catching up!

Wow! You have been severely neglected dear blog. This doesn't mean I haven't been stirring the melting pot. Maybe I have been so busy stirring I haven't had time to blog. (Or - confession here - I've been spending WAY too much time in facebookland:)
I did have a shoulder injury that kept me from potting for a year, so I will start off with a picture post of the pots that were partially to blame. Two giant (for me - as they were wheel thrown on a less than powerful wheel and had to fit in my teensy little kiln) vases for friend - James Beard Award winning writer - Greg Atkinson's new Restaurant Marché on Bainbridge Island.

winter studiotour '09

candlesticks

Remember these?

Glazed in Pebble Blue

table top

from mud to wonky candle sticks

This is quite a funky wonky collection of candelabras. I still don't know what to think of them. They're kinda cute in a "only a mother can love them" way. I'm not sure if they were worth the effort but I did have fun playing in the mud. And it has been a useful exercise in how much abuse the clay (and I) can take.

I have been working on creating a line of utility ware for my etsy store while still staying within the Mediterranean Classics. I was inspired by a pair of "marble" bowls that I've thrown years ago and still love and use regularly. I would have continued to make more, but the use of black clay was soon verboten in the studio I worked in at the time. (Something to do with my messy work habits maybe?) Anyway, while trying out different white porcelains to mix with the "midnight black" from Seattle Pottery and the right proportions, I made a pretty big mess of things and ended up with a bucket full of scraps and mud. Not wanting to be wasteful, but without the help of a pug mill or even a wedging board I set out to create something, well anything really. After an "entertaining" struggle with air bubbles and lumps - it made shaping the neck of the vase in the previous post feel like buttah - I ended up with a bunch of wonky aka "characterful" candle sticks. Now all I need to do is figure out how to glaze them, if at all. Any suggestions? MAybe I'll try to raku them. Not my favorite procedure normally, but it could be just the right thing. I will post the results when available.

messy room (my "studio")

This is my "studio" slash cat-room slash sun-room. It's not insulated or heated and either freezing or boiling. But once in a while I manage to get in there when the temperature is tolerable. But it's SO nice to be able to work at home. I'm still potting at the Eagledale arts center as well - it's good to be social and I still have many! questions, but I no longer despair when classes are on break.

On the wheel is my latest venture into antiquity, a Tang Dynasty inspired dragon-handled urn. I am still very much inspired by post Bronze-age Mediterranean cultures, but I'm not averse to more Asian influence. In particular Ritual Asian Bronzes. After all it is widely believed that the makers of Shang Dynasty bronzes were influenced by Mediterranean craftsmen. A bit all-over the map and all-over many time lines; easily justified as an archeological stir in the ol' cultural melting pot.   

  

A Shang period inspired "bronze" that I'm offering as a custom order in my shop on ETSY.

I made this one for a friend as a funerary urn for her dog's ashes. 

         

I spotted this "bronze" pool side at Casa Dali - 

Salvador Dali's house, now a museum, in

Port Lligat, Spain.

                                                                                            

first kiln, first wheel, first sale!

First: I sold my first pot! Thanks to my dear friend and painter Holly Collins it was less traumatic than I thought. I was not all too ready to part with my favorite piece, but I'm happy it's found a new home with my friends in Vancouver. Holly just opened an ETSY store herself. You should check out her colorful and sparkling pique-assiette christmas trees and other treasures in Holly's store at ETSY  She was in town to attend a glassblowing workshop - who knows what she'll do next - and visiting old Bainbridge friends Trudy and (incumbent - soon to be re-elected - congressman) Jay Inslee. Great to see them again too. Jay just got back from campaigning in Spokane. Not for himself - I'm sure his seat is safe - but for our governor, Christine Gregoire. I think he gave it all he got - he was as hoarse as Bill Clinton on the stump. So, we missed him for dinner, but us girls had a pretty good meal, with a lot of laughs at the "Four Swallows" on Bainbridge. Maybe a few too many and certainly way too loud. Our waitress commented on how nice it was to have some noise in the restaurant, quite unlike most nights after 9 pm on a  Saturday on Bainbridge!? Shows you how "exciting" this town is and why we never bother to eat out. Didn't quite know how to take her comment either. We took it as a clue that, since we were the only ones left beside the staff table, we should maybe clear out. My mussels were cooked fine, but the taste of the broth was overwhelmed by canned tomatoes.

Second: I bought an - electric - kiln and wheel today!!

Yeah, the mudslinging at home can start in earnest now - after I get the kiln hooked up to 240 volts that is. I can't tell you how excited I am. Of course I'm still thinking about the gas kiln too . . . Maybe if I sell a few more pieces next weekend in - oh I had not mentioned - a show I've been invited to join by my instructor Sherri Grossbauer. It's the "Art in the Woods" self-guided studio tour on November 7, 8 & 9. You can find a brochure online at www.cafnw.org. Sherri has offered to "host" my work in her studio space: Mud Club Pottery and I couldn't be more thankful. 

Pots ready for the show!

gas or electric?

The day has finally come to acquire my own kiln. No, the gas or electric question has nothing to do with my kitchen. That was an easy choice made years ago: out! with the electric coils and in! with the 6 burner, griddle and 2 oven Viking gas stove. No, it's time to set up a ceramics studio at home. With x-mas break looming - 8 long weeks until the Eagledale Art Center opens up again - panic has set in. I will no longer put up with pottery withdrawal syndrome. Off to craigslist it is then. Thankfully there are plenty potters who dabble in muck and mud for a while only to realize that you can't strike it rich being a potter and eventually give up. Today's CL has no fewer than 8! kilns waiting for new owners. That's not even counting the one (electric kiln) I'm going to look at tomorrow - guess they think they've sold it to me already. Maybe, maybe not. I looked at a gas kiln last week, but I'm sitting on the fence. Up till now I had fired all my pots in a cone 10 gas kiln, with great results. But a handbuilt piece - I call it the "are-you-coming-or-going?-goat", had me worried that it wouldn't survive the gas kiln. My incredibly resourceful instructor Sherri Grossbauer suggested I fire it in the electric kiln. I knew that I didn't like the way the glaze (Pinell Strontium Blue, aka Weathered Bronze) turned out in cone 5, so we tried cone 6. To great result! So here we go with my dilemma. To gas or to electric? The gas firing process seems daunting, but I love so many glazes that need the reduction you can only get in a gas kiln. On the other hand, this glaze is beautiful in either kiln AND my pieces will shrink less. I guess I will make up my mind tomorrow!