Glazing!

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Wow this glazing is some experience.  We are using a commercial clear glaze.  Some potters call it the 'evil pink' glaze.  It does turn clear.  Ayumi uses it all the time and it works for her.  I'm not one to argue with that.  (Though at one time I would have turned my nose up to using a commercial product like this).

We have a high bisque, cone 02.  So the glaze doesn't go on very well.  After dipping the pots are left to dry upside down on dowel rods.  Any bare spots are touched up later.  We are using a variety of glazes for 'dots'.  Some are even mixed very thick into a paste and glued into place with more pink glaze.  These pasty ones are the 'runners'.

We had some Talking Heads cranking while glazing this afternoon and everyone was in good spirits.  Keep your fingers crossed that we have good glaze firings.

Click for larger images. Some of these pots are mine, some are Ayumi's, and some are other students.

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Blanks

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img_0539Yesterday was our last wet day.  I have about 25 pots to decorate today.  I've made some small adjustments to some of my pots that I think are good improvements.  Mainly in the foot departement.

I am struggling with my decoration.  I really have no idea what I want to put on these pots.  Most of the ones I've finished have been a hodge podge of experiments, some all on one pot.  I'm trying to break away from the cartoon-y-ness of what I was doing, but that's going to take some study.   I have worked on some pattern and some domestic object drawings, oh and some clotheslines of course.

It's uncomfortable, but if I'm not struggling I'm not growing right?   Today should be good, I'll finish up my pots, we'll have a demo and more internet talks.  Way too much to digest in the short time I'm here.

More later, if there's time.

Tiles. Round 1.

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I drew on my tiles this morning.  I had 95 to do and I ran out of my general ideas after about 15.  But I went on and it was fun.  The assignment Ayumi gave me was to work on pattern and repetition.  Just to draw and draw.  I had fun ways of coming up with new ideas.  Like I thought of my cat, Mouse, and how she stands up and dances, so I drew some repeating abstracted ballerina feet/shoes.  Here are some images. Click for larger.

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I have now gone back and slipped all the backsides of these so I'll 95 more to draw on.

Drawings

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Here are a few of my pots that are going in the bisque tonight.  We are pretty far behind as far as firing goes.  Hopefully we'll step it up over the next few days.

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Field Trip

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Hey, we went out and about today and visited some local artists today.  Not much time to tell you all about it but here are some pics.  Busy, busy, gotta get some work done.

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Why I'm Here

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I had a one on one with Ayumi yesterday and we talked about my work.  It was just what I needed.  Basically she told me I needed to explore my imagery more, go back further and see where what I am trying to do comes from.  Also she said it would be good for me to try out different tools to draw with, work with line, expression, and such.  She mentioned looking at real animals, studying proportion and anatomy of those creatures that I am drawing, break out of the somewhat generic quality that they have.  There was more but that was the jist of it.

I wrote a grant and got money to come here.  My goal for the grant project was to improve and explore surface, so now that I've been here almost a week and had some feedback I am going to delve into that.  Which probably means making lots of slabs to draw on and less pots.  Which is cool with me.  I'm not here to make pots to take home, I'm here to move forward in my work.  To take some risks, take the next step.
I'm ready.

Slip It

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We've been in a holding pattern as far as moving pots through the process goes up until tonight.  The school did not order the stains for the slips and we finally got them today.  Rachelle and Josh (the AWESOME assistants) have been busy getting all the slips mixed up tonight.  (This pic was taken at midnight!) (Thanks guys!) (I did get Rachelle's approval before publishing this pic since she's showing a bit of skin).

slip mixing

Ayumi got all her dishes slipped so tomorrow we'll get to see her in action doing some drawings.

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Debra Fritts' Class

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The clay class downstairs is being taught by Debra Fritts.  Here are just a few images of student work in progress.  I was down there today and it looks like the figures are getting larger.  I'll get some more images tomorrow, and also try to make it out to visit some other studios.

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Today's Exercise

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Today's exercise was to find an object to serve a powdered doughnut on.  We were to consider the texture, color, feeling etc, of both the doughnut and the object. Here are some of the things we came up with.  We had a great discussion about food, serving, making specific things for specific purposes as well as how to  make a move to get hand made ware into the hands and on the tables of local caters, restaurants, food shows, etc.

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I would love to start thinking about having a meal at a local resturant in Shelby with all the food prepared by a local chef or cook using as much local ingrediants as possible.  Guests would pay to come to have a meal. I'd design all the tableware, serving dishes etc.
My pal Jen Mecca did something similar to this for her thesis in grad. school.  I think it would be a fun event.

Tuesday Evening

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Yesterday we took a walk down to Cynthia Bringle's studio and showroom.  As always there was an amazing array of work.  Cynthia opened up the studio for everyone at the school to come down and have a visit.  C.B. is a keystone in the Penland community.  It was great to visit w. her.

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Ayumi showed a 10 minute slide presentation to the school last night.  She rocked it out!!!!  She had the video up and the music pumping for the last 2 minutes.

Michael Kline came out to the slide show and afterwords visited w. us in the studio.

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