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…..
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.
confusing moment today and a minor set back.
first of all, i loaded the tall bush today. this time i loaded into one of the kilns which i tend to like less. it has a different computer than i am used to, an orton autofire, and i understood that it needed lengths of time input in minutes. j was standing by, lending me moral and technical support. when i went to enter in the 24 hours soaks, there wasn’t enough space on the screen. it was set up like this h.mmm. h is hours, m is minutes. finally j pointed out that a 3 digit soak in minutes could still be long enough so i programmed in a 999 minute soak. this was after putting in a call to the kiln service and getting no answer. i also sent off an email to orton, since i didn’t have much luck finding a users manual in the studio or online. i talked with jamie a bit about what kind of schedules she uses. at this point i’m still a little unclear, like, why hold at 90 degrees, or 140, instead of 100 or 150, when your going up in incriments of 25? and why stop and do a major hold at 180 vs. 200 when the boiling point is 212 degrees. ??? i’m trying to take r’s advice and just talk to everybody, see what they do and then work out my own preferences.
so tall bush is officially firing. i am working on one more major bush and then i was going to use a big round mold to pop out a few more bases, when, after rolling out the slab for one, i realized that highwater clay had closed for the weekend and i was out of clay. totally out. well, save about 8 pounds which will maybe be enough to finish one of the in progress peices i have going on. maybe enough.
yikes. i was planning to work a lot this weekend, and then focus on firing and glazing, but that’s going to have to change since i can’t get more clay until tuesday. yikes.
i guess this will give me a chance do so some research, and work on the non clay aspects of this installation.
also, i borrowed some plaster slabs from j and starting playing with some slip i had laying around, trailing on the plaster with a 60 cc syringe in octopus like shapes. ceiling hangy things? christmas ornaments? we’ll see.
finally saw s in his studio and asked for his advice on what kind of firing schedule to use to fire the bushes. i had also written to my former professor and asked r. i didn’t really feel comfortable trusting my research alone. most of the studio work gets fired at standard schedules, but they would be a bit too fast for my work, since it so big and also still quite wet. s went through a detailed schedule with me and even programmed the kiln on his way out. one of the reasons i am doing this residency is to learn technical skills i’ve never gotten.
so r helped me put the big bush in the kiln (unfortunately they wouldn’t both fit) and i started the first of two 24 hour soaks. it might be a a little overkill, especially after picking up the bush and realizing that it was far lighter than it looked but at least this way nothing should crack. knock on wood.
n and friend were in the studio tonight. it’s such a different atmosphere when other folks are around. i don’t always get as much done, but it’s nice.
notes: it’s freezing. i biked today and my bike is in great shape, post tune up. also, dinner tonight: organic veggies and my new favorite grain, kasha. yum!
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.
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!
finally getting into the swing of things, work wise. i worked a lot less, this week, and that got me four days in the studio, actually working. i may be sorry when my paycheck comes, but that’s the way it’s going to have to be. my bills are pretty minimal and i am able to stay mostly stocked with food by visiting my parents house (yum!) but this month had some major put outs, i.e. buying the 300sd and driving down to west palm to get it. pretty minimal, you might think, but i’m a paycheck to paycheck kind of girl. so i’m trying to lay as low as possible this week and hope that my pay covers next months bills. creative clay gives me a little extra cash each week, though my four hours there are so delightful, i sometimes forget i’m getting paid. i am hoping to add on a few more hours with there art link program. one of their member artists and and artist like me are linked up and create a body of work over a period of time (9 months?) and then during the summer there is a show. i was super impressed with this summer’s show. two artists i know and there art link partners made some very involved installations, one with found objects and one with sewn dolls. working on the garden path installation right now has got the wheels in my head turning about how i could work with one of cc’s artist on a full scale installation with clay or found objects. cc is a good combo of “working” and making art with a little bit of hanging out and bonding thrown in. i’ve definitely noticed when you work with other artists on a weekly basis, you start building a relationship.
anyway, the point was, trying to work less, and make art more. i’m trying. whew is it hard though sometimes. i think i should start taking snap shots each day as i leave the studio and post them here so i can see my progress over time.
of course, i love my job too. i spent the summer trying to learn as much as i could, and to get as good as i could at it so that when i got this residency i could shift my focus briefly to learning everything about it. and hopefully a great equilibrium will eventually exist.
ok, i’m out.