Students

My first student on the electric wheel has a great capacity to focus. She tries to understand every movement necessary in the throwing of a pot, as if it were a note in an etude. Eventually she will be able to see that she can change the order of movements at will, and go backward and forward and up and down, and compose all sorts of pieces.

She has made great progress and wants to continue her lessons for another session-go-round, and so do I. Her first two glazed pots, small and very nice:

(love the way the glaze breaks over the cool trim marks on the taller pot, which is about 4" high)

Tuesday I taught her about making plates on the wheel. Two hours flew by.

In the fall, I will have a couple of other students as well, also adults, friends who want to have sessions together to learn to handbuild pottery. (We will not be working on the wheel.) They don't know anything about it, except that it would be fun. They want creative distraction from their jobs, and my studio and I are a local resource. It WILL be fun, too.

The only downside? I will have to clean my handbuilding area and keep it clean. Oh, well. Nothing like positive motivation.

Teaching how to work with clay is something I have enjoyed on and off for twenty years, and it adds welcome balance to the rest of my studio life. 

Gallery Pot Configurations

Periodically I change the setups of pottery in The Gallery Downstairs. 

This freshens my perspective. 

It tells me what I'm short on and need to make.

I am not short of mugs, for example.

But I'm short of certain Judaica, and I would also like to make some more serving trays.

Here are some gallery views, from all angles. 

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(washing cups and serving trays)

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(black and white, peach and charteuse)

(organic sensibility pots, plus a set of bowls- soup, side dish, and larger, sturdier mixing bowl)

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(covered tree jar and sentinel cats)

Right now I'm having a good time making little animals, from the tiny to the merely small. The tiny ones I fashion in the palm of my hand. The small ones I make on the potters wheel and alter. They peek here and there from between the pots.

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(tiny hedgehogs, cookie jar and serving platter)

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(cat and mouse drama)

Last but not least, a young camper left me a "cookie" perhaps 15 years ago, that reappears with the teacups now and then.

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(Tully's cookie...)

Making a Slump Mold on the Wheel

Some things come up pretty as a picture. These things, by contrast, are not exciting to look at. But what they will help me make is pretty great.

About 13.5" x 11", and no, they are not toilet seats... they are slump molds!

These are slump molds*. I am going to use them as supporting forms, to drape clay slabs into, so I can make really nice slab platters. And then I am also going to use them to drape other slabs into, to make... ah, imaginative things, like components of certain sculptural vessels. You may not see it now, but that is my plan. I made them in pairs, in four different sizes.

And because I am going to bisque fire these slump molds, I can use them again and again, to help turn fresh clay slabs into one-of-a-kind vessels.

(*What it is: A slump mold is any object with a supportive depression in it to allow a slab of clay to settle into it and take on the shape of the depression. When the resulting slab dish has firmed up some and will hold its shape, it gets removed from the mold and worked on further. These particular two slump molds are just  bottomless rings I made on the potter's wheel, then pulled into ovals with my hands.) 

I saw Suze Lindsay use a teeny version of this type of slump mold at the Women Working with Clay symposium I went to in the first week of June in Virginia. A bell rang in my head. Thanks, Suze!

Until now, I've used "found" or purchased objects as my slump molds. But I think this is more interesting. It gives me more freedom to invent because when I make a slump mold, I'm already  imagining the final product I'll make using it.

So I'm already thinking of the rim I will make on the platter I build resting on this mold, and the handles that will go on that platter- -  and I haven't even bisque-fired the mold or rolled out a slab to lay into it. And even further, I'm already thinking about how to make two matching oval dishes in a pair of these molds, and attach them rim-to-rim to make a hollow form... and what to further create with that hollow form.  I like that. These molds are going to be great**.

(**If they don't warp in the kiln when I fire them...)

Ric Pierce Makes a Platter- Video

I don't talk much about handbuilding in my blog, but in looking at plate-making videos I came across this one. It's fun, and a quick watch for those among us with a short attention span.

A simple plaster hump mold is used in Ric Pierce's video. Many were my campers (at Camp Simcha pottery-room 1994-2001; or, occasionally, students in my studio at home) who used simple plaster hump molds like this one, to build a basic bowl or plate shape. But none of my campers or students ever went so far as to make a platter like this one. 

Guess I'd better build some foot placement templates like the one Ric uses here, and get back to it! It's dead simple but way clever at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow-l3SyKds4

Love those handmade brushes he is using to glaze with, too. They make wonderful marks! 

