All the little plates

These are all the little square plates I have been making and experimenting with the shellac resist and terra sig. There were a few fuggly ones in there, but a few really nice ones too.

Here are 6 that I really like:

Has a Tim Burton vibe I think

Love it

Love it

The octopus plate was sold pretty much the second it came out of the kiln, so this is probably the only pic I will have of it. I will have to do more mollusks....

Here are a few other things that I have had on the go for a while and are now ready for the bisque:

I was going a bit dotty by the end of this one

same with this one...

I was working on this bowl while listening to a CBC show that was talking about Glen Gould. While I was shellacking the pattern, they were playing one of his quicker pieces and I think I was flying along with Gould at the same time. The person doing the show said he thought that Gould had "left the stratosphere".

LARGE Tea Pots

I have been in contact with a lady who is looking for a LARGE tea pot. I guess she used to be a student at Fairview, but has since moved out of the province. She had a very large 12 cup tea pot that Dave made, but he doesn't really make work to sell any more. So, he passed her info on to me and vice versa.

Here are 3 that I have made so far in the LARGE format. The first 2 are based off of a picture of a teapot that she liked. I try not to copy other people's work, but have taken cues from it to hopefully come up with something she will enjoy. The only issue i can see with scaling the style of pot she is looking for up to 12 cups is that the amount of clay used gets to be a bit heavy. The 2 teapots below were thrown from between 6 & 7 lbs of clay (including lid and spout). I think, after shrinkage, that they will only hold 8 cups, maybe 10. I then threw a more traditional tea pot (ie: round) from 6 lb's of clay, and it will deffinatley hold a much larger volume of tea. The rounder shapes are streached and shaped, volume is added by thinning the walls via shaping. The pots shown here can only attain more volume by adding more clay and therefore weight... I like their shape, but I don't think they will be easy to pick up.

Delayed Blogification

So I have not really posted anything of substance in a while. I have been a wee bit busy. Last week was crazy. I taught last Monday evening, so right after work I was off to the studio and did not get home until about 9:45 ish. Tuesday was my regular night to teach and again, not home until about 10:00. Wednesday was weird. I took a sick day and slept almost the whole day. My back was hurting, I was very tired, and just generally not feeling up to snuff. However, I did have plans that evening. I went out to dinner with my parents and my friend Barb. My parents were thanking us for business that we drove their way. Thursday I had an appointment at the bank and my head was full of numbers and possibilities. Friday I was at the studio again. I worked at CC on Saturday, and then back to the studio all day on Sunday. This week is not so bad, but Dave is away until October 10th visiting friends and family in Kansas, so I will be teaching his classes on the Mondays on top of my Tusdays until then, as well as feeding his fish, checking his mail and just generally making sure his house does not flood or burn down. I will try to load a glaze tonight, and perhaps a bisque on Friday. I loaded the students work for bisque firing last night, so that will hopefully be cool by this evenings class, as there are a couple of people who want to do a raku firing tonight and their pieces were in the bisque.


I guess I am keeping out of trouble, just not getting much posted. I need to send a few pictures off to a potential customer to see if she likes any of the teapots I have been working on, as well as post more pots on Etsy. I have been really lazy with that. I also went out at lunch and bought a printer. I have managed to live my life without one for a while, but I find I really do need one now, what with the possibility of having to ship pottery, as well as my tentative foray into the wild world of the stock market (i need to keep track of charts and stuff). That's right, I am going to start “investing” for my “future”. Apparently I wont retire on my pottery/lottery “winnings”. If I make a ton of dough, I'll let you know what beach I am sitting on. If I lose it all, I may need to pawn my computer....

Fancy Legs

The women in my immediate family (my mum, sister and myself) suffer from what my mum has always termed “antsy legs”. The pharmaceutical industry has now termed it “restless leg syndrome”. I guess to be able to charge money for a new drug. Anyway, for a while now, we have been calling this irritating problem “fancy legs”. My sister was talking about her antsy leg to a friend, who had no idea what she was talking about and misunderstood and thought she was saying that she had “fancy legs”. So there ya go.

Long story short, I was unable to get to sleep for a while last night due to this problem. I also love to self diagnose myself via the internet. I have had localized muscle pain in my left buttock, and I think it is Piniformis Syndrom. The piniformis muscle is rubbing against the sciatic nerve due to pelvic torsion caused by a car accident 10 years ago. I think this is also exacerbating the fancy leg problem. I went to the massage therapist a couple of weeks ago and she worked a miracle (albeit only temporary). However, that night, the fancy leg was quite extreme, so me thinks they are linked.   On the clay front, the kilns are now working again. The electrician was in to diagnose/fix them on Monday. They both had some relay issues. So tonight, I guess I will be loading what did not fire properly last week. I have some more plates to terra sig, and 2 very large bottles that I have already terra sig'd and now need shellacking. The new batch of sig is very good. I am getting a very high gloss on it after burnishing. The last batch seemed to haze up and never really got very shiny. It almost makes me want to pit fire them...

Back to work on Saturday

After having had 2 whole months off from working Saturdays, I will be going back to Ceramics Canada this weekend. My biceps have had 2 months off from shifting boxes of clay and I know they are not going to like this drastic change in activity level. It will however be nice to reconnect with the community of clay people. I have not seen the CC people at all over the summer and it will be nice to catch up with what has been going on there. To be quite honest, I am ready for this summer to be over anyway. Not that I had a bad summer, I just need a change of scenery and a few different faces (plus I get to go on a mini holiday in just over 6 weeks!). Having spent most Saturdays at the studio this summer, with not many people around has been a bit solitary and now it is time to pick the socialness up a little. I got a lot done this summer, not as much as I would have liked in terms of glaze testing, but I did fool around with some hand building, which just reaffirmed why it is best left to those that really know what they are doing. I don't have the patience for it. I tend to assemble too quickly, or not quickly enough and scale has always been an issue as well. My pieces always seem a bit unwieldy and wonky as I don't know when to stop (kinda like when I was a kid at a salad bar). For example, I made a flower brick/vase. Some of it was thrown, some slab, some pinched. By the time it was done, it had more of a “Noah's Ark” massiveness to it. The only good thing I can say about it is that it did not crack during the making process and it managed to survive the bisque.

