Well here we are in Minneapolis!!! The high temperature today was 68 degrees...heaven!!! While I am sad to leave my family and friends in Arkansas I am NOT sad about leaving 105 degree weather...in June...what will July and August be like!?! This has been the hottest June on record in the state and I still have enough northerner in me to really dislike the heat! As we were loading up the truck on Saturday full of 200 pounds of plaster, 300 pounds of clay and another 150 or so pounds of plaster molds in this heat the (probably overly simplistic) thought of.."I should have been a graphic designer...all I would need is my laptop and some clothes" did enter my mind and few times!

Bill (my husband), who is far more tolerant of the heat, was more than willing to get in the back of the truck (with the cab on) and shift around clay and plaster for 2 hours between noon and 2pm! I think he must be crazy but I certainly feel lucky that he is because it was really helpful!

The truck half packed...

As of this Sunday morning we had the studio only half packed, I still needed to load all of my clay tools, mixed glazes, and other miscellaneous items that I think I will use. I am taking a no limit approach to moving the studio but have limited myself to one suitcase for clothes etc.!

It was hot again Sunday, Bill felt like it was worse than Saturday, so packing up the rest of the truck required some air conditioning breaks but by the evening we finally had the truck packed to the gills....Bill couldn't fit in his bike but was over the heat and kind of done with packing. After waking up Monday at 5am! he was revived and willing to successfully repack the truck so he was able to fit on both of our bikes!!!

The truck packed absolutely full

We hit the road by 7am which was 2 hours later than planned but the ride was still pretty cool the whole way to Kansas City (of course we were both partially deaf upon arrival from the wind that had been whipping our ears from both open windows going 80 down the highway (Bill drove). It is here that I should add we drove my truck... beat up as it looks it does only have 128,000 miles on it but alas no air conditioning (being a true Northerner I thought A/C was for wimps and promptly sold the unit that came with the truck (but not installed) when I was in graduate school (I needed the money). The truck drove like a champ! I have since learned that A/C in the South is the equivilent of heat in the North...and I love it!

Lunch on the way to K.C.

We were tired and hot when we arrived in KC so we didn't really do much other than take naps, eat dinner, shower and sleep. We woke again at 5am to hit the road to Minneapolis! We stopped for breakfast in downtown KC before we left town and someone tried to break into our truck cab! Bill...the real hero of the story...had packed the truck sooooo tightly that the thief who had opened the back of the cab was thwarted, unable to pull Bill's bag out of the pile! It was full of Bill's clothes so the thief would have been disappointed but Bill was happy he still had his shirts and boxer shorts!

The ride to MN was great, a cloudy day which made for a cooler (less windy) ride. We made it into town around 2:30 checked into a hotel (where we are staying for the first 2 nights) and went straight to the Northern Clay Center. We were given a tour of the place by the residency director Sarah Millfelt, she intoduced us to all of the folks in the office, many of the artists working in the space and the gallery director and assistant. The gallery space is beautiful, broken up into a large two roomed retail space, a third and fourth room for exhibitions, at the moment last years McKnight residents and McKnight fellows. The building is huge, as I said large gallery spaces, 4-5 huge communal studios where community classes for adults and kids take place, a big kiln room with 4 gas kilns two of which are soda kilns and about 7 -8 electric kilns, a glaze room, a ceramics library, a clay storage room, about 20 or more private studio spaces where people are juried in,a communal kitchen and of course the Mcknight residents studio. The McKnight studio is minimally outfitted, a space with a few tables and some shelves facing huge windows that look out into the parking lot but it will be perfect for what I need.

