Anderson Island Gift Shop is Open

Anderson Island is situated in south Puget Sound and, like other islands in the area, has it's own special history. The Anderson Island Historical Society was formed to preserve this history and part of their mission is to operate the gift shop in an old chicken coop that was part of the Johnson Farm. (For more information about the farm see http://andersonislandhs.org/)

This Saturday the gift shop will be opened after it's usual winter break and I will again have some of my pottery for sale. I have several baking/serving pieces that are new as well as some bowls and mugs. For such a small shop there is a wide variety of merchandise at all price points. If you are on the island during a weekend, stop by for a visit. The shop is open 12pm to 4pm Saturdays and Sundays.

Here is some of my work.

Bottoms Up

Well, bottoms are not up but they are on the pieces I threw last weekend. I also have attached lug handles on all the casseroles and for the three pieces with a galley rim, I have started working on a slab lid - a process I'm not very skilled at yet.

The white powder on some of the pieces is cornstarch which keeps the damp lid from sticking to the pot while being worked on.

The one urn from the weekend is progressing nicely though I need to cut the foot rim so it has "feet". Notice that the rectangular dish next to it hasn't had its bottom slab shaved to fit the walls.

A Productive Weekend

Our weekend house on Anderson Island has a potters' wheel in the basement and nothing else in the way of pottery equipment. Water must be brought downstairs and after throwing for a few hours, the resulting slurry is pitched outside to avoid clogging the plumbing.

But the advantage of working in the basement (huddled close to the wood burning stove) is that there are few distractions and I get lots of throwing done. This weekend was no exception.

At the end of the weekend I leave the wet pieces attached to bats and remarkably they make it back to town without incident in the back of our old VW camper. Except for the mugs and one urn, everything I threw this Saturday was without a bottom. I'm still enjoying the process of making altered casseroles.

The other photo shows a couple pieces after the sides have been decorated with texture and the walls moved into oval or rectangular shapes. The next step will be to attach a slab bottom once the clay is more firm.

Ovals

For the first time since November, I have gotten around to firing my gas kiln. With the winter holidays, company and entertaining, pottery making took a backseat to the pleasures of the season.

But now it is back to the pleasures of clay. I have been having fun making pots that have been altered into ovals. I throw the sides without a bottom and then once the clay is somewhat firm, it is manipulated into another shape. Add a slab of clay for the bottom, some lugs for handles and, voila!, a casserole.

Here is some recent work in different stages. The dish with the leaf stamp is waiting to be glaze fired, the large casserole with lid is drying and the other photos are of finished pieces.

Square Bowls

For several months now, I have enjoyed reading the posts of Nona Kelhofer in her blog "Spinning Madly On". I don't know how I stumbled upon her site but it must have been when I curiously clicked on a link in another potter's blog. Her posting about a workshop she attended and the philosophy of Wabi Sabi, was a breath of fresh air for me during a time when I was being hyper-critical of my work.

But the post of August 2009 where she described and photographed her method of making a square, hand built bowl got me off my pottery wheel and started me playing with ways to make pots using the slab roller I had recently purchased. Even though I started with her directions, the final results were very different which is the beauty of hand crafted work - the same process produces very different results in the hands of another person.

Here are the results of my work. Check out her blog of August 2009 and see the process and read her other postings.

Urns

Though their passing is not eminent (thankfully!) my brother and his wife have asked me to make funerary urns for both of them. This request has started me thinking about the size and shape and function of an urn and as a result I have made several pieces exploring this issue.

I have discovered that I perpetually underestimate the shrinkage that happens when clay dries and is fired. Even though I know to account for this 10-12% change in size, I continually underestimate the amount of clay needed. And as a result some of the urns should really be called "jars".

Because I'm very interested in texture, all of my jar/urns have some type of impressed design on them.

Summer Workshop with Vince Pitelka

This summer I attended a wonderful workshop given by Vince Pitelka. For a week we learned how to add colorants to clay and create "loaves" of different patterns with various colors. The colored clay usually was layered into different colors, then sliced and rearranged to make patterns. In this photo Vince is demonstrating how to make a basket weave loaf.

It was a particularly hot time in the Pacific Northwest with temperatures approaching 100 degrees and from this photo of Vince you can see that we were very warm inside the barn where we

met.

Vince, by the way, was a wonderful workshop presenter with lots of patience for those of us who kept slicing our clay in the wrong direction.

Here are a couple of photos of my first attempt at using the colored clay loaves made during the workshop. They have yet to be glaze fired so there is still room for failure - but I'm hopeful.