On the crock front, I have completed the 12 8"x8"crocks for my friend's wedding. Here are 3 of them with the name stamped in cobalt blue slip. I have removed the smaller text, as it just read as blobs. I have a half a bag of the clay I used for them left over, so I will probably just make a few smaller crocks as well.

A very long day at the studio

I loaded the kiln with all the pots for the crystal glaze firing on Friday night. I loaded 3 shelves, and each shelf was pretty loose. Even still, I think it should have been looser. Perhaps only 2 shelves next time? I set the kiln to start firing at 8am Saturday morning and figured, at the least, I should be there by 11:30 am. When I walked in, the kiln was beeping at me. It didn't tell me why, it was just beeping. I think it was not heating fast enough. I had left the top peep out, so I plugged it up and it shut up and continued on it's way. I am not sure how long it sat at 1300 degrees F for, but I think the firing was delayed quite a bit. It then took until 6:30 to reach top temp, so perhaps too much stuff was in the kiln. I had set it for 2204 F. I don't know if that was hot enough though. Some glazes melted completely, but some others seemed to be a bit too satin, but then it could have been the application? Once it reached 2204, I pulled all the peeps and blew a large fan perpendicular to them to pull the heat out as fast as possible. The temp dropped very rapidly. It only took about 45 minutes to reach 1875 F. I then put all the peeps back in and held at that temp for 4 hours and then shut off. I left after putting all peeps in, I had been there for almost 9 hours at that point. I opened it up on Sunday to find that most of the pots were pretty hideous. There was some decent crystal formation on about half of them, but even then those pots seemed to be patchy. I had a nice little bowl come out OK, but of course, the bottom filled up with glaze and is a crusty ugly at the bottom. The results on some of them were encouraging enough to make me want to do it again, but on bigger pieces where the glaze has room to flow and form crystals. So I glazed 4 larger bowls with 2 of the more promising glazes. I waxed the bottoms on the inside then applied my first coat and proceeded to gradually wax up the sides after each application to get a really thick layer at the rim and then gradually get thinner and thinner towards the bottom. I may even attempt a large bottle. I will use a ring of wadding between the foot and the catch basin to hopefully make removal a little easier after firing.

This has some promise...

This one not so much...

Here are some of the results from the last firing

Wine, dinner, conversation & cleaning up slip cast cups

A friend of mine, who I met through the studio a couple of years ago, is getting married in just under 2 months. She is from Medicine Hat and is having the wedding at the Medalta Historic Clay District. They have a brand new museum and events space that they rent out for just such an occasion. She decided to make all of the cups for her guests that they can take home and she wanted to cast them all out of porcelain. She is braver than me, that's for sure. The learning curve was steep, as she had virtually no knowledge of how to make a plaster mold or how to properly cast etc. But, with many an hour spent watching YouTube videos on the process, and reading everything she could about it, she almost has the 170 cups she needs. The tricky bit was that she only has 2 plaster casts, she works during the day, and just doesn't have the extra time to clean the casts at the right time. So, a few of her friends and I met her at her house last night and started sanding the “almost dry” greenware that she had been making since March. Imagine a cup, left to drain out over a rack on top of a mixing bowl on a kitchen counter for probably longer than recommended. You get a cup with very uneven rims. It was tricky, but we did it. With a little 80 grit sand paper to remove the uneven rims and fine steel wool to sand down the surface to a very smooth finish, we did it. There were some losses, I'm not going to kid you. One wrong move and the cup would be in pieces. Some of them you just had to look at the wrong way and they would crack.

I volunteered to make her 8 small Medaltaesq crock pots for her as she is quickly running outta time. I won't have to fire them, just throw them, trim them and put her “logo” in blue underglaze on them. She will be taking all of her cups and crocks down to Medalta to fire at the Shaw Centre, where they have many many kilns. So she should be able to get them done quite quickly. The only tricky bit will be transporting 170 very fragile green ware cups for the 3 hour drive. There are train tracks and I am sure some speedbumps along the way, so my fingers are crossed for her. She will need to have them all done and down there by Thanks Giving if she wants to get them done in time.

getting stuff done

I managed to get a few things done this weekend, despite the heat. It managed to get up to at least 29 degrees with no breeze or a cloud in the sky. I started the day on Saturday at 9:30 by going to the mall (I know, I know, I hate the mall too). I needed to go see a man about a power cord for my macbook. Lately the cord has been kinda flaky and not charging properly. I took it in, saw a “genius” and got a new cord. Works like a charm. The mall is on the way to the studio, and after the apple visit, I toddled on over there, but splurged on a venti caramel latte before I left. My theory was to try to get to the studio as early as I could to beat the heat, but it was pretty toasty inside anyway, there was a kiln that had recently finished firing and was doing a good job at heating up the joint. When I pulled into the parking lot, there were hundreds of cars parked in every conceivable space in every lot, along the road (except ours thank goodness). There is a motor cross track at the end of the road and normally all you can hear is the annoying whine of dirt bikes flying around the track. Not so on Saturday. There was a Spartan race going on, and if you don't know what that is, and neither did I, it is an obstacle course that involves crawling under barbed wire in the mud, running up hill, running down hill, etc. I saw a lot of very muddy racers walking to their cars when they were done.


