Glaze Anatomy

Stay In Touch

2010-05-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

I am working with a designer named Roy to create a new website for Snowday Ceramics that incorporates a blog and online shop together at www.snowdayceramics.com. It is still in progress, but I have started writing some blog posts there (as well as a test post or two). You can also “Like” or become a fan of Snowday Ceramics on Facebook, or follow snowdayceramics on Twitter.

Toolympics

2010-03-03T21:52:00.000-08:00

I was happily using one of my favorite clay tools recently and started composing a blogpost solely for it. And I guess because the Olympics just ended I thought about giving it a gold medal. And then I started thinking of other good tools I have, and figured I would round the whole idea out with bronze and silver too.

So, here we go. The Bronze goes to the hand-held Wire Cutter, which is not only useful for turning your big chunk into many little chunks, but also is indispensable for getting your finished pieces off the wheelhead. Honorable mention goes to the wire cutter attached to the wedging table at a 45 degree angle. Because when you are faced with a 25-pound cube of clay, there is no cleaner, better way to dissect it.

Silver goes to this Wood Modeling Tool I may have picked out of the lost and found, but has proved itself to be perfect in so many situations. I use it when I want to clean up the base of my thrown pieces before cutting them off the wheel, and also find it extremely useful as a modeling tool when attaching handles. I have used it so much in fact that it is starting to wear down to a perilously fragile point and I was never able to read the name of the company that produced it, only faintly impressed on the side, and thus haven't been able to buy any replacements.

Gold goes to the Fettling Knife! Oh, fettling knife. You might try to cut through a clay slab with an xacto or a plastic butter knife, but I think really, the fettling knife has the best dimensions for the job, with its slim, long blade that is sharp, but not overly sharp. Its narrow rounded tip can get into corners where most modeling tools can't, and if you have a glaze drip, this is the best thing to shave it off. I even keep one around the house to open the mail.

There are so many ingenious tools out there to help artists work with clay, now I am sorry for the ones I've left out (sorry, tools!). But while tools by definition are specialized for certain uses, it seems I have a particular admiration for tools that are reliable doing multiple jobs. Like Olympic All-Around gymnast Mary Lou Retton. Or Decathlete Bruce Jenner. The Fettling Knife is like the Bruce Jenner of clay tools.

Wintry Mix

2010-01-31T08:04:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and happy winter! I am emerging from a post-Holidays hiatus. A light, dry snow fell yesterday. I like how when it first started snowing the wind blew it into wispy, whiskery streaks along the street.

And how it created a halo glow around this piece of string.

The last snow here in Philadelphia was in December- we got a crazy 23 inches or something. I had to go to A Very Kensington Christmas at Greensgrow Farms the next day, and I woke up early to dig out the car, got stuck trying to drive closer to my house to load up, but eventually, finally, made it. However, I was one of the only ones to do so that day.

I had been at this event the previous weekend, though, and it was great! A Very Kensington Christmas is InLiquid's holiday sale at Greensgrow Farms, a really cool urban farm and nursery in the Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia. People were coming by throughout the day to pick up their CSA share, Christmas trees and wreaths, and shopping at our tables for gifts.

Greensgrow was also selling soups and-- get this-- chestnuts! which were actually roasted on an open fire! I could not resist. Have you ever had one? They can be difficult to open, especially when they are charred, the leather skins get brittle. Then there is a furry layer which is funny and soft, but it tastes bitter so you need to pick that away as well. And then, if your chestnut hasn't crumbled apart by this point, you have a brainy-textured nugget that tastes sweet and roasty, with a powdery and creamy texture that ends up melting in your mouth.

From Scratch Market

2009-11-16T15:37:00.000-08:00

Snowday Ceramics had a table this past weekend at the From Scratch Market held at the Trexlertown Grange near Allentown. Credit goes to Pam Parker for a nicely organized event. I'd never spent much time in the Lehigh Valley before so I did not know what to expect, but ended up having a lovely day.

My table was located on the main hall of the Grange, with about 30 other artists and vendors of all kinds of handmade goods. I made friends with the other potter in the show, Pia Somerlock, who has her studio in the Poconos and has been doing this for about 10 years. She makes a wide variety of stuff including stoneware pots that are earthy on the outside, and brightly glazed on the inside. She will be at the Reading Public Museum "Art of the Craft" show next weekend.

I also chatted for a while with Melanie Linder, who has banded with a group of women from the Kutztown area to form Z-Town Made, an artist collective. A lot of their work seemed to be influenced by Pennsylvania Dutch folk art, but with a design-y freshness that is totally appealing. Maybe they are showing how design-y Pennsylvania Dutch folk art actually is. I ended up buying one of Melanie's prints.