Mark Peters Video

I was just checking out a Mark Peters video on Youtube, with him throwing a platter upside down on the wheel. Yes, I said upside down. If you've got about 6 minutes, you can see it done lots faster on this video than it would take in real time!

Go to it on this page- it's the first one on the roster of vids. 

http://www.pinerootpottery.com/videos.htm

Not everyone can handle 8 lbs. of clay as easily as Mark does here. He makes it look super easy. And if you wonder, the cheesecutter about a minute and a half in is being used to level the foot so that when the platter is turned upright, it won't rock.

All I can say to myself is, "Live and learn."

Stalking Cats

Since I was still sitting at the wheel with a big hump of clay in front of me, and I'd just made some birds, I went on and made some cats. They thought the bird choir I had just made looked delicious and immediately went into crouch-position. They are very well-fed and not energetic, so despite their best efforts, they will not catch the singing birds.

Here is the first cat, in three views:

And four views of the second cat:

These and a few more I "threw" on the wheel as closed forms, then I added noses, eyes, ears, legs and tails. I underglazed* these mischievous cats in mostly ridiculous colors, like blue, olive green, purple, bright yellow and orange, then fired, clear-glazed and fired them again. 

 I ran out of time before I could photograph the other three, and headed up to Maine for much-needed outdoor R&R. They sit in my little gallery awaiting my return. Bye for now, basement.

(* Underglaze is a form of glaze high in clay content. I use it on the unfired clay.)

A Kiln Opening

Here are images of some of the pottery from the kiln I just opened! 

'Women Working with Clay' Symposium, Day 3

Tomorrow after lunch, that's it. Monday afternoon through Thursday morning is the whole length of this symposium. Today, again, was intense. There was so much effort on the part of every presenter and symposium-goer to fit in as much creation and clay education as possible. Philosophies were flying. 

All the while, the clay faculty considered. Consideration after consideration. They pondered and weighed everything as they worked. (That's the making process when it isn't rote.)

Meredith Brickell involved the crowd in making tiny parts for the wall of an upcoming show. She let people take small bits of clay and make any little object they wanted. Meanwhile, she made tiny parts herself from kaolin and organic seeds and fibers, that looked like bent, old rusty nails. Meredith: memory.

Attendees became engrossed, and the room was calm.

attendee Renee made interacting parts

with other attendees engrossed in their own freeform objects

considering formative possibilities

Gwendolyn Yoppolo explained a handle she was making for a cup she made, which I believe was full of her generous spirit. Gwendolyn explored the human interactions involving food and feeding one another and the trust and generosity involved. Her forms are based on interaction between two or more people and some of her ideas involve performance of acts of feeding between two people.  

and Giselle Hicks mounded flowers in a blaze of beauty that drew us into its sheer floral whiteness. Giselle's explorations with flowers and highly patterned cast "pillow" forms explored the effect of beauty in the environment and the effect it has on people. She looks at more than what is "beautiful" but also at how "beautiful" affects the person who interacts with it.

Meanwhile, Suze considered handles,

and the gesture created  by a bundle of twigs through white slip

and whether to add more brushwork to the slip decoration on a pitcher;

and I caught the connection of color to clay as she added a dot of chrome slip that will turn black in the salt kiln:

While Linda Sikora considered fit and shape of a lid

and what special bit more will make a lid finial feel right.

Linda explored writing, as well, in a breakout session during one of the days of the symposium. All the potters talked at least part of the time as they demonstrated. This was no passive experience. All through the symposium. thought processes were explored, about creating communication and interaction through clay and pottery vessels, whether theoretical or functional art; and five different yet somehow compatible philosophies of clay art gave much food for thought for all of us attending. 

'Women Working With Clay' Symposium, Day 2

If yesterday's half day was intense here at Holliins University at the Clay Symposium, a full day today was killer great. I staggered back to my room reeling with tiredness at 9 p.m., but upon uploading and looking through the day's photos, I felt recharged. So before exhaustion grabs me, I'm giving a shout-out to the symposium mastermind, Donna Polseno- wow as usual.

Donna keeping attendees informed so we can find our discussion groups this afternoon… Photo Mimi Stadler 2014

The format involves five clay artists. There are two wheel artists working in one big studio room, and three handbuilders in another.

