Here they are...

So I didn't write a full blog on Sunday because I was firing a kiln and wanted to share the pictures of the firing results. So here it goes... this is kind of a long one.

First I have to once again say how lucky I feel to be here. While I miss Bill, friends, the animals and being home, I truly feel like this is a chance of a lifetime, I may never get it again! I was a bit fearful when I came here that I wouldn't feel inspired to make work, the studio work had gotten a bit stale at home and I wasn't making much, I was afraid maybe I just didn't have the animating passion to make objects anymore! That would of course result in all kinds of problems with my studio work and my teaching...If I don't have the passion to make my own work how could I possibly teach and encourage students to have it? Well in a nutshell I LOVE making work, all day every day! As I had hoped I just needed time and space to change, no worries about making work for galleries, no worries about applying for shows and exhibitions, plenty of time to make mistakes that inevitably come with making new things, and time to learn new processes (slipcasting and Photoshop). It is amazing how many hours are in a day when you have all day to yourself! It feels self indulgent on one hand and totally necessary on the other, I'll take that balance.

I know that to be happy I need to make things...it is a big part of how I define myself, not a hobby, not a passtime, but a requirement whether it results in success or failure. It sounds silly but being creative, having the time to make quality objects and mastering the required technical skills to make the work in the way you envision takes a lot of hands on time and practice...you can't just think an object into being...no matter how good the idea is if the execution is poor (and it can be poor in so many ways) the idea doesn't matter. The other part is that the idea takes time to develop...the seed of an idea needs time to grow into a fully realized thing...it can take days, months or years. Then both of these processes (the developing idea and the technical skill/making of the object) have to happen simultaneously! I don't think you can actually think and make at literally the same time (the idea would stagnate and the the making would look forced) but it is a back and forth and it can go in any order. For my project I came up with the idea first (of course in some ways it was linked to my pottery making), moved into the making, went back to the idea and changed/developed it further, went back to the making and so on and on. So the answer to the "problem" (yes UCA students I said "problem") has to be both concrete and fluid. Because of this back and forth failures happen, ideas change based on developments that arise, knowledge that is gained, mistakes that end up being great, critiques that are offered. Making work is a (life)long process that never ends with each object created...each new work if looked at with an open mind and a self critical eye offers information for the next piece. You also have to work through the inevitable failures...when your pieces fall apart, when they don't look as you imagined, when you have those moments feeling that the whole idea is stupid anyway, you need to push through it, you have to realize that at some point you thought and felt it was a good enough idea to start with so you need to allow it time to develop and you need to do the hard work to get to your vision. So with all of that being said here are my results from the week...I should say that I wrote the above before unloading my kiln...perhaps I am giving myself a pep talk based on the possible disasters that may come out of the kiln tomorrow!

This week I caste 4 new sculptures...three bird pieces and one snowball. I had problems with my last pieces, many cracked apart during drying (clay shrinks as water evaporates and sometimes the weight of the piece drags against the surface it is sitting on causing cracking) as a potter it is not a problem I often have to deal with so the ways to avoid it don't always come to mind until it is too late. The easiest thing to try first is to build the piece on sandwiched layers of newspaper and sand, that provides a flat but movable surface for the piece to dry on...there are other ways that I won't get into here. So my new pieces have been built on that surface and so far so good!

I loaded all but two of the pieces into the kiln. I broke one piece going into the kiln...I brought the kiln shelves to my studio and put them right next to the sculptures so I only had to lift and move a few inches, then I carried the piece on the shelf into the kiln room, like I said I only broke one that way, and it may have been cracked in the first place. So I bisqued all of the pieces broken or not. I broke another one post firing when I was trying to drill holes in the back for hanging, the pieces are so fragile green that I can't flip them to make hanging holes and I want to be able to build them totally and then decide what orientation they should hang in, so I was drilling a snowball piece and the drill bit got all squirrley and the vibration made the piece jump and break into three pieces, one of which rolled off my stand and onto the table...awesome...actually...lame. The next thing was to try to figure out how to fix the bisqued work if possible. I have used a paperclay mixture to repair small non structural crackes but these were biggies...essentially the pieces where in two and sometimes three pieces! So I purchased this stuff called bisque fix...I think it is basically a room temperature glue mixed with flux ( a melting material that is glass like once fired and cooled). So this allowed me to glue the pieces together, glaze them and pick them up again to put in the kiln...did it work?