Anyway, I mixed 3 glaze tests, fingers crossed, glazed a billion pieces, and loaded a kiln. Ok, probably not a billion, but there was a lot of stuff to glaze, and not knowing exactly what will fit in the kiln, I try to make sure I have enough glazed to be able to pack it as efficiently as possible. I managed to get the custom “fire” bowl in, about 24 mugs, some tall stuff, a large platter and 4 smaller square plates, a couple of casseroles, and teapots, as well as all the test pieces. As I had mixed 3 tests, I had the 3 test cups in there, plus one where I poured all 3 in an overlapping manner around the outside, and then for giggles, I dumped all 3 tests together and tried that out on a couple of small cups. The base glaze was identical, but the oxides were different in all 3. One had just copper carb, another had copper carb and iron, and the 3rd had cobalt oxide and iron. I am hoping for a mottled green/brown, a pale mottled green, and a dark mottled greenish blue and all will hopefully have a lovely satin feel to them.

I am hoping to get the crystal firing loaded this coming friday night and then program it so that I can be there during the critical cooling and holding phase to ensure that the temp. drops as fast as possible by opening up all peeps and running a fan across them to draw as much heat out as fast as possible until the hold temp is reached.

When I was unloading the student glaze load yesterday, I became quite aware of how little people actually pay attention to anything. I sent out instructions about what to do when glazing with the crystal glazes and where to put them when finished to avoid confusion with regular ware etc. But in spite of that, I pulled out a spectacularly horrible pot yesterday that had a dry and ugly surface on it (glaze not thick enough), but where it was thick, little spiky, poorly formed crystals were evident. So, not only did they not read or follow the instructions, or ask for advice on how to glaze their work, they then put it with the standard cone 6 work. Thank goodness we limited it to the inside of bowls only or there could have been a huge mess.

Here's a pictoral rundown of my Saturday and sunday

This is some of the bisque I had to glaze


Here is a close up of a couple square plates


The ware cart starts to fill and then move into the kiln. This is the 1st shelf.

Then the second, third, and a half. My fingers are crossed right now. I'm hoping for some good tests.

Digging in the Dirt

I am off to go dig clay this evening. A bunch of us from the studio have this crazy idea to go out and dig up a few buckets full of clay to see if we can get a trhrowing body, a glaze and a terra sig out of it.


Crazy

After that, I am off to Sooozin's to book our flights for our Kentucky trip. Better to do it in person than hope we are on the same page to later find out we are flying on different planes, at different times.

Then tomorrow I am off to get my passport photos taken. Friday I need to get the forms delivered to the passport office, but they close at 5:30, so i will really have to move it to get there in time. I may duck out of work a wee bit early to do that.

On top of all this, there is a plumber coming to look at my pipes on Friday, so that means I need to do a bit of a clean up tonight and tomorrow, like the dishes, sweeping, mopping, or at least stack and shuffle to make the chaos appear somewhat orderly.

The kilns are finally back up and running full tilt, so this weekend will be spent glazing all the stuff that I have been making for the past couple of months. I have a zillion little square plates with various slipped, shellacked and abraded patterns (very anxious to see how they come out), various jugs, teapots, pitchers, bowls etc. There will be at least 2 kiln loads full. May as well get it all done now, and then maybe I wont be in such a rush for the winter sales.

Lexington, KY or Bust

I will be Kentuky bound in 9 weeks to attend a Potters Council workshop. My buddy Susan and I are going to fly to Ontario (either Kitchener Waterloo, or London) to meet up with her friend Jan and then all 3 of us will be driving down to the Bluegrass State for a little fun with mud. There won't be any hands on, but there will be 6 different presenters, over 2 days, discussing and sharing their work and methods. The workshop is titled “The Ceramic Voice: Narrative Works in Clay”. From my experience with these types of events, the title usually is not always relevant. The last one I attended was called “Surfacing” and dealt with the things potters/artitst do to add texture, colour, etc to the surface of their work. However, there were artists there, ie: Mark Hewitt, who did not really focus on that at all. Mark threw a couple really large vessels, and talked about his life, kilns, methods, etc, but the “surface” part was not the main focus. I am just looking forward to seeing how different people approach the medium, what influences them etc. There will be a pottery exchange on the last day, so that should be cool too.

We even managed to get free accommodation. Susan's husband travels a lot for his work and has donated the points necessary for us to get a room for 3 nights for FREE. I like FREE. My only other expense after flights and the workshop fee will be the gas for the trip. Not sure how much that will be, but split 3 ways, it shouldn't be too horrific, especially since gas is much much cheaper in the US compared to Canada.

Usually when I go on a road trip, it involves the rocky mountains that hog the sky. This will be a newish experience for me. The eastern states in late October should be beautiful. I am thinking flaming fall colours, not the yellow poplar that quickly turns to brown out here, but real “fall” colours. You never know though, when I was in NY in early October it was still very very green, so this might be too, but perhaps being farther inland will cool things down? Then there was the heat/drought this year, so it might just be brown. It appears that the average temperature in that area in October is in the 20 C range with lows of 8 C. I guess I will dress for cool, but potentially warm. No bikinis or parkas, but anything in between.

Here's the cup I was talking about

It took 4 days for the mobile e-mail I sent to get into my draft list, but here it is finally. The other cup is still in limbo somewhere.

Now What Do I Do?

As you may recall, I made my first (and only, so far) sale via Etsy back in May. I got it out the door and on the way to the Bronx about 2 days after the purchase was made and I thought that would be the end of it. Well, last week I got a notice that there was a package waiting for me at the post office. I couldn't figure out what it might be, but when I got to the post office on Saturday, I discovered that the very same box I sent off to NYC in MAY, just came back to me unclaimed. What am I to do? I had to cover the return postage (~$14), I have tried to contact the purchaser, but the only way I have to contact them is through the conversations on Etsy, they did not put an e-mail address or phone number or anything in their profile. I have asked if they actually do want this piece, and that if they do, there would be an additional $14 in postage, but I would be more than happy to send it to them again. What do I do if they don't contact me? Am I obliged to refund the money? It took 2 months for this to get back to me, and the money is now long spent (they paid by PayPal, and I have since made other online purchases like e-books, etc.

If anyone out there has any advice, or has had something similar happen to them, I would appreciate any feedback.

I guess I will put this little jar back on the shelf, but keep it as “SOLD” for a while in case they do get back to me and do want it.

