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.

Lynnwood's 50th Celebration

The city of Lynnwood, located north of Seattle, is celebrating its 50th year as a city and asked for submissions for a show to commemorate the date. I'm pleased that my "Birthday Cake" made of clay and acrylic paint will be displayed with other artists' work.

The show, which runs from September 28th to November 12 with a reception October 3rd at 11 am, will be located at the Lynnwood Library on 44th Ave West.

On another topic, the sale at D Street was a splendid success. We had numerous folks drop by to visit and purchase pottery. Our seconds/old stock table in the backyard was very popular. The sale was so pleasant and profitable that we are already looking forward to our 4th annual sale in 2010.

Candleholders for a Wedding

Our younger daughter is getting married this fall and I volunteered to make votive candleholders for each of the approximately 120 guests.

Surprisingly this has been a fun opportunity to revisit some old glazes and try out new glaze combinations on different clays. 

I rummaged around in the buckets of test glazes from two years ago and found one particular glaze that may become my new favorite.

The first photo is of a batch of holders drying before the bisque firing.  The next two pictures are of a few of the finished pots. My new favorite glaze in on the left of the last photo.