...(next morning)...the good news is the bisque repair worked and I didn't cry upon opening the kiln! although I did wake up at 6:30 am and got to the studio at 7am so I could look at the work without anyone around in case I did have to cry...here they are!

For those of you not familiar, this is what all of the pieces look like after they are glazed but before they are fired...you are looking at what will be light green, brown (the light brown you actually see is going to be the green part...tricky I know) dark green pink and clear. Because glaze colors are formed through a chemical reaction needing heat/melt etc. glazing can be the trickiest part of the process and one many people don't like. I always believe in facing the worst first...like ripping off a bandaid or giving an oral presentation...just get it done and out of the way, so here is the ugliest! I took notes on my slipping and glazing...that green was NOT supposed to be that color! It is the result of an unfortunate reaction between the slip and the glaze. YIKES!

While not perfect this one is closer to my goal for spring, overall it is too light and the pink slip on the bottom is not pink enough (it looks totally white in this image)

Detail of the part I like most

Here is my least favorite snowball set. I don't like the grid at all, but I do like the glaze combo on the bottom right just maybe not in that large of a section or broken up with decals.

If you can see it themotteled section on the right is what I like, nice variation in the glaze but too much on this large of a section I like this one quite a bit. The slip pattern was outlined (with GA28 for my ceramics II students then glazed with LET clear and copper over the top) and made the slip trailing less rigid/sharp edged which I like.

Detail...you can see how tight the slip remains on the dots to the left and how much runnier it looks on the curvilinear pattern on the right.

Another detail of the glazing I like so much

This one is okay...

I like this part the best

This is my favorite one of all of them

Very happy with this ...closer to my minds vision

All of the above pieces will have decals and luster on them so they are not yet finished. I have spent my evenings working on teaching myself Photoshop, it is not something I am enjoying but I really want to start designing my own decals. I don't want to make them myself, the process for multi colored decals takes a very long time and I would rather spend that time making more complicated objects, but I don't want to use only commercial decals anymore. To do this well I need to understand a little bit if not a lot of Photoshop. The decal making company needs the images in a pdf layout, and to fill the page with as many decals as I can fit, in the colors and configurations that I want...well photoshop is needed. The cool thing is the images are photographic quality so you could literally send photos, or drawings, or computer generated images or a combination of all three, whatever images you can get onto a 10X15 sheet in a pdf format you can have made into an exact decal. The sheets are expensive though so I am going to keep working on the images until I get what I want...here are some examples so far:

Snowflake sheet

Detail of bee pattern

Bee sheet not yet filled

Non studio news is that I bought a wonderful Warren McKenzie piece, he is a well known potter who has worked with Bernard Leach, taught at the University of Minnesota, and was the professor of many great potters of out time. He has left a big mark on the clay community, the Arkansas Arts center just had a big retrospective of his work come through if any of you saw it. His work is crazy collectable everywhere but especially up here in Minnesota. He has a belief that work should be affordable for all people, and so he prices it VERY low...the result was that people would come to his pottery sales at his home buy the ENTIRE kiln and then re sell it all for a much higher price. Because of that there are all sorts of rules, like you can only buy one piece a month, you have to be present to purchase the work and so on and so forth. Now the Northern Clay Center is the only place in Minnesota where you can but his pieces. I just happened to be in the office in back when his work was brought in and got to chose the first piece from the lot. It is a beautiful lidded jar a really nice example of his work and one that I will be happy to bring to school and show students...of course I paid literally ten times the price he had put on the piece but I feel it is worth it and Bill agreed. The ten times money goes to help support the clay center so it seems doubly worth it. Here it is...like most pots you need to experience it in real life to truly appreciate it, but it is a really nice one!

McKenzie lidded jar