Bill in my new studio space above and below the wall of windows on the other side (a little like a fishbowl)
Above is one of the three or four community studio spaces and below is four of the studios gas kilns, two are soda kilns

Below is one of two retail gallery spaces and below is one of two exhibition rooms, you can see the doorway to the other space in the back.As we were touring the spaces and galleries I was getting anxious...the feeling of pressure that comes from being surrounded by so much good work and so many talented people and I'm supposed to be this (sort of biggish deal) resident. It felt like (and continues to feel like) graduate school all over again. In my mind I am thinking "how did I get here?...all of these people are so talented" I just had to keep telling myself that I've got them all fooled, most don't even know what my work looks like and was just really lucky, so if I just work hard enough maybe I will make something good enough to not look like I don't know what I'm doing! It is an odd thing to be in a field where there is no "right" answer, there is very little in the way of proof that you are good or talented beyond technical skill, and it is hard to explain a good idea ahead of time, plus no one cares what your good idea is (unless you are in school)...they want to see the results of your good ideas then there can be an assessment. The problem is that the process of getting to those results in this environment all happens in public, and with certain expectations of success (I often equate it with writing a paper with the entire class watching the whole process over your shoulder from beginning to end, not just reading them the third, fourth or final draft...they can see if you can't spell and don't know proper punctuation!) On the other hand that environment can drive you to do better and work harder. "Work harder do better" is going to be my mantra...of course at the moment with Bill here (which I am very happy about) it is a little difficult to jump right in and work like a maniac! But I have time and so I will enjoy our time here together and then work work work.

Within and hour or so of arriving we unpacked all of the truck...Bill again, a hero! and that took some serious time and muscle. After all the supplies were in the studio we left the Clay center we went out to dinner with an old girlfriend of Bill's who happened to be in Minneapolis for a few days and Tuesday was the only night we could all get together. She is very nice but it is here that I should mention it was also Bill's and my second wedding anniversary! Yes I am the least jealous and most laid back wife of all time...and to be honest we were both so tired and dirty from unpacking the truck that a big nice anniversary dinner was not on the rada

Wednesday we went back to the studio to learn about kiln sign up and material usage (how to schedule firing in a very busy studio and how to keep finances straight when using Clay Center materials) and to arrange the studio. We had to run out to get a few supplies, I covered the table which was wood and covered with red clay with padded vinyl like I have at home and mixed and measured two kinds of casting slip. I am trying to turn my commercial clay (the clay I use to throw with) into casting slip which requires that I slice it up, dry it out and reconstitute it with water and sodium silicate or darvan 7 (both are deflocculants which make the clay liquid without adding as much water as would be required without the deflocculant). I also ordered 50 lbs of premixed dry clay from Continental Clay supply which is nearby, I will test this one too. To test it means to see if it fires to the tempuratures I want, that it has the required durability, and most of all that my glazes "fit" (they don't crack off or craze, fine crackle lines in the glaze) etc. I will mix those, cast some pieces and do some glaze tests and we will see how it goes.

The living situation (I think) will be great! We are going to Josie's (the woman who I am renting from) tomorrow. We drove past her place though and it looks great! It is bright blue, 5 blocks from the Clay Center, two blocks from a natural food co-op and both her house and the Center are surrounded by Ethiopian, Thai and Vietnamese restaurants and groceries (they sell injera in the grocery)...heaven on earth I think! It is also a block in the other direction from a bike path that goes around the river! Bill is sure I will never go beyond a 5 block radius from the Clay Center and he may be right!

Tonight we are relaxing and tomorrow Bill will drop me off at the studio and go off to find wireless internet so we can both get some work done. We are also going to Josie's tomorrow to meet her, see the house and drop off some clothes, then we are staying with a friend of Bill's through Sunday. Monday Bill has work meetings (one with the same McKnight foundation who is paying for my residency) and he is back to Arkansas on Tuesday morning. Wow! this will be the longest that we have been away from each other in the 6 years we have been together. I am glad I have a flight back for the weekend at the end of July!

One week and counting

I am going to be off to Minneapolis in exactly one week! I haven't gotten nearly enough done in my attempt to be very prepared to jump in immediately upon my arrival at the Northern Clay Center, I still feel like I have a lot to do to be even minimally prepared! I continue to work on making molds which is the most time consuming part of the project, but must be done first. I was hoping to get all of the molds made before I left...I think I will only have half of them done! I will describe and include images of this process below.

