so much going on here. arts and healthcare trip next week, pre-con in a few, and lots of shows coming up. let’s go!
Category Archives: Uncategorized
new stuff
bunch. porcelain, flocking, brazing rod, adhesive. 8.5 in. x 8 in. x 4 in. 2011.
huddle. porcelain, flocking, brazing rod. 8 in. x 8 in. x 4 in. 2011.
bowls!
it’s been a really busy semester already. in addition to the class i take with the other post-bacs i’ve decided to take a throwing class.
unlike a lot of the artists i’ve met, i came to ceramics through hand building, not the wheel and haven’t really ever taken a proper throwing class.
my first clay class, grade 9, 14 years old, i don’t even remember there being wheels. i never even gave it a thought. we made pinch pots, coil vases, carved out boxes, piggy banks and stylized figures. a lot of my work from that time still peppers my parents house (which isn’t embarrassing at all) and while the work wasn’t thrown, a large majority of it was functional. incense burners, mirror frames, tea pots, etc.
in the cramped space which would house the ceramics studio for the majority of my years there, my teacher would play country radio. if anyone complained, he’d turn it off altogether. making things out of clay was totally different than any other method i’d used before. three dimensionally i could actually make the thing i conceived of in my head, which was definitely not the case with two-d materials. the translation from 3d to 2d was just not something i was designed to do. this feeling of satisfaction, this amazing new skill was giving a country soundtrack and i’ve been a huge pop country fan ever since.
needless to say however, i was not happy for long with our teacher’s cheesy assignments. (king cone incense burner anyone?) but he had the ubiquitous stack of old ass ceramics monthly’s on the shelves and i would scour them every day, looking for ideas. i never stopped on the pages full of functional work though. however few and far between in those old 80’s cms, i would sus out the sculptures and try to replicate them. to this day i wish i could go back in time and read the captions under those photos that i emulated. who were these original influential artists?
so yes, hand building has always been my love, the thing burning inside of me seeking an outlet, but functional ware, well, that’s another story.
i love pots. maybe i love all handmade functional objects, hand bound journals, crocheted caps, hand stitched clothing, but seriously, for reals, i love pots. of all my collections, hand made pots certainly beats all others out in number. winter ends, my journal gets full, but i can use my kelly sullivan bowl everyday if i like and bill lennox’s crock holds my cooking utensils all the time.
but i never thought to make them, really, for more than a minute, until now. and i’m starting to feel the itch. bowls down, cups up next. stay tuned…
happy new year!
well today i changed the thermocouples in a few kilns, and helped put in a new element. let’s see, what else did i not know how to do a year ago? i definitely didn’t know how to change a relay, or, honestly, what a relay was, except for that it clicked when i pressed the button on the kiln. hmmmmm….i’ve learned new installation methods, worked with new materials and COLOR, although you can see in the first piece of 2011 i decided to keep it simple.
it’s been a pretty amazing year, looking back. life is a constant up and down, i know, but it’s good to stay focused on the positive
i spent 6 months in philly, doing artwork at arcadia with gregg moore and my awesome studio mates, helping the amazing paula winokur with many an installation, good talks and so inspiring, working with ppsepa, my fab coworkers, and my friend and roommate claudia (and the rest of the ph130 family), being part of the awesome show “approaching nature” which i definitely couldn’t have pulled off (the installation) without serious help from my sofla friends and NCECA in philly, many fun jobs and getting to see all of my favorite people. so nice. whew, 6 months in one long run-on sentence!
this fall i’ve spent in gainesville, fl at university of florida. i’ve gotten invaluable guidence from linda arbuckle, charlie cummings and ray gonzalez. in addition to pushing my work hardcore, learning how to (correctly) document my work and beginning my education in kiln maintenence and repair i’ve also been learning bike repair and even working with the local awesome women’s health center. what a great semester!
i think 2011 is going to be good. NCECA in Tampa/St. Pete, program assisting for our pre-con, a few awesome shows lined up, nan smith heading up our class now and I’m even taking a throwing class on the side. 🙂
with so many great things going on, i definitely have to take a minute to appreciate my friends and family and how much their support means. i set out a couple of years ago to pursue doing something i love, instead of something that pays the bills. it’s definitely a big pain at times but so far i think it’s worth it. one thing is for sure, i couldn’t do it with out all the awesome people in my life.
ok, on that note, happy new year!
hello gainesville!
