Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Down Time: Inspiration Time



With the kiln temporarily out of business. All you can do is surf the interwebs, and be inspired, but other’s works. It’s nice, because it gives you some time to prep for what you need to work on, and also learn new ideas to test out.

I have a lot of things happening this summer that are keeping me anxious. In July the husband and I will be adventuring out to the wide open West. Well, we’re going to Amarillo, TX anyways, to visit my Grandparents who are in need of a long overdue visit. This will mostly be a bigger adventure for my husband, who has really never been out west. I can’t say that the Vegas strip counts. So, he is in for a very, very, VERY long drive.


Since my Grandparents are so close to New Mexico we have decided to adventure over to Santa Fe, and up towards Taos for the week. I can’t really tell you how excited I am about this, because I don’t think words can describe. I hope to check out the Georgia O’Keefe museum, and the New Mexico Folk Art museum and Folk Art Market. I’m REALLY crossing my fingers that I can come by some cool day of the dead goodies to bring back home.



Though it’s not highly seen in my pottery, I have a lot of Mexican influences in my personal paintings, and drawings. One of my favorite artists is Frida Kahlo in which she can tell you so much about her life within one painting. I can only inspire to be like that, and it is amazing when you draw out your problems how they can bring so much closure to the soul. A painting is as if you are screaming out to the world what is bothering you, but it’s not in a sense so literal. I love the secrecy behind it all. It is my way of coping with the knocks that life brings to me sometimes.

Anywho, I wanted to share some ceramic pieces from different artists that have inspired me in some way, or another.






Meredith Host-- Ceramic Art Daily's "2011 Best Emerging Artist"



Kathy King-- "Delicious Plate"



Kathy King-- "Home Stacked Vase"




Cary Weigand-- "I am really just the surface of a Grand Ocean"

Just reading how Cary makes her pieces is interesting in itself. She constructs some of the pieces almost like origami, and just attaches everything in small pieces until she reaches the desired mass she's looking for.



Monday, May 16, 2011

What happens when an electric kiln does not shut off

Lets just go ahead and file this past week under the folder titled “Week from Hell”, because it was. Besides a lot of personal conflicts going on with cars, houses, repairs, and finances, I walked in on Saturday opened the kiln, which hadn’t been unloaded all week, and saw that my pieces had completely melted down into stone pancakes.

So after some chiseling, slicing my finger, and a mental breakdown, it was labeled a loss, and the kiln shelf was placed in the basement until I can configure a better way to pry my pieces off without breaking the shelf. I was successful on one of the smaller half shelves in getting it cleared, but the plates are proving tricky, and time consuming.

Yes, I am greatly disappointed, for the financial fact that I am out two gallons of slip. However, I am thank-ful that these were not hand built pieces, which took a lot of time for me to construct. These were just some cast molded pieces, but either way it’s sad to see your work go to the garbage.

Not everything melted down. One of my wheel thrown creamers made it, Paul’s sculpted head bust made it, and another stoneware piece survived. I did however, have two pieces that exploded on the bottom level. This kiln firing could be seen as absolutely disastrous.

What caused this mess?

The small electric box on the side of the kiln, which holds the mechanisms for the kiln sitter had fallen out of place after the screws rusted off the side of the kiln, which caused the lever that sits on top of the pyrometric cone to not fall, thus it had no way of cutting off the electric to the kiln.
I am only thankful that there was a class the next day, and they turned off the kiln after complaining about the heat… otherwise, this could have turned into something much more than just some melted pottery.

Another day, another lesson and -$20 in the bank.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Taking care of Biz-nazz

So it’s official. The juried show I have been anticipating to hear about has finally spoken and they’ll be accepting vendor applications in June, which I imagine they’ll close registration by July. So, I am like a mad woman. No more time for playing, and experimenting. It’s what they call, “Go time.”

I made one more stop over at Dave and Jim’s barn to pick up some needed molds I was missing for my collection. That was mostly a mission accomplished. I failed to find any mug, or decent cup molds in their collection. I picked one mold up that I thought was the one. It was a perfect sized mug, but I turned it around and to my disgust rather than surprise, an eagle. Oh, I didn’t escape unscathed from the hoakie eagle molds. I have some wall plaque thing that was in my shelf of products.

I did acquire a bunch of pitchers, and it looked like a group of multi sized kitchen canisters (IE: Flour, sugar, tea, etc). So, I guess what I have will suffice. I won’t be making anymore trips out to New Albany, but man, what a good deal that was. I was starting to think that ceramics was becoming an overly expensive hobby.

Oh yeah, we found this giant KOI fish mold. It’s pretty insane. Paul’s pretty excited about it, and I’m just excited about the fact that I’ll never have to buy dishes, or flower pots ever again.

Anyways, on to the fun stuff…

I had Paul pick up some porcelain slip this weekend, which I was expecting it to be much more different from the stoneware slip I have grown accustomed, too, but I actually like the porcelain more. It poured smoother, and was less gritty and clumpy. I also had Paul pick up some ceramic stain they had a sell on, although it wasn’t the shade of green pigment I wanted, it’ll do for the time being. I went ahead an added some of it to the porcelain slip.

The disaster struck as to be expected. After casting one of the coffee pot molds, which I thought was banded tightly, the mold separated and green slip oozed out onto the table, then on the floor. (Sorry Karen!!!) However, we cleaned it up, I saved some of the slip, and was able to at least cast this smaller two handled dish, the matching lid for it, and a smaller dish, which Paul fudged up after trimming some excess off the leather hard piece.


So there was one piece to rule them all, which got stenciled with a pinup.




By the way, I have created a logo stencil. Isn’t it cute!? It looks like Abby!






Earlier this week, I attempted using the wheel again in which, I made this piece, attempted another, failed, and threw a tantrum and quit. The wheel is not my forte... obviously.

On Sunday, we cast a few more pieces in plain porcelain, which I’ll check on today, and hopefully, I’ll have a large enough load to kiln before the week is up. I still have a few more stencils I have been dying to try.

This week will be filled with me make a lot of slab built stoneware mugs, since I didn’t find my hand-dandy mold, but all is good. I can boast, that I make a mean stoneware slab built mug, and after all of this excitement of casting, stenciling, and kilning is over, then comes the glazing, and I am SOOO dreading that. *tear*