I am thinking about what to pack...I will be renting a room in someones house and we will be sharing the kitchen, bathroom and living spaces so really I only need to bring clothes, toiletries and some things I can't live without, like my espresso maker. The real challenge is to try to anticipate what I will need for a three month span...that is a long time and a lot of potential weather changes. In terms of my studio I plan to take essentially everything except my wheel, my kiln and the building! I figure my poor little truck can hold about 1000 lbs worth of materials...I have 500 lbs of clay and plaster alone and (anticipate needing to order more)...everything else will be molds, tools, clothes, my bike, etc.

So this week (and really for the good part of the summer so far) I have been making molds. As I mentioned in my first blog the project will be broken up into 4 seasons, each season comprised of a different set of forms. Winter will be masses of snowball like shapes some of which have a texture and some will be smooth (although they will all have an uneven snowball like surface...not perfectly spherical). The snowballs are forms that I have made myself from beginning to end. Spring will be masses of birds, the birds come from commercially produced molds, so all I had to do was buy them and I will "pour" the clay into the molds to make multiples. Fall will be made up of twigs, here I have taken twigs chosen from when we cut back our corkscrew willow tree. It ended up being the perfect tree because it has a relatively smooth bark with just enough texture to look branch like but not so much that there would be challenges with undercuts when making the plaster mold (I will describe an undercut when I get to the images). In the case of the twigs I have taken an existing object and made a mold of it in order to get a ceramic replica of the object. Finally, summer will be made up of grasshoppers, here in Arkansas when things get really hot (right now if is 99 degrees F. and it is only June) we get a ton of grasshoppers and they eat all of my plants right down to the stems. I associate them with the sweltering, withering heat of the summer and the death of my garden not only because they aid in its demise but also because they are really bad in late July and August when if they haven't killed the plants the heat almost surely has. This is a time when going outside feels like the sun and heat are searing your skin and the leaves and grass smell as though they could combust into flames at any moment. For summer the grasshoppers will be my forms...this will be my greatest challenge as I have to make the molds for the grasshoppers by hand (using plasticene, a non drying oil based sculpting material) in a way that will both look like a grasshopper and not have any undercuts which would make removing them from the mold impossible. I will also need to make seperate molds for the grasshoppers legs and to make a few grasshoppers so I have multiple sizes...so keep your fingers crossed for me.

Here is a brief-ish photographic overview of the mold making process:

This is a clay ball that has been covered in plasticene and then pressed with a hand carved clay stamp to make texture. The clay ball is used as a form because making it of solid plasticene (especially as I have made about 15 -20 in varying sizes) would be expensive. I will make the grasshoppers in the same way, plasticene over another form probably also made of clay. The plasticene allows for a crisper texture and since it never dries is re-usable. Once this is made (called a positive), I will build up a clay bed approx. 1-2 inches beyond the sides of the ball and to the exact middle of the height of the ball. This is where it seems easy but is actually kind of tricky. Just keep in your mind that it has to be to the exact middle and I will explain later.

Once the clay bed is made it is closed in by cottle boards. The boards are clamped tightly together to form walls around the form which allows plaster to be poured in. What you are actually seeing below is the first plaster side already poured (the white stuff surrounding the ball is plaster). Note the clay that runs up the corners of the cottle boards, this keeps the liquid plaster from oozing (sometimes pouring) out the sides...also known as a plaster disaster because once the dam breaks it is hard to keep the plaster in. Once the cottle boards are set in place you can pour your plaster (which is mixed up in a specific ratio of water to plaster that allows for maximum durability and water absorption). You pour the plaster into the mold until it is approx 1-2 inches above your positive. Again because you want even water absorption the walls need to be the same thickness all around the mold if possible. After the plaster has set up, which takes about 30 mintues you unlock your cottle boards, flip your mold, remove the clay bed and then lock it up in the cottle boards again. As I mentioned above what you see here is the mold after the first plaster has been poured, it is back in its cottle boards, all the seams are sealed up and I have made my plaster keys (the depressions in the plaster that aids in lining up the mold parts when completed).