Handbuilders, alphabetically:

Meredith Brickell, who interestingly enough was working on a a sculpture that would become an assemblage of bricks, symbolizing the impermanence of human existence and, conversely, the human desire to retain memory of prior humans. 

Meredith creating the 2' x 2' slump mold for her sculpture. She will drape a large slab into it to begin the actual piece. Photo Mimi Stadler 2014

Meredith Brickell working with coils and pinching to create the walls of her bricklike sculpture. Photo Mimi Stadler 2014

Giselle Hicks, working on a complex sculpture of massed flowers, which will be attached on a large handbuilt base. (The pillow form is one she makes often, with complex surface designs, but is not part of the sculpture-to-be.)

Giselle Hicks. Photo Mimi Stadler 2014

The petals for the flowers, pressed into Giselle's palm to give them the right curve.

The petals build around these flower centers, made from coil components.

One of many that will be part of the sculpture.

Gwendolyn Yoppolo, who pinched feeding-connected forms that were deceptively simple, and were based on a deep philosophical exploration of human relationships.

Gwendolyn Yoppolo pinching one of her vessels. Photo Mimi Stadler 2014

Vessels designed for people to feed one another!

The wheel-throwers, alphabetically:

Suze Lindsay, seen here forming a pitcher from thrown and altered components:

Suze Lindsay showing thrown part for a large pitcher. Photo Mimi Stadler 2014

Darting a thrown form to create a shoulder on the pitcher-to-be, which will be like the one to the right, only larger. Photo Mimi Stadler 2014

And Linda Sikora, a potter exploring round forms:

Linda Sikora. Photo Mimi Stadler 2014

Linda Sikora refining the lid gallery inside a round pot. Photo Mimi Stadler 2014

Plenty of rest needed by all to refuel for Day Three!

'Women Working With Clay' Symposium in Roanoke, Virginia

How much do I love this symposium? Let me count the ways.

Even if I had not been here two previous years, I would find this amazing. Trust me when I say (although you may be aware already) that potters are not a dime a dozen. You may have heard me say that the life of a "basement potter" can be isolating. So shmoozing and confabbing with more than 30 potters and five presenters and a few more pottery assistants today was a blast, a gas, a zing of delight.

 Yesterday Susan, a friend from the NJ Potters' Guild, drove with me down to Roanoke, a seven-hour trip. We explored this cameo of a campus a bit early on. The symposium started this afternoon. 

Attendees gathered to see a slideshow of images we had each sent in advance, that in essence became our professional credentials. This is an act of courage for some, because while some of the potters and sculptors are very fine, some are recent arrivals to the art and craft of clay. They find out it doesn't matter. 

Dinner looked great. I am on a restricted diet the next four days of something like grape tomatoes, (okay, maybe a little more than grape tomatoes, but not much more). But the food looks very nice if you happen to be able to eat like a normal person this week. 

And after dinner came a presentation by Rahele. Filsoofi, originally from Tehran, Iran. Rahele, 39, is an accomplished artist and scholar who has worked in clay for years, as well as with other art media. She has lived in the United States for probably half her life, and made it her important work for the last two years to research and write about essentially unchronicled, unknown women potters in Iran. Her representative subjects were three women, from three regions of Iran, two of whom make and very successfully sell the same traditional food-preparation, cooking and serving vessels that have been made in the area for 3,000 years; and one of whom still uses the same clay of her birth region but makes sculptural, animal forms she dreams up (literally). The photos and story about those women, and their connection to the land around them and to traditional ways of life, formed a new narrative for the group hearing about them.

If we at the symposium can relate to these women making pots across the world, we can certainly find a basis for much conversation and exchange right here on one lovely Southern campus. That is what we did, in fact, socializing and finding out about one another's personal and professional lives over drinks into the late evening. 

Tomorrow, five American women, very fine clay artists all, will begin presenting their philosophies and techniques as we watch them make the work for which they are known. I'll save introductions to them and their work till then.

As ever, as at the last two of these symposia, there will be photos tomorrow, so rub your eyes and rest up. 

Crouching Cats and Singing Birds

What do crouching cats, singing birds, honey jars and tiny dishes have in common? 

They were all "thrown off the hump" on my potter's wheel.

unfired porcelain with underglazes, thrown off the hump and altered

unfired porcelain with underglazes; thrown off the hump and altered

four honey jars and four tiny bowls, thrown off the hump; unfired cone 6 porcelain

I put a big hump of clay on the wheel. I centered just the top little bit. I made a bird body, which starts as a two-sphere snowman, a closed form.

