Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Simple variation


I've been making small dishes from my scraps of clay for some time--simple ovals with corner darts cut out and clay brought together with seams. These bowl sized dishes are based on the same technique using the template I've been using for leaf plates. It feels nice adding to the leaf boat bowls with plates and now smaller serving-sized bowls. It'll be swell if they all stack together nicely after firing.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Back to Work

Why is it that after completing a couple of deadlines it is sometimes so hard to motivate back into the studio? Suddenly it's too messy to work in (tho it's been like that for months). The laundry piling up in a corner next door is yelling at you. The clay is too wet.

Just to DO something, started with four basic shapes and made myself play around with a bit with decorating. Nothing vastly different but possibly a start to something new.

Monday, November 16, 2009

A "Real" Artist for a Day

Attended the Sitka Invitational Opening on Friday. What a treat. Food and Wine galore, great crowd, beautiful artwork sporting many red dots. As an artist I was honored to be included in such a wonderful group. As someone who finds less and less time to be in the studio it took a bit of gearing up to "feel worthy" for it all.

Haven't been to the show in several years so spent most of the opening being amazed and inspired by the wonderful work being done throughout the state. My work nicely displayed (thanks Greg Wilbur for your muscles carrying them about). Was very happy to see a couple of those SOLD stickers on my new boat bowl sets. So many friends at the show and new artists to meet. Enjoyed talking with at least one gentleman who liked my sculptures and wished to know a bit more about them. Always nice to get a nibble on the bigger pieces!

Nice post-show article in the Oregonian after the show linked here. Hope our efforts as artists helped bring in the $$ Sitka needs to stay doing the work they do! I spent the $$ I earned on more artwork (a lovely print by Alex Chitty) so did my small part.

Earlier in the day had a very nice conversation with Sandy Japel at Beet Gallery and dropped off work to her. Over the holidays she will be showing a few of the woodfired vessels that have popped up on this blog. Nice having an opportunity to show work in her beautiful spot. Hope you can stop by to see them. Beet Gallery: 18th & Lovejoy, Portland. beetgallery.com

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Special Projects

This piece was created for the Arts Center's Shrines and Reliquaries Show. I started one of my "twist" columns but it needed to be a container so tried several lid variations. Instead of having the top just be seamless to the rest of the piece I decided embellishment would be the way to go and thus the fanciful DQ-court jester styled lid.

The "fun" came in the glazing. First round was my high fired cream glaze with a hint of blue sprayed over the top. This often give me a nice pebble effect but in this case the glaze glassed out and turned grey-ish instead of creamy. When I opened the kiln and saw my sad piece I grabbed it still piping hot and layered as much white underglaze over the top as I could. The pot's heat helped dry the layers of new glaze and then it was back into the kiln to get the new layers to fuse. I was hoping for a tad bit of crackle but it's hard to get that much glaze to adhere to an already high fired piece.

After the second firing the layers of underglaze covered up the grey color, only letting a faint bit of it to come through in places the top glaze was too thin. The underglaze was very dry to the touch tho so I worked cold wax medium into the new top layer to give it a sheen and enhance the multi-layered effect of the glazes.

Put all together it seemed to have a jaunty, cocky attitude thus the title: "The Ghost of Foghorn Leghorn" -- a favorite cartoon as a kid. $150 with silent auction bidding starting at $50.