Here I have made a dam half way through the half sphere. A more talented and patient mold maker could make a ball mold in two parts but to be on the safe side and because my spheres are not perfectly round I have chosen to make them all in three parts which allows for some leaway in terms of undercuts, although it means I will have more seam lines to clean up on the caste spheres. You can see that I have poured the second of three parts, the wavy lighter grey line in the middle of the form is the clay dam that will be removed before I cast the third part.

Below you can see the mold two thirds complete and out of its cottle boards. Each time you pour a plaster part you need to coat the plaster mold in mold soap or mold release. This creates a film between the two plaster parts which would otherwise completely stick together rendering the molds useless.

I probably shouldn't show so much detail because I will hear from my professional mold making friends but as I tell my students it takes time and practice to get better. Here you can see the bubbles from the mold soap, which needs to be cleaned off before I pour the plaster or the bubbles will show up in the mold. You can see also how tight the seams against the form and between the mold parts is...this is because when the mold is complete liquid clay (slip) will be poured in and if the seams arent tight the slip will come right out of the open seam.

Below you can see two three part ball molds. Jeannie and Derek don't laugh...I will clean them up so they look better and in some cases are lighter to lift. I have chosen to make all of the ball molds as seperate three part molds instead of including multiple balls in a single mold which would allow me to make two to three balls in a single pour. I am doing this to keep the weight of the molds down, since they get heavy when filled with slip and they have to be lifted and turned over to drain the slip back out.

In this shot I have poured the liquid slip into the pour gate, I have simply drilled a hole that is the same size as the funnel I am using to create the pour gate. The molds are held together by the rubber bands you see around them, this is adequate for the smaller molds but the larger ones will requires tie down straps (like what you use to hold stuff down in your truck). If the plaster molds are completely dry it takes about 10 minutes for the slip to be ready to drain back out. The way it works is briefly as follows... The dry clay is mixed with a combination of water and sodium silicate, the sodium silicate allows the slip to flow without the addition of too much water, the alkalinity of the clay is such that when sodium silicate or another deflocculant is added the clay particles become ionized,the electrical charge produced causes the clay particles to repel each other and therefore flow with less water (the clay particles don't settle in the bottom of the bucket but rather stay in suspension in the water). This also allows you to pour multiple castes in one mold becasue there is less water to be absorbed. SO...once you pour the slip in and some time elapses the water is drawn out of the clay and into the plaster mold, this results in a drier thin skin of clay which coats the interior of the mold, the longer you wait the thicker the skin gets. Once the skin is the thickness you desire you pour the remaining slip out of the mold again through the pour gate. Then you wait longer 30-60 minutes or more depending on how damp your mold is, and finally you pop your clay piece out of the mold by pulling all of the mold parts away and you have an exact (hopefully) hollow replica of your original positive! Because the slip is liquid and the mold parts have to be pulled away undercuts which I mentioned above are a challenge. Take a simple sphere for example, if I had made a two part mold and the first or half had not been perfectly centered to middle of the height of the ball the plaster mold would have come up far enough to cover the ball as it curves to its widest point and then past that it begins to curve to its smallest again at the top. Imagine having done that in a two part mold...as you pull the two parts away from the ball it would rip it in half on the side where you went past the widest centerpoint...get it? ...Maybe?

Voila! multiple clay spheres ready to be cleaned up and made into a sculpture...I will patch the hole which is a result of the pour gate and when necessary clean up seam lines. The forms will then be massed together like you saw in my maquette images on my first blog and fired, glazed, decaled and generally made more beautiful...
These are a little more interesting...I think...two twigs on the outside with their ceramic twins on the inside, note there is some shrinkage and will be even more post firing due to water leaving the clay etc.
Closer shots of two twigs and a ball

Can you see some of the nice detail...the bumpy texture of the bark and a few places where new leaf brachnces were starting to grow!

