Separation Anxiety: A potters perspective

Separation anxiety?

So.. we’re going on like almost a month since the kiln took a turn for the worse, and lost it’s screws, and is sitting abandoned and broken at the Houston House, and I’ve found myself extremely agitated and just… not myself for the past week.

People have drugs, booze, and OCD disorders as coping mechanisms for stress. I’m truly starting to believe that mine was merely pottery. I’ve been feeling down with the stress of NOT getting a house, my sick Grandpa, and juried show deadline that is most likely going to pass without me be able to submit anything, which means most of my year will have to be written off as waste. It all agitates me.

I’ve spent a couple hours trying to pry rusted screws from this electric box from hell attached to the kin sitter, but I have no luck. I simply need someone with a power tool that has a screw extractor, or someone with a dremel who would simply slice it away.

I have no outlet to go to after stressful and dull days at work. I go home, watch TV, surf the web, and repeat, and my creative energy has nowhere to go but out the window. I feel like my enthusiasm is being crushed slowly by a compactor. I wonder if this is what Van Gough, or Monet would feel like if someone just took their oils, and drawing materials away. How can one cope when they’re consumed with ideas they can’t relay outward. Interesting.

I’ll be leaving for vacation to go out west in some hope to rejuvenate some passion and creativity from a new perspective without green fields, blue skies, and farms. I’m excited and anxious to see what awaits for me even with the growing wildfires only miles away from where we were planning on stay.
It should be an interesting trip. I’m excited to see what emotions it will provoke, and what ideas it will plant in my head.

I have nothing to show today, because I have no finished products, but hopefully I will soon when I can finally fire the glazed pieces.

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.

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.

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*

Glazes and the Craigslist mold adventure.

Well, the guessing game is over. My pieces have been fired in the kiln, and I was surprised by some results, and of course mostly disappointed with the rest, which is why I have decided to move onto working with under glazes, and stains for a while. I only have a couple of pieces that I took pictures of the finished product. The rest have been packed up in a box for future refirings, or whenever I get around to them again.

I ran into a bit of a surprise this past week. I was reading up on a tutorial on Ceramic Daily Art’s site about using slip casting molds as push and peel molds with stained clay. I was intrigued, so I went about on Craigslist to see if anyone was getting rid of their surplus of ceramic molds, and boy was it my lucky day. I’m used to seeing ceramic molds on Craigslist, but they usually are around 10-15 molds, and the seller usually wants over $100 for the whole bulk lot, which I usually shake my head and say, “Oh well", and pass on and wait for something better.

I got lucky last week. I found a guy in New Albany whos Dad used to run a ceramic slip manufacturing company and he was posting on Craigslist trying to get rid of the vast amount they had accumulated. In fact, the pictures he posted did no justice. The guy had literally a small hardware store sized barn full of racks and racks and RACKS of ceramic molds and was only asking for a mere $20 per four shelf rack. So, I was running away with these $17-$100 a piece molds for a damage of $40 at the end of the evening. I managed to make out with around 35-40 molds.

(RIGHT PICTURE: Our newly found treasures. )

I felt like I was on American Pickers, rummaging through this old man's collection of molds. He must have had around a couple thousand of molds. I was like a kid in a candy store as my husband pulled me away from the racks and racks of molds. The guy’s son told me about when business was booming, and the processes they went through to make the ceramic slip. They were extremely friendly and helpful, which is something that's hard to come by on Craigslist with the "Buyer beware" mentality.

The trip was successful as I got what I was wanting. I was able to find a teapot mold AND a separate mold for tea pot spouts and tea pot lids. <-- (My absolute worst enemy) Also, I was able to locate a lot of plain molds for plates, vases.. etc.

So there was much shuffling around, cleaning, fighting off black widows and organizing in the basement at the Houston House, and I used some empty shelves in the basement to house my small collection, because I know I’m not going to use all of them, so I figured they’d work out good for maybe a future class, or if someone else enthusiastic such as myself drops by the art league.
(RIGHT PICTURE: A 1960's lamp Crest mold we snagged.)

Speaking of the Houston House, I must be doing something right, because I have been asked by some of the ladies to teach a ceramics class, and don’t let my timid outward appearance and emotions fool you, I am E-X-C-I-T-E-D!

This will also give me an excuse to order some Speed Ball ceramic underglazes for me to test and for the class, as they are easier to paint with and not as much of a hassle as my experience with Stoneware glazes. I've used SpeedBall Stoneware, and underglazes. I wasn't impressed with the Stoneware Glazes they produce as they look very opaque, and look much like you tried to color your piece with a permanant marker. However, I was told the underglazes they produce with a stoneware top glaze usually turn out flawless.

Happy Trails until next time!

Guessing Game.

I'm hosting a guessing game for the next pieces I'm going to show. These pieces have been glazed in a couple of glazes, and are waiting to be fired in the kiln. Take a look at them, and decide what color they're going to turn out, and you'll see the finished product most likely within next week sometime.

I think most of you will be surprised at the outcome.

These next pieces have a concoction of ceramic slip and black pigment, or stain as it's called in the ceramic world.

And finally, a new piece called "The Heartstrings that bind us together."

Hi, Mom and anyone else who stops by!

This post is for mah Momma, so she can see my work.

I guess everyone else can look too. ;-)

Sitting lady with Calla Lily hat.

Small handled cup Tea-pot in progress Tea-pot lid

Tri leg mug Small vase w/ relief carving

Punk vase/Carving Flower pot

Mini Houston House Backside small female bust Frontside

Calla Lily Basket

Slip Cast Ash Tray

Stacking tea-cups (Duo piece) Thirsty Cat in a teapot (Duo piece)

Square mug (boring)

Plate etching of a Beardsley print.

Abby (Little Black Dog)

Octopus bowl

Swallow w/banner business card holders

Holland Leaf mold Holland Vase mold