wall pieces drying
i’m going into production mode with these wall peices. my goal is to get my etsy store open by january 1st. i’ll feature these peices initially and move into offering more work.
i’m enjoying production, but with the new year will come new work…..
wow, what do i do with all this free time? i guess that having a deadline really amped me up to work. i have been assessing everyday, figuring out what hours could be spent in the studio coiling, and now (post deadline) i’m experiencing the inevitable let down. i spent some time with my sketch (list) book yesterday working on what i’d like to do next. gotta get back to work.
yesterday i worked my a.i.r. day. j and i did a lot of hard, glamourous work, like cleaning some funky ass bathrooms (a weekend of 24/7 use, yeah!), loading up 3 bisque kilns and 1 glaze kiln and cleaning up the kiln pad for the unloading next week. the dumpster was full, so we couldn’t even do the trash until the garbage truck came, and then whooo the large amounts of trash we had. but to be honest that is why i like working tuesdays, there’s always a lot to do. it’s satisfying to make a dent in the work load and i’ve learned a lot from j.
this week don reitz and john ballisteri are firing spcc’s anagama with us. what an honor to work with and learn from such respected potters.
yesterday i rushed home from work and to the studio. the studio was full of people glazing. wonky bottles and tea bowls covered the glaze room counters (ballisteri’s work). things seemed to be wrapping up. the studio emptied out, i stayed and worked for a few hours, but didn’t get much done. i headed home for some dinner and then to j and j’s to drink some beer.
yesterday was kind of uneventful, but today more than made up for it. got to the studio by 9:30 am, people are still glazing, slicing up soft brick, bringing out boards of ware. we all gather round to get the run down, chunky, delicate, 5 inch, 9 inch, etc. wad with glue (not saliva?) and slightly in, in case glaze runs.
we are like ants (someone says) buzzing back and forth with more work for the kiln. j, k and i bring out some large relief tiles of don’s and when i tell them where they are he says “thanks for bringing them out, thanks, thanks so much.” he is so sweet.
kiln shelves need wash, r tells me how to make it and i start measuring out alumina oxide and epk, j from bowling green helps me mix it up into a slurry. we bring it out and start rolling it on. i love community activities like this. while we are inside mixing the wash, other folks have laid out all the kiln shelves on 2 x 4s and started chipping off any previous glaze runs. so we’re all chipping, and rolling and j is going behind us, wiping off drips from the sides of shelves.
the loading starts, wadding rolled into balls, dipped in elmer’s glue, stuck to pots, small station are set up, folks are in the kiln, others are spread out finding the right size. j, j and i make cone packs, though our high temp cone packs get shot down by ballisteri for not being slanted enough, so i remake those with help from k. it’s great fun to learn and repeating things just helps this along. spent awhile in the kiln as part of the human chain moving work in.
i tried to float around as much as i could today, doing a little bit of everything. around 4:30pm things wrapped up and around then m stopped by and i got to show her around the studio and my apartment. it was fun to share a little of my st. pete life with her.
to add some kick ass frosting this 3 cake of a day k invited everyone to a meal at her house. k has an utterly amazing ceramic art collection in her house and she hosted a lovely evening for us. we all got to enjoy some conversation with each other and relax. i felt very lucky to be part of this day. hard work, awesome artists, awesome art, learning tons of shit, speaking japanese with don reitz…it was really super great!
sorry, no pictures, but i’ll work on that.
one of the bushes burst. yup that’s right. the 3 bushes are not out of the kilns yet but i peeked in on the medium bush (which had become one of my favorites) and the top had fallen in. i was soaking it for a long time so that the water wouldn’t make it explode, but at the end of the day it was stupid short cut taken in construction that caused the damage. i’m not sure if it will be repairable, but i went ahead and fired it hoping it will be. given the time crunch, i ended up with two parts of the bush with very different amounts of dryness. the bush was a sweet leather hard, and if there had been more time for it to dry with support it might have been ok, but popping that leather hard bush into the kiln with a heavy, built up area that was still a lot softer and speed drying it just didn’t work. it collapsed.
rough, but that’s the way it goes. the kilns fired off, and tomorrow they will be cool enough to unload. tuesday morning in nice light i will spray them with glaze and fire them one last time. other than that i am in full mixed media mode, trying to prepare for installation friday.
i am so sad about my clay shortage because i could have really cranked out work today. but i did unload the big bush. no cracks! tall bush is firing away. i emailed orton about the timer question and got a reply back today. the kiln has to be programmed in minutes, so what i thought was h.mmm is just m.mmm or mmmm. mystery solved. thanks jim at orton!
i finished one small bush and added some coils to the medium (?) bush. going to be standing by until tuesday when highwater opens.
j moved into his studio today, so the a.i.r. space is full. j and j were cleaning his space up and (lacking clay) inspired me to tidy up my space. in the last few weeks the floor of my studio has grown a layer of dust and scraps about an inch thick. looking quite good now, yeah! also got a impromptu handle lesson from s. kind of walked into that by mistake but love the teaching atmosphere that was going on.
i’ve forgotten to take pics again but coming soon.