A band called My Cousin The Emperor (I think?) played on the Grange stage, keeping the energy up throughout the day. There was also some very tasty food being sold downstairs, including a delicious butternut squash soup with fresh bread.

Speaking of food, after the show was over and I packed everything up, a source recommended I stop by Yocco's -The Hot Dog King, a local landmark fast food place. So I got pierogies, hotdog, and a birch beer before getting onto the Turnpike. Happy endings.

Updates

2009-10-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

Update on The Clay Studio's 35th Birthday Party and Silent Auction.

To view auction items or bid online, go to the 35th Birthday link on The Clay Studio's website and scroll down to the Silent Auction link, or just click here, where you can browse all the artists, search by artist, and register to be able to bid on the auction. Bidding closes at 8:30pm on Saturday, October 10th.

Tickets are $35 for the party. Live bands include Courtney Fairchild and Twister Baby! Beer from Victory Brewing Company! Wheel-throwing and hand-building demos!

River City Festival

2009-09-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

I found out about, and decided to apply to this kind of last minute, but I am looking forward to having a booth at the River City Festival this coming Saturday, October 3rd from 12 - 5pm. This is a celebration of the waterfront at Penn Treaty Park sponsored by the Fishtown Neighbors Association and will include a 5K run, live bands, community programs, and vendors.

I have been working on lots of new cups and will also have snowkid ornaments for sale (yes, already!).

I have also been applying to some other craft fairs this fall, for the holiday shopping season, and will definitely post about those when they are confirmed!

Cupcakes for Claymobile

2009-09-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

If you will be in Old City this coming First Friday, surely you would like to stop by The Clay Studio at 2nd & Race Streets where the Claymobile, The Clay Studio's educational outreach program, will be having a BAKE SALE to raise funds for the Claymobile's programs.

The Clay Studio will also be holding their opening for exhibits by John Utgaard, graduate students, and one of my previous instructors and friend, Shawn Spangler.

Hush Cups

2009-09-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

The Clay Studio is celebrating its 35th Anniversary on October 10th with a big event throughout the whole building (they are tenting the parking lot too!) that includes live music, BBQ, and silent auction. I have donated a pair of Hush Cups to the silent auction. These are small cups thrown on the wheel, and altered by my thumbs and fingers pushing out or into the cups' sides. I had been meaning to create a kind of puffy, cloudlike vessel, which they sort of are, but even more than that I like how they appear to hold something just below the surface, a suggestion that is not entirely revealed.

The Silent Auction will be on view at The Clay Studio starting October 2nd through the 10th. I think the auction will also be accessible online and will post that information when I have it. Read more about the 35th Birthday Bash here.

**UPDATE**
to view auction items or bid online, go to the 35th Birthday link on The Clay Studio's website and scroll down to the Silent Auction link, or just click here, where you can browse all the artists, search by artist, and register to be able to bid on the auction. Bidding closes at 8:30pm on Saturday, October 10th.

Pulling Triggers: A work in progress

2009-08-31T18:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a project I have been working on for the past few months: someone put me in touch with a fellow who needs some cups made for his wife. She has rheumatoid arthritis, so she has a specific mug that is comfortable for her to hold, based on things such as the size, weight, placement and size of the handles. This is a photo of one of her own mugs on the left. I am told that Bennington Potters in Vermont makes this style of mug, and it is often referred to as a Bennington Trigger.

But inevitably, cups break, and her supply of these are running low.

Her husband asked me to make some more for her. "It has to fit her like a glove," he told me. I said I'd give it a shot.

I finished a batch and sent them to her to try out. They returned with her user feedback on little stickies. For example:

So I have made another set, trying to get the size and hole placement right on target, and we shall see how it feels.

It is cool to have a project like this, which not only makes my degree in industrial design seem relevant but also gets me to throw many pots.

I also am learning to appreciate how difficult daily life is--just holding a coffee cup-- for someone with rheumatoid arthritis.

Octomug

2009-06-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

My friend Rachel commissioned me to make an octopus-themed mug for her husband's Father's Day gift (Happy Father's Day, Eric!). Though I probably would never have thought to make anything like this on my own, I am quite happy with how it turned out, and discovered fascinating facts about octopuses in the process.

For example, an octopus has no skeleton so it can squeeze through a tiny opening, or even a skinny, hairpinny tube in order to get to some food at the other end. An octopus can figure out how to unscrew a jar in order to get to a crab sealed inside. Check out this You Tube video:

There was a large aquarium where dogfish shark carcasses kept appearing at the bottom of the tank, and when they put cameras in to figure out what was going on, they discovered that a giant pacific octopus was doing them in.

