Just a Peek

Last weekend was the May long weekend. As many silly people trekked out on the first camping weekend of the summer, I was ensconced in the studio mixing glazes and loading kilns. It turns out that I was the wisest one. It rained all weekend in town and snowed several feet in the mountains. These are just a couple quick shots of the bisque kiln all loaded up and ready to fire and the resulting glaze kiln that I loaded on Monday. It was still at 650 F so I was only able to take a quick peek in to take the photo.

Spring has sprung....a leak

I am going to develop webbed feet if this rain keeps up. I think we have had ~100mm over the last week or so, and if that keeps up, along with the spring runoff from the mountains, we are all going to be learning how to quack pretty soon.

In non soggy news, the studio has been scrubbed down. Well, not precisely scrubbed, but wiped, swept, stacked and tidied in preparations for the OPEN HOUSE this weekend.

We will have 2 out of 3 instructors there as well as an assortment of students. We will all be ready and willing to talk pots, throwing, classes, etc. Ellen's famous carrot cake will be on the menu, as well as coffee. I will be firing up the raku kiln at 12:30 into which I will attempt to fit as many tea bowls as possible (if you come, you might just get to take one home with you as a THANK YOU for coming. I anticipate the firing to be over around 2:30, and the pots should be ready to take home around 3 ish.

So, if you are in the area and are looking for a fun and informative afternoon out, swing by the studio. You might just find the hobby/passion/obsession you have been looking for. The weather is supposed to be nice  (little to no rain) so the big door will be open wide. Come on in and check it out.

Getting Ready for Salt

I have been throwing cone 10 clay almost exclusively since the end of December in preparation for my upcoming trip to Medalta in April to fire off their salt and soda kilns. I have made a lot of stuff in that time, but I am in that place right now where I don't know if I have made enough, or if I have made too much. Each kiln is 20cu feet and I am splitting the firing with my friend Susan (aka Sooooozin). So I have a full 20cu feet to fill, plus all the extras like on bag walls, the space under the bottom shelves etc. The end of my last bag of clay was actually where I started to make really good pots (I hope – I still need to trim them). They are gnarly and full of texture just waiting for the salt to juice them up and soften all that craggy goodness. It would be ok if the kilns were here, but alas, they are 3 hours away and I need to transport them down there, and if I have left overs, I really can't do anything with them except wait for another high fire opportunity. I think I may just go for broke and make as much as possible. If I have way too much, then so be it, at least I will have lots to choose from. I got a bit stuck on the sgrafitto, so there is a LOT of it, but everything from now on is plain old clay that will get flashing slips or shinos.

Other than that, a few students and myself are going to put together an open house sometime in early to mid June to help boost the enrolment at the studio. It is located in an industrial area in the city's south east and the feeling is that some people are put off by the location. It is not in a trendy area with lots of cafes and boutiques. It is not in a residential area either. It is in a light industrial/business park area and because of this, we think that some people are nervous about it. It is not a bad area, it just isn't very busy at night, and it can feel a little isolated. The building is a Quonset, and that may not give it a very homey feel either. But you take what you can get in this town. Rents can be a bit steep for small business owners, let a lone a pottery studio owner. If we have an open house in June on a nice sunny day, when the birds are chirping, then we can open up the very large overhead door to let as much light in and make it look inviting. We can have demonstrations going on throughout the day with perhaps a stinky raku demo to attract the pyromaniacs and give away small raku bowls to the attendees. I really hate doing raku firings, but it does have that WOW factor as well as immediate gratification. I always go home feeling like I have been camping and sitting around wet smokey fire pits, but without the added bonus of smores. I usually also look like a bit bedraggled, my face is all red, my hair usually gets a bit fried from looking into the kiln to check glaze melt, and some article of clothing always gets a burn mark or two. Ya, raku and me are not friends. So, if we blitz our FB friends, our twitter followers (of which don't have), our personal e-mail lists etc, as well as advertise in all the free weekly magazines we can, then hopefully we will have a good day. If nobody shows, then it will just be a regular day at the studio. More on this to follow.

Hoarding – a Confessional

Ok, so I am not as bad an actual hoarder, but I can see that I have certain tendencies in that direction. I also work best when faced with a looming deadline. So, with those 2 things in mind, I booked an appointment for the junk collector dudes to come around to my condo next saturday after I get off work. They are going to take all the detritus off of my patio and a stove. A stove you say? Yes, a stove. My mother, in all her best meaning motherness, foisted, I mean gifted the stove that she did not need anymore after my parent's renovated their kitchen a while ago. I'll grant you that it is a much better stove. It is a ceramic top, it self cleans etc, but I knew that the old stove would become an albatross around my neck. My mum seems to recall offering to take the old stove away but that I refused the offer. I however recall that they dropped the stove off and left like jack rabbits. I tried to get rid of it the cheap way by calling scrap metal guys but no one seemed to want it, or if they did, it had to be outside.