2 new pots up on Etsy

I have listed another shellac resisted teabowl and a coffee mug on Etsy. For some reason, when I send the pictures to my blog via my iphone, they are not showing up in my post list, so you will have to look to your right, and you will see all of my Etsy pots for sale. I will have to load the pictures when I am sitting down with my actual computer tonight.

So Tired

To many lat nights. I am so tired I actually feel drunk. My eyes wont stay focused and I am feeling nauseous. Not sure if the coffee is making it worse, or has just not kicked in yet. I normally get, on average, 8 hours of sleep, I sleep like the dead and have no trouble getting to sleep. For the last 3 or 4 nights I have not been getting my 8 hours. It has been more like 6. One or two nights like that is OK, but today I am done. I need a nap and it's not even 10am. I have to teach a class tonight, so it should be interesting to see how I manage.


I remember as a small child that sleep was the last thing I wanted to do. I recall my Mum trying to get me to nap and in the end had to “nap” with me and pin me down with her arm. Well, she soon fell asleep and I was able to squirm out from under her and then I was free. Now, as an adult of 41 years, I can honestly say that sleep is one thing I would never give up. I know for sure that if anyone ever wanted to torture me for information, all they would have to do is deprive me of a few precious hours and I would spill the beans. My career as a spy is over before it ever began :)

Another year older

Yup, it's my birthday.

Memorial plaque

My parents were in Melfort Saskatchewan this past weekend and sent me this photo of the memorial plaque I made for my Grandmother's ashes that are buried there next to the Eastman family that raised her. I am actually really quite surprised that it has done so well. It is exposed to the rain, sun, snow & freezing cold weather that Saskatchewan gets. It has been exposed to about 3 winters now and no cracking or anything. So if you are looking for a material that will withstand the rigours of being outside, Laguna cone 5 Bmix (fired to cone 6) will do the job. The glaze itself is crazed, but this glaze naturally does that, so no big deal there either.

2 days in a row, I think that is a record

I managed to post items to Etsy 2 days in a row. I do believe that is a record for me. Mind you, I only managed to post 1 little cup last night, but it's better than nothing. It is the picture taking and photo editing that really bogs me down. I am using programs that I am not really well versed in and every time I open my lap top I scratch my head and say "now how did I do that last time?" I usually stumble upon the correct process eventually, but it always seems a trial and error kind of thing. On top of that I had to charge my camera's battery before I could download the images to the computer directly, so that delayed me by an hour or 2 as well. So here it is, the one little lonely teabowl. I really do love this one. The glaze (although a commercial concoction) really feels nice, it is a silky satin mat and just feels really good in the hand. I almost didn't post it, but what do I need with another little bowl? My cupboards are FULL of them.

The last few days

I have actually been a bit more productive lately. I guess with the heat starting to become more bearable and less humidity in the air I have more energy. I was able to load a bisque on Friday night, in anticipation of being able to fire a glaze load this week, but the last element in the kiln that had not been replaced yet, finally shuffled off it's mortal coil (pun intended) last week, the element is on order, but did not arrive on Friday, so hopefully tomorrow (fingers crossed). I also threw a bunch of the square plates, and trimmed them up. They have all had the slip/shellac treatment and are now drying under wraps. There were a couple squared off teapots. They are actually quite round, but the bottom comes out quite square and then I cut out feet at each corner. I should record the process and post it one of these days. I also took a few pictures, and will take more, of finished work and posted to Etsy (see last post). I updated my facebook account finally. I think I was the last person in the FB universe to update the new (to me) settings. It seems I am an antisocial networker.

I glazed the fire bowl and am again, just waiting for the element so that I can fire it. My fingers are really crossed with this one as there are a few things that could go wrong, and as it is a custom piece, it is marked for death by that fact alone. I just have to take deep breaths and pray to the kiln gods. I should have made 2 to be on the safe side, but I did not.

Here are a few pics of some of the pots that went into the bisque, including some of the square shellacked plates with various designs. I am especially fond of the leaf pattern and have begun working more along that line. It takes way less time to do than the trees, as the spirals take a really steady hand and a lot of patience. I also like the 1 big spirally thing with the stripes running behind it. It kind of reminds me of a seedling just poking it's head out of the ground. Apparently I am thinking of all things natural and organic when I am doing these. I don't really start with anything particular in mind, but I always seem to end up with these kinds of designs.

New Pots on Etsy

I finally got around to posting a few new pots on Etsy. Just 4, but better than nothing. Here are a few images.

 

doldrums and other stuff

I'm feeling like I'm at a creative loss right now (bored?). The summer is half over and I don't have any pending projects, except the redo of the 2 mugs for the custom order that did not turn out properly, and the fire bowl that is waiting for a bisque (plan is for this weekend). I'm not working on Saturdays, so that leaves a lot of extra time in the studio, but without a clear direction, I end up aimlessly puttering around. Perhaps I should use this “down” time to clean up my storage areas, wipe down shelves, throw crap out, reclaim clay....but it has been too hot to contemplate that kind of activity. The doors were all wide open on Friday night and all the fans were on full blast, but the kiln that was cooling off was impeding the cooling of the studio as well as my motivation level. I should note that the heat was last week and weekend, but this week is much cooler now, but still quite humid. Instead of 30 degrees (celcius) and feeling like 33 with the humidity, it is 23 and feels like 30. So a bit more bearable. It still feels like a pool locker room outside though. Just a bit moist out.