today was the first day i was able to spend an unlimited amount of time in the studio. i didn’t spend the entire day there, running out to drop off and pick up my bike from the shop, picking up lunch on the way, and shopping at the health food store (where i picked up some grains to go with my organic coop veggies) but i did spend a fair whole lot of it. and i have to say i accomplished a lot less clay wise than i have been. there were a lot more distractions being at the studio in the day time, but for the most part they were welcome, and i did finish up the tall bush today so that pretty much ruled.
i also did a little experiment today. one of the members at the studio was interested in using gold leaf on ceramic. she wanted to fire it on. r had told her that it could be done, but wasn’t sure how to do it. together we searched on the internet and found a few threads on clay art about it. some said it couldn’t be done, some said you needed pure gold or silver, some said to fire it up to cone 022. so i gave her a little bisqued plate i had laying around and told her to use it for some testing, that we could fire it quickly in the baby test kiln. she coated it with leaf, and it looked great. we suspected it might burn off. it only took a couple of hours to fire to cone 022 in the baby kiln and before i left tonight i took a quick look. it didn’t burn off, but for some reason the plate cracked right in half. i don’t know what could have caused that, but on the up side, the gold leaf survived. i’ll investigate more tomorrow, but it seemed to stick well enough to the bisqued plate, with no addition of flux.
here are some photos of today work.
just a note on what it is i’m trying to do here. just saw some nice comments from someone who’s blogging i really respect and which has continually inspired me for the last couple of years. when i was abroad i checked regularly mindfully mothering blog. if you know me, you know that i’m not motherly inclined (at least not in the last 29 years.) but mindfully mothering, in addition to updating me on my great friend and her partner and 2 of the most awesome kids i’ve ever met (and i’m really not a kid person, meaning that i’m not good at pretending, or particularly fun, and kids just generally aren’t into me, but around max and bella i always feel like an awesome adult) has something special about it. that’s michelle’s awesome writing style, and her ability to always be authentic. it might be hard to see the connection but mm gave me permission to live in tokyo and not LOVE every moment of it, which was really helpful, since i wasn’t.
now i’m back, and feeling like i am taking some significant steps towards my goals, living my life in a way that feels really productive and right and i’d like to record a bit of that, for myself as well as my friends and other artists. because becoming an awesome artist is amazing but it also sucks my ass sometimes.
as i write this i am thinking about the shower i’m about to get in to wash off all the grime from a day spent hauling and stacking 10 cords (a whole freaking lot) of wood with 7 other awesome folks who are on a similiar path to mine.
i’m going to rest for awhile then head back to the studio because i’m really into it right now. there’s a 50 pound sculpture there that needs my attention because it’s going to dry out and crack up if it doesn’t get it, or parts that i’ve wetted down will turn to mush if they sit too long. it’s like a living thing and shit is coming out of my mind, my compost heap of images, experiences and knowledge to grow it.
it sounds woo woo, but i’m often, these days, experiencing “good job nicole” moments which is a little woo woo for me too.
time-consuming!
leaves and skins!
more coils!
it’s saturday night, no one else is in the studio but me and m. we’ve both been about to leave for hours.
keeping on, today i worked for over 5 hours. it feels good to get into the groove of things, but it’s also kind of shocking how long some things take. it’s easy to forget that for a seemingly simple little detail you still have to do steps 1-5 before you even attach something. i don’t mean that’s it’s easy for the viewer to overlook that point, i mean that it’s easy for me to forget. i have often looked at past work and honestly wondered how i’d done something. the last week for me has been about remembering sequence. remembering how to do. a and i often joke about the bodies of work we have in our head. but physically making the work is time consuming. it’s been very interesting to me to see the progress of 2 pieces, which will be just 2 of many in this upcoming installation. art making is very base problem solving. i kept working today thinking i would finish the bush. at the end of the day i couldn’t. i am hoping that i will be able to finish tomorrow. that would feel awesome.
the bush
the bush closer up
a bit closer
see the leaves?
yesterday after work i stopped at tijuana flats, thinking i’d pick up something real quick and head to the studio. a dish of flautas later i was so stuffed i could barely make it home. i always forget with american food you can only eat half. you must take half home or your belly will burst. you think, oh it’s so good, and there’s only a couple more bites. no, you really have to take that bit home don’t you?
i finally made it into the studio at about 9. i tried watching pushing daisies on tv, but my mind kept floating back to the bush and the big, as of yet unnamed, pile of coils in the studio. i was itching to get the bush done, so it can start drying and getting ready to be fired.
i worked for three solid hours. i got a lot of height on the coil monstrosity. this is going to be kind of a tree, but i haven’t made any leaps yet as to how it’s going to look.
the bush got some new pods on it. i left about 7 pods on a ware board hardening up all day and they got a little too hard, so i had to pitch them. i pinched out four more pods, and some “leaves” to fill in space around the the pods. I’m going to add a texture to the rest of the bush that will not make it too hard to move. i also decided to add 4 cut outs to the bottom of the bush to help with moving it.
here is a shot of my studio space. it’s full!