On the other hand, even though octopuses can be very strong and very fast, they run out of energy quickly because of their poor circulation.

I also found a cool octopus jewelry shop on Etsy at Octopusme.etsy.com

The suction cups are fun to touch and I think I will try adding little bumpers like these to some other mugs.

Art Star Craft Bazaar 2009

2009-06-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

Art Star put on a super Craft Bazaar again this year! The Penn's Landing location is lovely because it's on the water and feels nice and spacious, and they make good use of the amphitheater by having a full lineup of live bands each day. I'm so impressed with Erin Waxman and Megan Brewster for putting this event together each year.

The weather was beautiful and sunny on both days and lots of people came out! Thank you to everyone who came to the Bazaar and stopped by my booth! My booth neighbor, Shoba Ohal, who was great company, commented on the fact that I had so many friends come visit. I love you guys!

My booth! I am so pleased with how it came together. I felt like my work has developed a lot over the last year and I wanted my booth presentation to reflect this, in terms of the palette as well as a cleaner, cohesive look. I sewed a tablecloth to fit the table, and made the banner using iron-on inkjet transfer paper. It was time-consuming, but I believe I achieved the desired effect.

My friend Yasha Butler also had a booth at Art Star. She makes tableware and jewelry from porcelain that is often left unglazed, so that it feels like touching smooth stones, or frosted glass, or bone, which is what she named a series of work. She is about to move to New York and I wish her the best. I'll miss working in the studio with her at The Clay Studio.

This was my giveaway to put in the goody bags that they were giving out to the first 250 people to come to the Art Star booth. I had postcards printed up (m3 Printing, in Philadelphia, good prices, fast turnaround) to which I attached a teabag, the idea being that now that you have the tea, come over and get your mug!

I also had a pastry chef friend make handmade marshmallows, which I thought would be fun to have at the booth. If you've never had a fresh, homemade marshmallow, it's a totally different experience from the "jet puff" ones that come out of a plastic bag (what is "jet puff" anyway?). It was wonderful to see the delighted looks on peoples' faces when they took a bite, and to feel like I introduced them to something very familiar and completely surprising at the same time. Which is what Snowday is about.

My Burning Question For You

2009-05-08T20:55:00.000-07:00

One of the most helpful ideas I got from Julia Galloway's workshop (previous post) is that the point of making art is to explore and celebrate. This might have been a notion I vaguely understood in the back of my head, but thinking about what I learned from the workshop really crystallized it for me.

So I have been trying to organize my own work and process within this idea: what do I want to explore and celebrate through the making of pottery? What am I already exploring?

I think one theme I have definitely been trying to understand in my work is that of Comfort.

My years at art school majoring in industrial design compels me to gather data from the world outside my head. I mean, I have ideas of what comfort is, but maybe I really have no idea what comfort is. So I am going to ask everyone out there to explain comfort. Please leave a comment below or send me a message here. Tell me one word, or five words, or an anecdote, or send me an image that describes comfort for you.

I think Maggie here has figured out what comfort is!

Julia Galloway Workshop

2009-05-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

My birthday was on Sunday, and, as a present to myself, I got my shift covered at work so that I was able to assist and attend a workshop with Julia Galloway at The Clay Studio last weekend.

Although the title of the workshop was "Porcelain Surfaces", to me, it seemed more a presentation of ways to reconceptualize pots. Through hands-on exercises, slides, and discussion she offered a variety of entry points with which to think and re-think pots.

For example, early on, she had everyone take a lump of clay and form it into a pear. Then the pears were literally deconstructed when she said to take a wire and make one cut into the pear, then rearrange the pieces. From this single action, she had us see the creation of a line and a plane, and start to gather information from these. She also looked at the rearrangements and read narratives from them, which in turn suggested the functionality of the piece (like maybe you could say two parts are cradling each other, and could lead to a cup and saucer set).

She often uses metaphor to talk about form and functional. She looks at a sugarbowl as something to "hold sweetness" and perhaps this is why she created some sugar/creamer sets that look like little beds. The sugar is stored underneath the pillow and it is nice to think of the sweetness being held by your pillow, and evokes the phrase "sweet dreams".

We looked at slides of historical pots and she pointed out how culture and values of a region can be expressed thoroughly through a pot. Different cultures even seem to have specific vectors in their pots. European pots seem to be headed Up and Islamic pots seem to be headed Out, while Chinese pots are "inhaling, and settling".