Things are changing a little at the studio. We finally got rid of the 40 cu.ft. gas kiln that had been hogging space at the front by the big loading door. When we moved to this new location, we had to give up high fired reduction :( and move to cone 6 electric. The cost of hooking up the gas in this location was insane, mostly due to the number of inspections required (civic, Provincial & Federal.due to the number of burners and the btu's involved) Anyway, for the past 3 years the “beast” has been sitting at the front of the shop waiting for someone to take it to a new home. Well, someone took it last week, and it is off to a better, more productive life. We will now have room to get the spray booth operational. We are going to vent it through a contraption that Dave put together consisting of a fan, a compressor and a block of a half dozen or so furnace filters. The filters will be removable so that as they begin to get clogged, they can be pulled out singly and replaced with fresh ones. It's not as “cool” as the waterfall booth at Medalta, but then for the amount of spraying we will be doing, this is more than adequate. What else am I up to? Well, I am cleaning my condo and then organizing my back bedroom/storage room/photography area/catch all room. I really really really need to get some photographs taken of my more recent work so that I can upload it to Etsy (currently the shelves are bare there). The cleaning bug was begun in response to the condo board needing access to my water shut off valves to ensure that they are up to code. This requires a plumber coming in to look at them. My momma done taught me to always have a clean home when there are visitors, and right now it is not fit for neither man nor beast, good thing I'm not a man, or a beast. It should be noted that my momma also done taught me how to clean, but I am never home very much and very lazy, so this is a sporadic, once in a blue moon thing for me. However, if you ever come to visit, rest assured that I will clean before you come, just give me a little notice ;). Mum, if you are reading this, just close your eyes and pretend you didn't.

I also read this today on Carole Epp's blog Musing About Mud
It is about a new venture that Feedlot Studios and Black Bird Studios are working on together. They want to start a ceramic decal printing business and are asking for donations to help get it underway. There is a Calgary connection with Feedlot and I might just give them a few bucks to help out.

Carole also posted this, and I might just have to buy it too. A book on ceramics design, perhaps it will help with my loss of the creative juicy stuff and help me focus my energy for good not evil.

Maybe I should stop reading blogs for a while, I seem to spend money when I do...But then, it is my birthday next week, and what better way to spend your money could there be than on yourself?
 
Enough, I am off to the studio to teach a class tonight, and then home to wash floors. Sounds like fun hey.

Residency Envy

I'm Soooo Jealous....


I have been reading more than a few blog posts lately regarding artist residencies and the potters that are currently in them, will be in them, or just finished them. I am so green right now.

I sometimes wish that I had a less stable life. One that afforded me the time (although perhaps not the money) to pursue these opportunities without having to worry about how to take a prolonged “holiday” and still have a job when I got back. I guess that is a conundrum for most people. When you have the time, you don't have the money, and when you have the money, time is in short supply. I only get 2 weeks paid holiday a year, so that would need to be banked for a while in order to even think about taking a long sabbatical from work. Other than people like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, who can afford to go for any length of time without a pay cheque? I keep trying for the lottery (through work). I don't want to be that schmuck that didn't put in and then they win and you are the only one running the joint when they are all sitting on a beach somewhere drinking mojitos.

The Renaissance guys had some of it right, they had the Patron. I think we need these to come back. To have a wealthy benefactor that supports an artist or artists in what they do, thereby allowing them to focus fully on their ideas and expand their creative horizons without having to worry so much about the mundane things in life that pull our attentions away. I'm just dreaming of course and I'm sure that there were some problems with that system of support. Like what happens when your patron dies, or loses it all in the stock market etc. All I want is someone to pay me to make stuff that I love because they love it, is that too much to ask? I jest of course. The 1% don't want to support me and the other sort of starving artists out there. Unless they do, and we just have not asked them nicely.

Dear Mr. Gates,


I am writing this to you in the hopes that you really need a new dinner service, teapot, coffee mug, soup tureen, casserole... but just can't find what you are looking for. If you could pay my way in the world, I will make you the most KICK A$& dinner service, teapot, coffee mug, soup tureen, casserole... ever.


Sincerely,


Ashley



Do you think it will work?

Probably not.

Back to the Lottery plan it is then.

It’s Here…

Thursday, July 5th was the first “unofficial” night of the Calgary Stampede. On the Thursday evening before the stampede begins they have a “Sneak a Peak” night that lets you get into the grounds to check out all the new and different ways you can spend your money and churn your stomach on the Midway before the official opening on Friday.

I may have mentioned before that I live very close to the grounds. According to Google, I only live (as the crow flies) 777m from the Grandstand (where they hold the Rodeo, the grandstand show, shoot off fire works etc). This is just over ¾’s of a km (just shy of half a mile). If the wind is blowing right I could spit that far. This short distance, and the fact that this is the 100th anniversary of the first Stampede, made for an especially loud evening. I think they also turned all the deep fryers on at the same time. I could smell deep fryer fat on my patio (must have been the mini donuts). The Coca Cola stage was in full swing, the rides were flinging screaming people around and the fireworks were, as promised, very, very loud. Even though I live close, I don’t get to see them. I face the wrong way. So all I get is the noise and perhaps some reflected light off of one of the taller buildings in my area. Not that exciting.

It’s not all bad. I do get to see some funny things while the stampede is in full swing. I was sitting on my patio on Saturday night, just reading a book and listening to the sounds of the inner city when I watched a “cowboy” walk by. Of course he was not a real cowboy. This was one of those urban cowboys that only dress the part for 10 days of the year. Anyway, the path he was describing was not the straight line of the sidewalk, it was more of a meandering swerving back and forth, and he was walking really oddly, more of a jerky shuffle as if his feet didn’t know when his body had stopped and vice versa.

On the clay front, I was in the studio all weekend, but it was just too hot to do much of anything. I decided to pack it in yesterday when the sweat began to drip down my face while throwing. I did manage to get the 2 extra mugs for the special order glazed and fired. They went into the test kiln, but they came out all gross. The ^5 BMix decided to bloat, and now they have little bumps all over them. I think the test kiln just gets too hot. If I had been able to fire them in a regular kiln load of pots I don’t believe this would have happened. These are the things that happen when you rush clay faster than it wants to go.

Bozo

Everyone can stop worrying and putting up Lost & Missing posters of something that we have never seen, they found the bozon. That is not a typo, as far as I know, no bozos were harmed in the search for the bozon. For all the non partical physicists out there (me included), in a nutshell, this is what Wikipedia has to say on the matter (no pun intended).