Again, center just the top little bit. A three-sphere closed form will become a cat body.

Again, center just the top bit, and make a honey jar body.

Again; a lid for for the jar.

And so on! A large hump of clay is the start of many small building blocks for pots and sculptural forms.

Throwing off the hump. A great trick, a really useful skill!

(Then after throwing comes all the trimming, altering, embellishing, and coloring. But that's another story.)

A Student at the Wheel

I have a student. Since I have an electric wheel now, it seems like the right time. I am enjoying teaching. It's been a long time since I had a wheel student. 

My student's pots, with two already trimmed and drying, and the rest awaiting trimming. There are two covered jars!

I am reminded of my own wrestling with stoneware in Ceramics I in college, when I see this adult student grappling determinedly with individual ideas and motions and putting them together bit by bit into a whole process. I remember my own nascent desire to succeed at conquering the formless mass that is clay, and to put my own sensibility into it. It was hard. But I worked at it continually, and eventually I got it. My student will, too.

Working at the wheel is a metaphor for creative learning. You need to bring together body and mind to  produce an object on the potter's wheel. You need to hone both to make really good objects.

Making Hungry Cats on the Wheel

They started like this

(Just thrown "off the hump" like not very good looking snowmen- I will work on this form!)

And now they look like this! ("My, those birds look delicious. Let's catch some.")

Still working on this idea and interested in refining the figures. More to come. Stay tuned!

Singing Birds from Clay

Birds! 

The form is thrown on the wheel, shaped like a short, squat bowling pin.

A day later, when the form has become firmer, I coax the clay at the bottom into a tail shape, just like pulling a short handle from clay. I depress the "spine" area, and as I do so, either side seems to rise so that the bird has folded wings. Then I add a beak and eyes, and I open the beak so that the bird is singing. 

little birds freshly made from porcelain clay; wheel-thrown and altered

I think I will make a flock of these. They can sing all over my studio and gallery.

Infinite Forms

Although my childhood was not one with lessons in art or music, my older brother drew and I watched, absorbed. And then I began to draw. There were no lessons in art or music, but in our DNA is a blueprint for wondering how things work and a desire to make them do so. Add to that our childhood home beside and between woods and a love of nature they nurtured in us. Clay has been an exploration.  Put together these influences and you find the direction my art has taken me over time.

Clay is the stuff that symbolizes possibility. A formless mass, it can be made to take on infinite forms. 

That is my exploration for this week. Infinite forms.

Urns Get Underglaze Decoration

Three urns. Right now they are raw clay in the drying stage, with designs brushed on in underglaze colors. The colors will intensify radically when clear glaze goes over them and the urns are kiln-fired.

One will be Cristina's when her son chooses next week. The rest will then just be nice covered jars. 

Meaning is what you put into something.

She rode her blue bicycle everywhere, winter and summer and in between. She didn't drive.

I passed some flowering quince several weeks ago. It is a brief and outstandingly beautiful burst of blooms on an otherwise nondescript bush. 

There are 3 shades of green in the leaves, plus pink/peach flowers. She had a wonder of the outdoors in all seasons.

Beautiful cord can go through the handles and over the lids of each for a secure closure.

Mezuzahs and Trays

It's time for a bit of work away from the potter's wheel. I'm running low on rectangular serving plates, which I call "trays."

Texture is super nice on these. 

I've also been asked for mezuzahs lately, and I'm pretty much out of them. (These are cases only, for the uninformed. The parchment that goes inside has to be bought from a Judaica store.) The mezuzah cases can be as simple or complicated as I want. I let the spirit move me (ha ha) when I go to the texture bin for inspiration. The ones shown here are fairly simple, with just one flower or swirl stamp at the top and a letter "shin" stamp on the front. The glazes I put on them will finish the decoration. 

From preparation, which means making paper templates (and making polymer-clay forms to wrap the rolled and cut clay around for mezuzahs) to accumulating raised fabrics and plastics and making stamps, for texture (to press into the clay slabs for the trays), even relatively simple pieces have a series of steps in their creation. Like the psychiatrist says in Analyze This, "It's a process." 