Later in the day she addressed surface decoration more directly, in a rather declarative moment that had us all scrambling for our notebooks for the truthbomb she was about to drop: all surface decoration resolves to just 4 things: dots. lines. flora. representation. We did a hands-on exercise playing with these four simple modes on porcelain tiles.

She said that you could see the form of a pot as its emotional content, while its surface provides its intellect. That made sense to me. But I wonder what it means that I find surface decoration so challenging. Usually my attempts at it seem so cheesy, or cutesy, or overly earnest. Can the same be said of my intellectual expression?

We heard a story about how she got clues on how to glaze by taking notes on the daily outfits of one of her better-dressed professors. As she says it on her website, "We put all kinds of colors and textures together when we get dressed every morning, and when it comes to glazing, I think this is a good place to start."

Even her midday lecture was not only a description of her work, but again, an offering of entry points into how she sees ceramics, art, artists. I think she might say an artist's work is ultimately a way to explore and celebrate her world. In Julia's case, she explores and celebrates beauty she sees, passion and obsessiveness, sense of place.

The show that she had spent the week installing in The Clay Studio's gallery, Quiescent, is a kind of homage to John James Audubon and his watercolor paintings of “The Birds of North America”, and is a reflection of these three things. She celebrates the beauty of his paintings, but she also really relates to his passion for his work. She pointed out that later in his life, when he realized he would not live long enough to document every bird, he started working with BOTH hands, and that level of obsession resonated with her. The installation itself suggests an enclosed garden, a quiet space. The walls are covered with bird cups, one for every bird that Audubon identified and painted. Some sit on shelves that emit birdsongs when you walk by. I think she's trying to recreate those moments outdoors where you feel totally present in the powerful stillness in between the birds calling.

She also showed other students' work in her lecture. She obviously loves seeing how these developing artists are also exploring and celebrating their worlds.

In her lecture she mentioned that she began teaching workshops in art centers in a conscious effort to offer something to community artists- the "weekend warriors"- recognizing that when your time in the studio is limited, you tend to focus on technique. Workshops are a way to bring the conceptualizing, the metaphor, the theorizing, to the work.

I realized when she said this that I had taken it for granted that this kind of knowledge would always be accessible. But in fact, I rely on artists like her being generous and enthusiastic enough to share, and I thank her for spending the day with us, lending her experience and insight.

May Days

2009-04-15T06:47:00.000-07:00

I will be at Art Star Craft Bazaar again this year! Look for the Snowday Ceramics booth.
Saturday, May 30th from 11-6pm & Sunday, May 31st from 11-6pm
Penn's Landing Great Plaza - on Columbus Boulevard between Walnut Street and Market Street in Philadelphia

The best part of last year was seeing so many friends, so I hope everyone can swing by again!

Doin' the Dart

2009-04-08T19:05:00.001-07:00

Here's another thing from Shawn Spangler's Throw & Alter class: Darting, which is also a sewing technique in which you cut like a triangle out of your fabric and then sew the fabric back up. With pots, you remove a V-shape or it could also be an oval leaf-shape from the wall of your clay form and then push the walls back to close up the hole.

I tried it with simple, straight-up-and-down cylinders and hated it! These look so stupid.

But then I tried it with some potbellied cups I made. One V-dart on the side turns the potbelly into a duckbutt. Love it.

Funny Face

2009-04-02T20:52:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, I happened to be working at The Clay Studio on a day when Joanie was looking for someone to pose in an ad so I agreed to help her out. When I went to work at the restaurant today, my co-worker greeted me with the City Paper opened up to this page. Ha!

(the mustache is wet clay painted on my face)

You can find out more about classes here.

Pushing It, or, Fat Lips

2009-04-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

I took a course with Shawn Spangler recently, called Throw and Alter. Here is a progression I went through in the early weeks of the class. Apologies in advance some of these photos are dim.

Following my teacher's demonstration, I threw a bowl with a hollow lip--a neat way to add some volume to your piece without adding a lot of extra weight. Then, I altered it by pressing a rib into the lip in four places. This had a way of making it look slightly puffy.

I made another bowl and did this again but tried to exaggerate the effect, this time pressing the the rib in further, so the four puffy parts even look like lobes, which you can see from the top. I also pushed out from inside the bowl a bit, thinking I was squaring out the piece but I don't know that achieved the desired effect. But anyway, you have to show the clay who's boss sometimes.

I then tried to get more extreme, and threw a bowl with an even larger hollow lip. When pressing down with the rib, I actually cut through the rim, which really emphasized the fat, puffy form. It is starting to look like an inflated raft or link sausages or something. On a larger scale, this could be a very impressive centerpiece bowl, or could have a handle across the top and be a quirky ceramic basket.