There is this guy named Higgs, and he came up with the Higgs Mechanism and a thingy called the Higgs field that relies on the existence of a subatomic partical called the “Higgs Bozon”. The Higgs Mechanism essentially explains why other elementary particles have mass. If the Bozon had not been found, then the Higgsless models would have been considered as more viable explanations. If these alternatives are anything like going braless, I am sure they are not as supportive as the Higgs mechanism.

I thought kinda hard to get that worked in there somehow, don’t hate me because I pun

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9376804/Higgs-Boson-Prof-Stephen-Hawking-loses-100-bet.html

What I did for the Canada Day Long Weekend...

Ok, so I'm a little behind with this

On Friday, I met a new customer who is looking for a custom made bowl. He had, and I quote, “a very vivid dream” about the bowl and was looking for someone to create it for him. Apparently it is a “ceremonial fire bowl”. There will be a bowl that will go inside this bowl that will contain the fire, so I don’t have to worry about direct contact with the flame, but I decided to use a really groggy body to help prevent any issues with thermal shock. The bowl itself is fairly simple, ~10” in diameter and ~5-6” tall. There are some specific design elements that he is looking for. He wants 6, equally spaced “people” around the outside. At least I think they are people. Essentially, a “Y” with a circle in the upturned arms of the “Y”. He wants the “people” to be turquoise, and the rest of the bowl to be a medium brown, easy peasy. I threw the bowl on Saturday, trimmed it on Monday and then cut out the “people” from a thin slab of clay and then attached them. I rounded all the harsh corners and I think it looks pretty darned good. I figure it will take about 1 month to finish, as I want to dry it really slowly to avoid inadvertent peeling up or cracking off of the appliqués.

Friday was also the day that I completed the additional 2 mugs for the custom mug order that I delivered last week. They wanted 2 more, but with a raised appliqué with the initials and year. I did everything I could to get them done in one day, as this customer wants them by this Friday (if possible). I really doubt the completion time, but I may be able to squeak it through if I can access a small test kiln to do both the bisque and the glaze. I might be able to sneak them into a student kiln load when Dave isn’t looking.

The customer who wants the custom bowl was more than OK with the 1 month timeline. He was just really happy that I took this project on. I guess he had looked into this a little bit and found it really difficult to find anybody that would do it. Are all the potters out there just so overloaded with work that they are turning it away? I doubt it.

Aside from these 2 custom orders, I threw several large casseroles and cannisters, , and one complete rip off of a “pumpkin” casserole. I had been reading some past blog entries from John Bauman and was inspired to “copy” his method. I have made lots of pumkiny pots before (mostly teapots), but I have always carved out the “lobes” of the pumpkin. I was particularly keen to try out his method of attaching the “knob” which is a pulled handle in the shape of a pumpkin stem. I have always either used a different coloured clay, or glazed the clay a different colour for the handle. John paints on an iron rich slip midway through the pulling process and then continues pulling to incorporate the iron into the clay. Of course he did this without getting any iron on his nice white stoneware pot. Mine looks like it was in the middle of a bloodbath.

Sorry for the blurry pics, they were taken with my iphone and not the new camera.

This is the Fire Bowl (now under wraps for a while to dry)

Here is one of the casseroles (the other ones not pictured were thrown from BMix)

And lastly, a cannister and a pumpkin pot. I wiped it clean for the photograph. . Also, I don't believe John puts the handles on the sides of his pots. His pumpkins are more true to life.

Many Hands Make Light Work

My Mum always said that many hands make light work (or something like that), turns out she was right. Yesterday was the Fairview Studios Semi Annual Scrub Down. 10-12 students showed up around 5:30 to scrub the floors until you could eat off them. OK, I wouldn’t eat off them, but they did get scrubbed, hosed and wet vac’d until you could see bare concrete.

On a side note: If you EVER want to build your own studio and decide to go the bare concrete floor route, I highly recommend sealing it. Concrete might be forgiving of spilled clay slop and other pottery studio messes, but it does not clean up well if it is not sealed. The previous tentant had used this space to park their vehicles in, so the floor was pretty well beyond sealing it when we moved in (residual oil drips, dirt, etc)

If you are a safety conscious person, this would probably make you cringe. We got the hose out and sprayed down the floor (after moving all the wheels and tables etc to one side), scrubbed with a deck brush and then sucked up the water with a shop vac. The cord for the vac did not reach far enough to get to all the nooks and crannies, so we plugged it into several long extension cords. The plug ends of said cords spent a lot of time in puddles of water. What’s wrong with a little full body electro shock treatment?

Since we did not manage to electrocute ourselves, we got out of the studio around 7:15. Most of us headed over to the Dog & Duck for a couple of pints and some food. This was to also be the wind up party for the Water Valley Celtic Music Festival that Dave has been putting on for the past 14 years. The music was good, the food was good and the Guinness was great. They even go to the effort of putting the shamrock on the head. Most places don’t as it is too much of a bother to pull a pint of G, much less decorate it.

How Fast Can a Pot maker Pot?

