What is Art?

Here's your answer - hee hee!

Pancake Fun

Okay, so this isn't exactly ceramic related, but, man, it is funny! Yea pancake olympics!!

Long Time, No See

I always seem to have such good intentions about keeping up regularly on blogging, and then somehow three months slip by and I haven't posted a thing. Man. A quick ceramic update... I took a class on mosaic and have been happily making zillions of little tiles for my table project. The class is now a few weeks over and my table is still in pieces, but it will get there. Eventually. I've also been working on a new prototype for another slipcasting project, making plates as test pieces for the low fire kiln, and working on a platter project for my Dad. Lots to think about and keep me busy -- not even considering all of the NCECA madness! I hope to at some point start getting some images up here, it would be great to document all that is going on with my many clay adventures.

Revisiting Wood

It's been three years since I last participated in a wood firing and I've only been a part of two. This past weekend I had the chance to put work in a kiln built last year by Jim Dugan. It's a beauty of a kiln and in a spectacular location in Aurora, West Virginia. I'm still recovering from the strange sleeping patterns I had last week and getting anxious to see the results of all that hard work!

We had some exciting moments during the firing -- some a little TOO exciting... the roof of Megan's beautiful kiln shed caught on fire while we were firing. Everyone handled it beautifully, but we did seem to lose some of our momentum after that. Still seemed to be a great firing though -- most parts of the kiln got to temperature. We will unload this Sunday, I'll post some images as soon as I get them back.

Long Overdue

Hard to believe that my last post was nearly three weeks ago... Since my last post, I got that first prototype low fire piece done. I'm pretty excited about it, but nervous about glazing. Martina gave me a number of glazes this weekend, so we'll see what I can pull off. Here's a view prior to glazing....

Time for a Change: Part 2

In addition to my previous thoughts about slip casting, I'm now thinking about ways for me to draw some of the nagging ideas from "The Omnivore's Dilemma" into my work. I've been sketching a lot of corn lately (and painting it, too) and I have some drawings down of cows, corn and oil. I think it's the oil that really makes theses ideas political -- cows and corn could just be good ol' Midwest culture... but add oil into that mix and you've got a whole different ballgame.

All of this has me thinking I'd better start drawing and painting on my pots. I have spent some time looking into china paint, but from what I've found it's not food safe. So, I'm now thinking some sort of majolica decoration could do the trick. Some drawing through the slip, some bright colors on top, maybe some sprigs and stamps too....

I've got some low fire red clay and I think the next step is to start testing. I've got a slip recipe to apply leatherhard -- hopefully then I could put colored and clear glazes over the top of the slip. I think I'll go mix up some slip right now and start making those tests!

Missed Opportunity

I can't believe it... I was just looking around at some of my favorite potter's work and discovered that Bernadette Curran just gave a workshop this PAST weekend here in Pittsburgh. And to make matters worse, I was even free that day. Oh well, so it goes. Perhaps I'll catch her at her workshop in NJ in August -- I'm on the waiting list...