Long story short, I have been living with this stove pushed up against my wall between my kitchen and my living room for more than is mentally healthy. I broke down the other day and booked a pick up time with the 1-800GJ? guys for next Saturday. I will now have to pay to have it removed, but in the long run, who cares, I will get it out of my house and I can begin thinking of new furniture. I really really want to change my living room, and this will let me do that. The sitting furniture is staying, but the shelving is changing (I hope). The only snag in that plan will be to see if I can hang the wall units that will be affixed to to the wall above and behind my new sitting area by myself and if my skills are up to the job so that they do not come loose and concuss or kill me while I am sitting in the “new” sitting area.

So, there is a lot going on, and hopefully these new improvements will help me achieve a new level of unhorderliness. So let the purge begin. I hope the dumpster out back is empty, because I am going to fill it up.

Sgraffito

The pictures suck, but they were taken with the old iphone under fluorescent lighting on my desk at work.

This is an example of what I was up to on the weekend. The previous weekend I had thrown a few "Christmas" bells as well with the idea that I would carve holly leaves into them. So I did. There were many many bells, and they took me 3 days to finish, including the mugs. I also managed to wear my pin tool and a small kemper triangle ribbon tool down to wee little nubs. They came out of the kiln on Tuesday and I wrapped them up to take home. I did manage to "ring" one bell before I got out the door. I tested it against the concrete floor. Not recommended.

After sgraffitoing 4 mugs and 16 bells I was beginning to get a weird tingling shooting pain running up my forearm. I might have found a way to speed up the progression of carpal tunnel syndrome. I was also doing a pretty good impression of Quasimodo by the end of the day.
On another note, I am going to be learing the art of wood turning. Maybe tonight even. I am leaving it at that though, I don't want to give away my Christmas gift ideas to the possible recipients of said gifts.

I'm Back!

I have not had a chance to really process what I saw/learned over the weekend at the “Ceramic Voice” conference in Lexington. Nor have I even downloaded the last batch of photos that I took on the trip back. But these are the presenters whose workshops I chose to attend and in the order in which I saw them.

First there was Kevin Snipes

After lunch there was Karen Newgard

Sunday morning was Ron Meyers (fantastic!)

And lastly, Kurt Weiser. I was not sure about this one, as china painting, let alone painting, is not something in my vocabulary, but his talk was very informative and gave me some places I may travel to in my ceramic explorations.

All in all, a very cool trip, and I will post a few more pictures as I begin to process all of the “data”

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.

And another one before bed...

I must be crazy...

Murphy Sucks!

I mentioned in my last post that I would have some pictures of my latest firing. I need to retract that statement. In fact, what I should have said was that I am firing and if the kiln manages to fire properly, I will take pictures. I guess one of the elements shuffled off it’s mortal coil during my glaze firing on Sunday night. We thought all was well when we replaced a burned out element, a week or so ago, but lurking in the back ground was another element waiting to screw up a firing. This would not normally bother me too much, but the sale is only 9 days away, and now the student work will back up again. The kiln actually got to about cone 5, maybe 5.5, so everything looks ok from a distance, but when you actually get up close, you can see that most everything is under fired. The gloss glazes are very satin, the red bodies are too orange when they should be a dark nutty brown and the porcelain just looks dry & not quite vitrified. To remedy this situation, I am going to pack the lot up on Friday and load as much as I can into the slightly smaller kiln at Ceramics Canada and fire it off over the weekend. Then I will spend all day Sunday glazing the last few things I have not had a chance to get to, just in case I am able to load a kiln on Tuesday night (you never know). If not, then this is it, that’s all I can do. I always seem to think that I don’t have enough for a sale, when in fact, I always have too much. Kinda like when you are a kid, and you are confronted with a salad bar. You always load your plate up with more than you should, or that your stomach can hold, and you haven’t even had dinner yet. I recall once when my sister and I were little, my parents took us to Disney Land and we were in a restaurant with a very large salad bar. This salad bar was different than the ones we were used to though. It was kinda like a salad / dessert bar. My sister came back to the table with (no joke) a plate full of whipped cream instead of salad.
This sale does not require much in the way of prep, but I will need to price everything, so the night before the sale, I will be madly stickering, as usual.