I will soon find out just how quickly I can push the making process. Can I go from wet clay today to glazed pot in 1.5 weeks? Probably not, but I’m ‘gonna give it a go. The 18 mugs I made for a custom order took me from June 6th to the 24th to throw, dry (barely), bisque, glaze and fire again. I was just able to squeak in under the 1 month minimum deadline I usually give for this type of order due to the fact that I had, coincidentally, already thrown 10 mugs on June 3rd and was able to use them for this order. So in reality, I actually started the making 3 days earlier, so that means the whole process took 3 full weeks to complete. The other and more crucial factor was that I had the minimum amount of greenware waiting for bisque to be able to fire a fairly full load of pots in the bisque. I will not fire a load less than that so as not to waste energy, or run the risk of cracked pots. In the end, the planets were all lined up just right for getting things done on time.
Now we come to why I am going to attempt the improbable (if not the impossible). The customer for the mugs picked them up yesterday evening and today she has asked if I had any extras. She needs 2 more, but this time, could the text that was impressed into the mug be raised up on an appliqué? That’s doable, but the kicker is that she wanted to pick them up next Friday (I kyboshed this Friday right away). That is 9 days away, not including today. The other kicker is that I will not be back in the studio until Friday this week, so really, I only have 1 week. I know that will not be a goal I can achieve, so I think I can get away with 2 weeks, she just does not want to wait a month. My only issue once they are complete is how to fire them. I will probably have to use the small test kiln at Ceramics Canada to get them finished on time, at least to bisque. I have more than enough to fill a glaze load, but I will NOT have enough for a reasonably full bisque load.
It's my fault for saying yes, I know, but I am always up for a challenge, just not sure how the clay feels about it. It has been extraordinarily wet here for the past few weeks. 80% humidity in Calgary is pretty rare, but that’s what it was yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that etc. Then there is the 100% humid rain, the rising rivers and ground water seepage. Work that would normally be dry in a few days is still very squishy after a week. I will have to take advantage of the natural drying powers of the sun (if it can keep shining long enough for me to finish this), as well as strategically placed fans. I just have to keep thinking of this as a “marketing opportunity” that may result in future customers. I have said that a lot about similar “marketing opportunities” but then I start to count chickens before they hatch and I usually end up with a basket full of rotten eggs. I am what you would call a pessimistic optimist. I try to always look on the bright side of things, but I know that in the deep dark recesses of my mind, in the pessimistic corner where my alter ego lives, I am thinking of all the ways this could go off the rails. Handles will crack, appliqué’s will start to peel off, glaze will crawl, or pinhole, or they will just plain warp and come out looking slightly rhomboid. But then, maybe I worry too much.

Bitter Sweet and the Signs of Summer

I fired the kiln over the weekend and the mugs I was desperately trying to finish in time are all done and all perfect, except for one with a tiny surface S crack. I made one extra anyway, so now that one is mine. The overall firing however was a mixed bag. I had a few pots to re fire from the last kiln load that did not reach temp.
There were a few tall jars, a vase, 2 large plates, a large bowl and various tea bowls that I thought could all use a few extra degrees, so I put as many as I could in this firing.. The little tea bowls all came out better than when they went in, but the large and tall refired things all bloated, ran, or both.. The weird thing is that although I know the bloating is a cone 5 Bmix issue, I don’t usually have an issue with it, but it only happened on the tall pieces, and the big bowl. Now they look revolting. The little cups are all perfect (pics to come tonight maybe). The ones I am happiest with (other than the mugs) were my shellacked bowl and the square plates with the terra sig / shellac combo. I glazed them all in the translucent amber glaze and the black slip just works so perfectly with it. So I am about 70% happy with the results, but there were definitely some issues with this one.

That’s it for the Bitter, now for the Sweet: I am free for the summer. As of this last weekend, I will not be working on Saturdays during July and August. This will leave lots of extra time to play in the clay and perhaps experiment with glazes(?). I always say that I will devote more time to glaze tinkering over the summer, but I never really do. I try 1 or 2, get fed up and quit. We will be fooling around with cone 6 crystalline glazes in July, so there will be a fair amount of “experimenting” going on regardless.

I had visual confirmation this weekend that summer is officially here. The “campground” by the Stampede grounds is full of RV’s and trailers now. They sprang up like mushrooms over night. I am assuming that it is for the people that are actually in the Rodeo. I couldn’t imagine that anyone else would want to stay there. 1) It’s way too close to the grounds (therefore very noisy) 2) No Trees or grass, just hot blacktop 3) your neighbor can tell what you are eating for breakfast just by looking out his window into yours.

I have mixed feelings about the Stampede. I know that it is one of the big tourist attractions for our city and the money it brings in each year is appreciated by many businesses. However, I live about 2 blocks away from the grounds in the neighborhood of Mission. I can hear the fireworks every night, I know who is playing on the open air stages because I can clearly hear them and the screaming from the midway rides is actually quite deafening any time of the day or night. This year is going to be even better (the sarcasm is actually dripping it is so thick). It is the Stampede’s 100th anniversary this year and I hear tell of extra special fire works displays, among other celebratory hoo ha. This means that they will probably start earlier, go on much, much longer and will be extra loud.

I was at the stampede last year for the first time in about 10 years and it pretty much reinforced my dislike for the whole event. It was work related, so that was one good thing about it. as I did not have to sit in the office and slave away. I got there a bit early and wandered around the Midway while I waited for the rodeo to start (nothing like sitting in the hot sun wearing dark denim). After the rodeo, we all went down to the infield to mingle with the clients that the office had invited. I got my free beer ticket (I would never BUY beer there). It was Bud Lite, all the time, no other options and for someone who pretty much sticks to really dark ales and stouts, this was like drinking warm sugar syrup. I choked half of it down when one of the project managers “kindly” gave me another to drink. I’m sure she thought she was being nice, but the headache that quickly ensued caused me to leave early. On my way out of the grounds, I thought I would relive my childhood and get some cotton candy and a candy apple to take home (I’m a grown up now, I can get both at the same time if I want to). While standing in line I watched a rather dysfunctional family order their “food”. The mom had about a zillion holes in her face from the multiple piercings (not that there is anything wrong with body adornment, but it just adds to the visual here), the dad was a very meek and mild kind of person, and the kids, well, I just felt sorry for them. The mom got 2 candy apples and some floss for them and put the apples on the narrow little ledge of the “food” cart in order to open up their pack and stow them away. However, one of the kids decided he wanted his apple now, reached for it, but because his little arms were too short, he could not reach it and it tumbled to the ground, shattering the candy coating. The mother let loose the bluest streak I have ever heard, called him names, and made the kid cry. The husband went all beet red from embarrassment, but did not do anything to calm the raging beast-mom, or comfort/protect his projeny from her wrath. It’s only an apple for crying out loud (albeit an $8 apple).
By the time I got home, I was pretty ill. 1.5 Bud Lite + too much sun + too much denim = raging head ache. As you can probably tell by now, I am really looking forward to this year’s Stampede. It starts in 11 days, July 6th, yee haw :(
If you have never been to the Stampede, give it a go, you might like it (just don't forget your wallet). But if you do, please remember that Calgary is not all about Rodeos and red necks. We do have some culture, you just have to dig down past the cow patties to get to it.

