Good Stuff

Loads of new stuff arrived today.  Below is a photo and video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc_zhI-yWhU

Pretty cool eh?

I first saw Scott Garrett's work on my pal Matt Grimmitt's blog.  Scott did an illustration that had one of Matt's jugs included in it.

Later on I found my way to Scott's website and then his blog.  Scott is in the first stages of learning to make pots.  I love his illustration style and his sense of humor.  That mustache is pretty cool too.  Scott has an affection for folk pots from the American south. It's pretty cool seeing how someone in England is taken with US pottery much like I am with pots from their country.

Thanks for the prints Scott. I love them and they are going to get framed and put up in the house.

I'm pretty excited about my little self published picture book.  It will be a good asset in the studio.  I'll probably order one for my mom too.  She'd like that.

I'll talk more about the Michael Simon book later on. I've looked through it once and read a bit of it.  It really slowed my mind down today, just thinking about Michael, his pots, the way he works etc.  I met him several times, saw him make pots, went to his and Ron Meyers' pottery sales and even visited him at his home once.  Special memories.

Well, Sarah and I are headed over to Ni Fen for some wine and tapas.  It's been a sunny, beautiful day after a long damp week.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Working on the Jar Ideas

Below are a couple of videos of me showing some work in progress and talking about moving these pots forward.

It's good to be in this place of not knowing exactly what to do, or setting up some problems to be solved.  I feel like most of this sort of thing gets worked out in the 'doing' as opposed to the 'thinking about it'.  Both ways are valuable, but for me I have to see it in clay to really know what works best.  You'll see I did some sketching in the first video.  That's an okay jumping off point, but honestly I don't sketch pots too much.  If I do it's just to remind me of some idea that I had so that I remember to make it later.  This leads me to more thoughts but I'm saving that for the next blog post.  It will be about risk and ruining pots and so on.

For now here are the videos.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qALJRfdNwLs

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdlnAXNVqE

Clary Illian: A Year in the Life

I had the privilege awhile back of being asked to pre-view the film A Year in Life about potter Clary Illian.  Clary has been a big inspiration in my work and I was fortunate enough to take a class with her at Arrowmont several years ago and later Sarah and I visited her at her pottery in Ely, Iowa.

The film documents Clary during a time of transition in her life and work.  After a wrist injury Clary is forced to stop working for several months.  Something she's never done in her career.  She talks about this time and also about the decision to scale down her pottery operation by moving to a smaller house, giving up her stoneware and porcelain , her gas kilns and make the change to electric fired earthenware.  (Of course I was very interested in this aspect).

There is a slide show of over 150 of Clary's pots.  That alone is worth the $30.  There are also a couple of interviews with other potters and an extended interview sequence with Clary.

For more information, and out takes from the film,  you can visit THIS WEBSITE.  Film maker Adam Burke did a great job on this film. I for one am thankful to have this documentary on Clary, who many consider to be one of America's finest utilitarian potters.