A photo of the rawware step of the process- some pots so far, this week:

(The mezuzahs will attach to their eventual door frames with heavy duty Velcro that I double-epoxy onto the back for extra security. I don't risk using nails with these.)

Up from the basement now and out into the spring afternoon!

Hauling Clay, Making Pots

A day with fresh clay.

Picking up new stoneware at Ceramic Supply, trimming pots I made last week, and preparing for a throwing-on-the-potter's-wheel student who begins tomorrow.

Hands too full of clay to type.

See you Thursday, from the basement studio! 

Fresh From the Kiln

Cookie jars

Porcelain jar with slips and underglaze, cone 6

Porcelain jar with underglazes, cone 6

and a vase I like

Underglazes, glaze, overglaze on porcelain, cone 6

And some very colorful bowls!

I updated the website with these and more. Feel free to browse the Dining and Serving page for some more new bowls, and the Decorative page for cookie jars and the red vase. Feel free also to post comments here on the blog. Thanks for visiting, as ever!

A Day in the Potting Life

Imagine your day as a studio potter. You, the potter, are the time keeper. (The clock, if you will.) And you are also the employee, keeping the work current. You are the owner, the manager and make no mistake, you're the manual labor. You're the designer and the quality inspector. You're the cleaning crew that comes in, sometimes after hours. You are the bookkeeper, the sales clerk and the shipping clerk. You're the publicity agent and the shopkeeper.

So there you were, on a hypothetical Monday, in sweats and sock feet at 10:30 a.m. Why didn't you punch the (also hypothetical) clock earlier? Well, you had been at your studio photo booth setup in the laundry room till 10 PM Sunday, the night before, taking photos of the new pieces you just unloaded from the kiln. You were up again at 6 Monday morning measuring, weighing and writing descriptions and prices for the new pots, for your website.

Then you went to the gym, because being a potter is a beating on the body, and that body needs care to be strong. After the gym, groceries for the household because you are still chief cook and bottle washer there. Breakfast for you came late. It was already mid-morning on Monday, and you were not in the studio working yet. You were in those sweats and sock feet and had not changed to studio clothing. No- you needed to be at the computer, cropping the new batch of photos and adjusting the color to reflect reality. You added the photos and text to the website and the written data to a spreadsheet. By the time you were done, and wrote up a blog post and a Facebook post alerting people about the new pots, it was lunchtime and you had still not gotten into the studio. 

You dragged your feet a little because it had been a long morning already and you were a bit tired from a morning of many different, necessary parts that, still, had not taken you to touch clay. You checked your email, and perked up to discover that someone made a purchase from your pottery website. You immediately packed up the order to ship, printed up a postage label, and put out the package before the mail carrier arrived. You had lunch, did dishes, made the beds, put in a laundry, and at last, you went downstairs to the studio.  You had been thinking about covered jars on and off all weekend, and you had spent a lot of time considering where you might sell them.

In the studio, you needed to prepare the clay for the next couple of days of wheel work. You checked the chart you'd formulated over time, noted the amounts of clay you would need to weigh out for those jars and lids, and weighed the clay portions on the gram scale. You kneaded the individual pieces to rid them of air bubbles, and bagged it all up to keep it moist and ready for Tuesday morning. You didn't start at the wheel yet, since you hadn't cleaned up last week's glaze area mess. You wanted to clean all that up before you would be walking around the pottery studio during the course of the wheel work, raising nasty glaze dust. 

You went back over the glaze area with sponge and mop. You wore a mask because the glaze spatters on table and floor dried to a powder that's bad for your lungs. You stowed the glaze buckets under the table and washed brushes and glaze stirrers you missed at the end of last week when you were kind of fried after glazing pots for 2 1/2 days. You noted which glaze bucket needed refilling and checked the recipe and the ingredient storage to make sure you had all the powders and colorants you would need when you'll come around to making glaze again in a week. You added the ingredients to a list for the next order from Ceramic Supply.

It was 5:30, and you hadn't made a single new clay vessel on the wheel. And you were ready to call it a day. You were tired, though getting paid for today's work would not come till you sell the pots you prepared the studio for, and which you will begin making tomorrow. You started to ponder sales again, as you do several times a day. You noticed the day was still light and knew it would be good to get outside and away from dust, computer, and business plans, so you called someone at 5:30 to say "Let's walk." She said, "I'm too tired. I worked today."

You went for a walk by yourself, going over the design for tomorrow's jars in your head as you went.