well, i’m settling down in yet another temporary home. i guess i’m starting to get good at this. anyway, i am now in gainesville, fl doing a year of post-baccalaureate studies at the university of florida. gainesville and uf are both quite nice places. really a breath of fresh, oxygen rich air after philadelphia. philly is a amazing city but i am amazed at the unconscious sigh of relief i breathe when i look around and see so much green. proximity is much improved. i’m back to an 8 block (ish) bike ride to the studio which is sweet. this is a much bigger program then i’ve ever been a part of so space is limited, there is a snap of my work space above. this decrease in personal space is more than made up for in the huge and wonderful community, faculty and facility.
my favorite piece of equipment, at the moment, is the test soda kiln. it’s a small soda kiln that shares a chimney with a regular sized soda kiln(very similar to the soda kiln at the clay co.). it’s just one shelf (12×24) deep and you can stack 3-5 up depending on what your making. it’s firing away right now. very excited to see what comes out.
color!
i put a test of the blue porcelain in the gas kiln last week. didn’t look so hot. the body didn’t melt which was good but it got a little burned/dirty looking in reduction. in the electric it stayed a nice bright blue. the particular mason stain i used had vanadium in so it has a little yellowish hue which really came out in the reduction firing. i decided to go ahead and fire the little blue wall pieces to cone 6 oxidation with a wash of gerstley borate since it had worked so well on the white piece. the next day, while i was at work, one of my studio mates sent me a phone pic of the piece finished. i couldn’t totally tell what was going on but i was pretty excited. it looked amphibious……
i finally got to see it yesterday in person:
weird huh!? i wondered if it was some kind of anomaly so i sprayed the other piece and slid it in the test kiln and this morning i pulled this out:
so now i’m wondering, is that what happens to gerstley borate at cone 6, or is some kind glaze forming between the gb and the mason stain components. lot’s of questions. love it. especially love to see the BRAINS surface.
what up, aaa sod and supply.
went out to aaa sod and supply to get some crushed shell.
in 2008 they gifted the materials for this installation, and are total supporters of the arts.
garden path
first work of 2010
am i turning over a new leaf? no, not really, but i did delve into the new year making some functional work. the residents at st. pete clay (and a few others) are doing a shot glass exchange. i’m running around with a chicken with my head cut off with moving preparation and working as much as possible but i took a few hours on jan. 3rd to make some shot glasses. you can’t really tell from the images but they are just a little bigger than a large shot glass. i had to bring my operation inside to the kitchen counter because it was absolutely TOO cold to work outside.
the cups are currently roasting away in the annual anagama firing at the clay company. visiting artists don reitz, matt long and john ballisteri are captaining the firing. i was disappointed to have to be so much less involved than last year, but thems the breaks. i signed up for a stoking shift on saturday with some of my favorite girls (wilson, marlena) and we were kicking it old skool around the anagama. i have no idea what the p10 porcelain will look like wood fired, but hopfully it will be nice. i even lined them with shop clear. i felt like a real potter!
actually the kiln won’t be opened until after my departure for philadlephia, but i’ll happily await my first mail in philadlephia: a package of shot glasses from every resident 🙂
i have another shift coming up tuesday night which promises to busy and HOT and side-stoke-tastic.
it’s a bit of a bummer to be on the periphery of this exciting event, but what a nice way to say good bye!
the move is on…
the above picture is of some tiny sculptures i call the saskunei seeds. saskunei means “no worries” in the fukushima dialect of japanese. in late 2007 i attended a sweet kiln workshop in mashiko, japan. it was my first time to fire woodkilns and we fired 4 kilns in 4 days. one of those kilns was the saskunei smokeless kiln built by kusakabe masakazu. months later i would get to visit him at his studio in fukushima, two times and spend a couple of weeks there total. while i was visiting his studio, i made the sculptures above. pretty soon after that i returned to the united states for good. on the way back i had a layover in atlanta, which i extended so i could visit my good friend and potter kelly sullivan. she works over at an awesome studio/gallery mudfire and during the visit, i got to do some work there. i made some monster sculptures and more of these little seeds, which she fired and glazed after i headed back to florida. over one year later, on a trip up to bowling green, ohio, a friend and i stop in on her and after all this time i get to see the finished peices. when i returned to my studio in st. pete, i decided to make a some more of these little guys, as favors for the folks who purchased work from my exhibition. i’ve given a lot of them out as little gifts, but kept at least a few from each batch, and i’ll keep making them.
which brings me to the next stop on this train line, philadelphia, pa. i’ve “graduated” from my residency in st. pete and in january i’ll be moving up to philly. i started this blog to write about the good times, struggles and process of the clay life and hopefully the next year will bring more to write about.
hot out of the kiln.
last post before atomic. i’ll definitely post remotely from the bazaar with pics of everything going on. come on down and get a group of these little guys for your home. i’ll also have some of the large wall peices and an assortment of rattles and tiny sculptures.