Glazing, Firing & Drinking Irish Whiskey

Kiln is fixed! I should be ok to fire this weekend. So glazing/loading tonight and if I can fill the kiln, then I will fire it off tonight as well. That should not be an issue as I always have stuff kicking around that has been glazed, but not fired, and then there is that whack of stuff that needs to be re fired from the last time a kiln element blew.


So, that will be my evening. I don’t want to have to unload a kiln of mugs the same day that they are picking them up. That would be too nerve wracking.

We are having our 2nd semi annual studio clean up day next Wednesday. We have been in the space for 3 years, and have had difficulties cleaning and maintaining it. Because it is a privately owned recreational studio, with all different kinds of people, cleanliness can be an issue. Some people don’t feel that they should have to clean up things like wedging tables, plaster tables, the floor around their wheel etc as they pay to come here to get away from cleaning at home. They feel it is the ownerships responsibility. Others are just plain forgetful, and others are just lazy (I probably fall in that category to some degree)

One person can not maintain the space on their own. The floors are unsealed concrete and they do not clean up well. If this was a city run operation, then there would be a budget for cleaners etc. The bonus for coming in to clean the studio is that we will all be going out to the Dog & Duck for a wind up party for the Water Valley Celtic Music Festival. There will be some of the musicians from the festival in attendance and I am sure the music will be great, as usual.

In the discussion surrounding this clean up / wind up “party”, Dave, our fearless leader, was regaling stories from our trip to Ireland to anyone that would listen. Apparently I am an alcoholic, at least in his version of events (which get distorted with every telling). Yes, I was seen taste testing various scotches, bourbons & Irish whiskeys at the Middleton Distillery near Cork (they used to make Jameson’s there) and was a bit flushed in some of the post distillery pictures. You can’t visit and not do that. I learned several things that day. I learned why I don’t like scotch, and why I actually do like Irish whiskey best. I do not like the taste of burnt dirt (aka smoky peat). I also like it because it is triple distilled, unlike bourbon (aka corn whiskey) which is traditionally only distilled once.

Yes, I was also seen lifting a pint or 2 of Murphy’s Stout and Guinness on occasion. But to hear Dave tell it, I was sloshing everywhere we went. BTW, I like Murphy’s better than Guinness, but I don’t believe you can get it here in Canada, at least not this far west, but then I have not looked that hard either. I have to say, that with the amount of food we ate, and most of it being in the form of soda bread, spotted dick, more bread, breaded fish, chips, potatoes etc… it’s a wonder anyone can get drunk in Ireland. When we were at Marcus’s for the salt firing and other pottery related demos etc, we started our day with oatmeal, at 10:00 we stopped for a tea break that usually included scones, spotted dick, other assorted bready items etc. Then there was lunch, and the 2:00 tea break and then dinner at about 6. By then, I had consumed my carbohydrate allotment for the year. I should mention that just before we went on this wee adventure, I had been on the Atkins Diet which contains absolutely no refined or processed carbs of any kind. I fell off that carb wagon very fast. It didn’t hurt much as bread is soft and apparently I was drunk anyway.

A Potters Nightmare / Girl Interrupted

Sunday/Monday

As I mentioned in one of my last posts, I am in a bit of a time crunch to get some mugs finished that I have been commissioned to create. I backfilled all the handles on Friday and left them loosely covered over night until I could get back to them on Saturday after work. I left them uncovered in the sun on Saturday afternoon for about an hour and then put them uncovered on the plaster to hopefully wick out more moisture. On Sunday, I got to the studio bright and early (9am) & put the mugs outside to dry again for several hours. If a non potter were watching me, they probably wondered what the heck I was doing. Every half hour or so I would wander outside, pick a mug up and press the base of the mug against my cheek, shake my head and put it back down. This is the only method I know of to tell if there is any moisture left in the clay. If it is cold, it is probably still wet & my cheek is the body part I rely on to gague the level of dampness. I nervously began loading the bisque kiln at bout 2:00 and set it for a 2 hour delay and a 2 hour preheat, so it wouldn’t start until 4:00. I went home and that night I sweated bullets in my sleep worrying about the mugs. Could they have been a little too damp? Will the handles and bottoms get blown out by the moisture being boiled out too vigorously? All the worrying was for naught. I checked them on Monday, and all was well, now I am a couple days ahead of schedule. I was originally going to wait until Tuesday to fire the bisque, but now I can glaze instead and take my time to get that part right instead of rushing through it and then I can load on Friday night and unload Sunday. Even thought these are very simple mugs, I am really happy with how they have turned out so far. The handles are perfect (in my opinion). They are not too big, and not too small, they are juuust right. I also had a few shellacked pots in there that have the layer of coloured terra sig slip. I am eager to see how these come out in the glaze, especially since the process is rather time consuming. I want to know that going cross eyed from all the dots and squiggles was worth it. I am not 100% sure how they will end up glazed, but probably in the translucent Amber as I love the way it reacts with the rutile in the sig).

Tuesday
I taught my Tuesday class last night and the kiln was on from a firing that one of the other instructors had loaded and fired. It should have been done a long time before that. About a half hour into the class, the computer on the kiln started beeping indicating that it was not heating fast enough, and it shut off at 2140 F when it was trying to reach 2175 F. I have a sneaking suspicion that this load only reached cone 4. So that means that my load of mugs etc will not be fired in that kiln this weekend as I had planned. Now I will be madly glazing on Friday night in order to pack it all up and take it to Ceramics Canada on Saturday to load in their kiln. I got the feet waxed on the mugs and a few other pieces, so I’m a little bit ahead.