the paths that we follow in our lives, and how we end up on these journeys. I remember reading an article about how human beings are wired to make our own paths instead of following the ones laid out for us. The article used a university campus as an example. The designers of the university grounds laid out carefully thought out pathways to connect each of the buildings on campus, but the students and faculty seemed to always avoid using the nicely paved sidewalks and paths and instead would pave their own way and the results could be seen in the aerial photograph of the grounds. The lawns were criss-crossed with trails made by all these people who refused to use the sidewalks. I think life is kinda like this university. It seems that there are those that like to limit us by delineating where we should and shouldn’t go, and then there are the rest of us who seem to always walk on the lawn.

I tend to work like this too. I enter the studio with a fixed idea of what I need to do, and then I start walking on the “lawn” and end up doing something completely different. It is almost as if the second someone asks for something specific, I don’t want to make it, and I will wander off on unrelated tangents until the time crunch hits and I have to knuckle down and just do it.

Monday, September 20, 2010

On the road...

At least my pots are on the road and on the way to Comox. I finally got the glaze loaded and fired on Friday night. I was able to unload Saturday evening as it was not packed very tight.

I have mixed feelings about this last glaze.  The tea set worked out, but I am personally not happy with the glaze. It looks fine to the casual observer, but to me, knowing what I was going for, it gets a passing grade, but no gold stars...

I was however pleasantly surprised by the tall handled urn that I threw a while back in 2 parts for a demo. I was not sure if I was going to keep it, but I bisqued it and finally managed to fit it into a glaze firing. I just did some wax resist stripes over a clear glaze, and scratched lines through the wax and then dipped it again in a blue hares fur glaze . The result is quite funky (in a good way).

On Sunday, I went for brunch with the parental units and my sister and her fiancé (man it sounds weird saying that) at Diner Deluxe (excellent food btw). After brunch, mum and dad were off to the coast with my fresh out of the fire tea set, and I was back to the studio for more throwing. I am currently working with Dove porcelain, and I gotta say (again), I don’t like working with it. It does some specific things really well, but the sound of dinner plates flopping was deafening. I did manage to get 4 proper plates thrown, and then a large plate that flopped, I just flipped it upside down between 2 buckets and let it dry all wobbly.

I also began investigating a new form for me. I give 100% of the credit for this form to Mandy Parslow, an Irish salt firer. I was looking at her website and at her new work and this elongated form filled 2 gallery pages on her site. I love them. I love them so much that I am going to see what I can do with it. Essentially it is a collar of clay opened clear down to the wheel head and then smooshed together to make an oval boat shape. The rim must be narrower than the base so that when you smoosh, the rim doesn’t take a nose dive and hit the deck.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

I never seem to learn my lessons

My demo for last night’s class should have been titled “how to make mud pies”. I was roving around on the interweb yesterday and came across some nifty neato altered vases. I thought to myself “Hey, those would make great teaching demos, I can do that”. Yeah right. I know that I should never attempt a new form (to me) for the first time in front of an audience. I threw the body of the vase too wide, and the neck too narrow so when I started pushing out the ribs with my finger, the shoulder collapsed and that was good by vase. It still demonstrated the essentials of throwing, ie, centre, open, collar, raise, collar, raise, raise, shape etc... but the “wow” factor was definitely not there. They all gasped when it collapsed, and they all made helpful suggestions on how it could be saved, but it was also a lesson for them on when to just throw in the towel and start again, learn from your mistakes and make the next one better.

While I was in the studio last night I was also attempting to glaze what I bisque fired on Sunday. I know I should never attempt to glaze during a class night. One, the time to do it is not enough; and two, there are constant interruptions from students. So, in an attempt to get a jump on glazing, I think I just made more work for me on Friday when I will be in the studio again. Another lesson left unlearned.

 

 

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

One time only please

I taught a beginners throwing class on Saturday evening. “Saturday evening?” you say. “But the studio doesn’t offer weekend classes, let alone evening weekend classes!” you exclaim. Well, I got an e-mail from Dave (studio owner), asking if I would like to teach a beginners class for 2, and if I wanted to, to contact the lady herself and work out the details etc... Not being one to turn down a possible money making venture, I said yes. Well, about a month goes by between my initial e-mail to her, and our finally managing to work a date out that worked for all of us.
Turns out that it was something she wanted to do with her husband for their wedding anniversary. I guess the traditional gift you give for a 9th wedding anniversary is pottery. Both she and her husband thought up this idea independently and searched out where to do pottery classes (neither knew what the other was doing I guess). They actually both called Dave asking about one time only classes. It seems they ran the gamut of places that they thought would offer classes, called everyone they could think of looking for this type of thing, as it turns out one or both of them even called Ceramics Canada, who in turn (I think) referred them to Fairview Studios. Personally, I would have bought a mug and called it a day.
Anyway, I guess the point to all this verbage is this. Why would you torture yourself and your mate with learning how to throw pottery, to commemorate what was supposed to have been the “happiest day of your life”? Don’t get me wrong, I love throwing on the wheel. It is quite soothing and meditative. However, the soothing and the meditative doesn’t come the first time you sit down to a lump of clay on the wheel. I could see the frustration building with the husband. He was good natured about it all, but he just wasn’t getting it. The wife on the other hand had done this before (albeit a long time ago), and so already had a bit of a feel for it. They did manage to get 3 or 4 small pots off the wheel (with some help from me), and I offered to finish them up and let them know when they were ready. We usually don’t do that for a one off type class, it is just a make it and trash it kind of class to get the feel of what wheel throwing is like without committing to a full 4 weeks of classes. When they left, they were still smiling, so I guess this didn’t break up the marriage (would have made for a more interesting story if there had been a potential divorce), so I guess all’s well that ends well.
Tonight I teach my regular class, and hopefully I will come up with something more inspiring than a bowl to throw.
I will be waxing (not poetically or lyrically) feet tonight, when not instructing, as my tea set is waiting for glazing and the clients are getting anxious. I too am anxious, I may have thrown the mugs “too well”. They are very light and thin walled, so I hope the glaze sticks. Sometimes I have crawling issues with things that are too thin as the glaze does not dry properly and can sometimes start to slide/fold over on itself down the pot. It’s that darn Bmix, it is so good, you can throw things super thin and before you know it you have thrown it tooooo thin.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Getting to know your new co-workers and friends thru acts of humiliation