So there you have it...a pretty detailed version of my mold making...It takes a long time to make the molds but once they are done you can make the clay casts pretty quickly, you can pour all of the molds at once and in an hour have 10-20 pieces made and then do it all over again.

It looks like I am going to have to spend some time when I first arrive in Minneapolis making more molds which is what I wanted to have done by this time but it didn't happen (I'd like to think partially because it took about three weeks to get plaster as the only distributor in Arkansas which is right by my house in Little Rock had it back ordered.

Well it is late but I wanted to get this complete since I am hoping to write each Sunday (I know it isn't Sunday but we were in Washington D.C. this weekend so writing this blog was out of my reach). I'll try to write again this Sunday...the night before we leave for Minnesota!

McKnight Residency Journal

I am going to try to use this blog to let friends, family and any of my interested students keep track of my McKnight Residency progress. I proposed a rather large sculptural project for the application and learned that I received the award last year, a good sized monetary award and use of a private studio at the Northern Clay Center. I will be leaving for Minneapolis, where the Northern Clay Center is located, in 2 1/2 weeks and will stay there for 3 months in order to complete the project!

I have been seriously thinking about and working (as time allowed during the spring semester) on the project since around the end of January (while trying to get some pots made at the same time). What I have right now for the most part is a vision of the end project in my mind, some pretty general sketches, a lot of notes, a lot of glaze tests, maquettes, and some technical accomplishements (in other words nothing much worth seeing yet) but I will include images of the process as well as the (hopefully more beautiful) end product.

As a very brief overview of the project my goals were the following....

1. To do a lot of experimentation with decorative surfaces and to break my decorative choices up into sub groupings that would determine imagery, color, aesthetic etc. I chose the sub groups based on my visceral response to the seasons where I live now (oppressively hot summers but beautiful, lush and wet springs ...Arkansas) and where I grew up (freezing cold, quiet winters and outrageously colorful and crisp falls...Connecticut).

2..To see if I can achieve a visceral response (how those season feel) from the viewer through visual imagery alone.

3. To do a lot of technical experimentation applying decorative surfaces (drawn, decaled, carved etc.) on a 3-D and textured form...work that could also be applied to my pots when I return.

4. To make a large piece that would take up the equivilent of 3 months or more working time as this is an opportunity I may not have again for awhile

5. An added component since I started working...learning how to make molds for slip casting.

In the end I envision 4 large patterened wall panels (4 seasons) with multiple sculptural objects all of which will be highly decorative. Below you can check out examples of some of the first bits of progress in the process. Please keep in mind these are process images for my own records so they are not meant to be viewed as professional quality images!

The roughest of ideas and notes in my sketchbook, ideas for the winter panel.
color choices, form texture and surface ideas
Background for the Winter panel
maquette (model) cut to scale for the background panel on masonite board
Close up of a maquette for the winter panel. I may use Kera Flex porcelain sheets for the "snowflakes" but they are quite expensive and may not come in sheets large enough for my needs.
Background for the Spring panel
same cut to scale
A maquette of what the sculptural objects may look like on the panel (those are mini slip cast birds from commercially made molds)

These are the full scale birds from commercially made molds in a very quickly thrown together maquette. (obviously the proportion to the background is way off)

As I mentioned in #4 I intend to make all of the forms from molds using a process known as slip casting. This is a new process for me so there has been a learning curve but I am getting the hang of it. My molds aren't beautiful but they will get the job done. I will use some commercially produced molds but 90% will be molds that I have made myself. at the moment I have made about 10 successful, mostly small molds and probably 5 unsuccessful ones...I have 400 lbs of #1 Pottery Plaster though so that should be plenty for all of my molds plus a few mistakes. I will post my molds making progress in a few days. Hopefully I will get faster at creating these posts!Now off to work, I have many more molds to make!