I wrote this post, e-mailed it to blogger, and then forgot to post it. Here it is, a little late, but better than never. I have updated it at the bottom.

I signed up for the company golf tournament. Most people wouldn’t have a problem with this. I on the other hand am widely known for my lack of coordination and really bizarre acts of klutziness. In fact, my friend Christy (whom I only ever get to see once or twice a year now), instead of a normal greeting of hi, hello, how ya doing, usually just starts laughing when she sees me as she is probably remembering some of my more memorable moments of ego bruising.

I have been watching the forecast, and I am pretty sure it is gonna be cold and wet tomorrow. This will greatly increase the rate at which I humiliate myself (slipping in mud while thrashing away in a sand bunker or the rough will be a foregone conclusion). I guess it is a good thing that only 4 people make up a group of golfers. I don’t need a bigger audience. I will just have to think of something really good to explain why my A?@#$ is all muddy etcetera.

 

This golfing thing is going to impinge on my studio time though. I really need to get the 100 pounds of pots that I threw last weekend trimmed, dried and bisque fired so that I can finish my tea service that is on order.

 

I have mentioned before that I will be trekking down to Medalta to fire up the salt kiln in November, and in preparation for that, I picked up 100 pounds of ^10 BMix throw. I managed to throw it all this past long weekend (except for the little lump left over that I will use to handle 2 small teapots). Several small bowls (300g) perfect for ice cream, nuts, fruit etc, a dozen or so small mugs (200g), 8 tall 800g mugs(attempting to recreate some of the wonderfulness that was my favourite mug from another potter that I broke, doh!), Several square plate/bowls graduated in size from small to large, tea bowls of varying sizes, shapes and textures. I can’t seem to remember what else there was. There must be more, it was 100 lbs, and I am sure that what I have listed does not equal 100 lbs. Anyway, I should have enough green ware dried and ready to bisque by next weekend at the very latest. I need to get that tea set glazed and shipped out of here by the 20th or so, just to give it enough time to get there in one piece (crossing fingers and toes).

 

Just looked at a calendar, and guess what, the 20th is only 11 days away. I might be shipping warm pots :) That reminds me, I once received something in the mail at the last office I worked at that was burnt. It was a large package of paperwork, and the envelope and the top right hand corner of every page was burnt to a crisp. I wonder if some other last minute potter unloaded a kiln and wrapped their pots up and mailed them before they cooled
Here is a picture of one of the pieces I am taking to Medalta if all goes well.


I am hoping that all of the angles, texture and additions pick up all that salty goodness...

Golfing update:
It was nice before we started, it got windier and started to rain by the 4th hole. As we started the last 9 the weather was perfect. Not too much sun, and no wind or rain. I did manage to trip over a very low rope fence, right in front of all the golfers....see, I told you so. I managed to wrench all the muscles on the left side of my ribs, and I came down pretty hard on my right knee, but my pride was the most burised.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

New Dinner set




This is the place setting I am submitting to the Turning the Tables show. I used a lustre for the first time on these pieces, and man, it sure is more difficult to use than I had anticipated. Perhaps my brush was not the propper type, as the flow was not very good, however, I did achieve the look I was after, and was very happy when I opened the kiln to have a peek.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

There's snow in them thar mountains

Well, it looks like summer is quickly coming to a close. I noticed yesterday that there was a dusting of snow in the mountains, and now today they are shrouded in clouds (I am assuming more white stuff will be on them tomorrow).

 

I had a fairly successful firing on Sunday. I emptied the kiln yesterday, and everything except one large bowl, 2 small cruets and, and one side plate worked. The bowl and the cruets crawled, and the side plate had a small little spider web of cracks right in the middle. Now I can start applying the lustre to these plates and cups and bowls to get them ready for the big shoe. I was also really pleased with the teapot I did for the custom order I am working on. Now I just need to get the rest of the set done. I did another serving tray just in case the first one doesn’t make it, and everything is now drying, awaiting a bisque load.

I fired the tests I did for printing on clay. I used some scanned images of my Grandparents, and it looks like I just need to work on my inking technique. Some areas are too black, and others are too light. But, I can see the mountains and glaciers in the background of the one where they are standing in front of Lake Louise, and I can make out their faces in another, not just black blobs. I had originally envisioned mugs with their pictures on them and then giving them away as christmas gifts to all the family members. I have since revised that plan, and I will do small hanging plaques or xmas tree ornaments.