I really like this idea of making hollow components to my work, giving it a fun chunkiness but without heaviness.

Short & Sweet

2009-03-09T19:48:00.000-07:00

I like how the patched up cracks on my neighbor's wall looks like a cupcake.

Snowday!

2009-01-31T04:33:00.000-08:00

Since taking the course at WBDC (see the post from November) I have been working on setting up a shop on Etsy.com. My profound thanks to my friends for their feedback and advice. I feel ready to start telling people about it. Introducing Snowday Ceramics!

Several people had suggested names for the shop, and I need to give credit to Lindsay Berman for coming up with this one. It evokes what I want my pottery to be about: comfort, being at home, delight and a little surprise. A bundle of marshmallows in a mug of cocoa. You are the marshmallow.

Etsy is a website that is a marketplace for handmade goods. In addition to pottery and ceramics you can find an astounding number of other items such as jewelry, paintings, photography, dolls, soap, purses, aprons, greeting cards, neckties, magnets, candles, amigurumi, furniture, beads, hats, needlepoint, stickers, dog treats, yarn... all made by hand.

What else is next? This year I'd like to show work in another consignment shop in addition to VIX Emporium, and also participate in the craft fairs I did last summer (see posts from June and May) as well as one or two new ones, perhaps in a different city. And overall to stay productive and focused, build upon what I've started, try new things, be happy that I'm doing something I like to do.

The Meaning of Lights

2008-12-31T16:40:00.000-08:00

I would like to genuinely thank my neighbors, many of whom went to great lengths to decorate their houses and porches with holiday string lights and variants thereof. I like to think that it is a creative and caring, if arguably excessive, behavior. Even though I myself have difficulty being excessive- and probably because of this- I quite admire excess.

My across-the-street neighbors approached their display traditionally but with a dose of glamour! On the one hand they trimmed the house neatly with evergreen and featured Nutcrackers in the window. But those dolls stand before a glimmery tinsel backdrop that reminds me of something you stood in front of for your prom photo (in a good way!) And you can't tell in this picture, but the front door was swathed in extremely glossy metallic blue wrap. It took me a moment to realize there wasn't a blue lightbulb behind the storm door. All in all, I liked how they set off Christmas motifs with an 'American Idol' theatricality.

From around the corner, another impressive display. I think my dad, who likes things to be symmetrical, would appreciate the time and effort that probably went into hanging this. The rows of lights in the windows are striking, but a bit regimented for my tastes; if I were re-doing this for them I would make them follow the pretty scallop pattern that the garland made around the porch.

I don't need everything to be symmetrical, but I do like it when neighbors in connected houses seem to be trying to make their lights match. It is a time of year to cooperate with one another, after all.

Like I said, I don't need everything to be symmetrical. I think these neighbors did something interesting, just creating noodley lines with their lights. It's like abstract art.

Meanwhile, up the street, I thought this house did a good job of signifying "snow" with their lights. So, right, the string up top where the lights are actually shaped like snowflakes allows us to read the fluttery single dots of light below as a snowscape. I guess that's Santa's head in the middle, so maybe this house was actually depicting the North Pole. Neat!

In a twist on the "icicle" style string light, this house created "frost" windows, or maybe "snow accumulating in pane corners" windows, sort of like the spray snow that often shows up in the office windows of insurance agencies and banks. But I this think this is way better.

On the next block, these guys opted for alternative lighting formats in their colorful orbs and paper stars with which they created a bold composition using both their porch and the room behind the front window. It's still festive, but perhaps asking us to contemplate the planetary, more cosmic dimensions of the holidays.

But there is also something to be said for keeping things simple.

Thanks again! Happy holidays and happy new year.

Taste of Possibilities

2008-12-04T11:40:00.000-08:00

I found the recent "Food" issue of The New Yorker to be kind of inspiring.

Like the story by Jane Kramer about Jeff Alford and Naomi Duguin, who met in Tibet, restless and wanting to see every corner of the world, and finding a life partner in each other, and raising children while backpacking through Asia and writing articles about food, traveling and immersing themselves. But like food was just the vehicle that allowed them to do it, that structured the travels. Otherwise they live in a house in Toronto, or sometimes on the family farm in the country. It was a story about how people fashion a way of living for themselves that is on their own terms, and diverges from convention, but being comfortable in that, normalizing that, and not worrying about impossibilities.

Another thing that intrigued me about them is the fact that when they go, they stay for a while, like months at a time (they used to pack a semester's worth of homework with them so they could travel with the kids) and also they keep going back, all the time, over and over. Like Alford became enthralled by Thailand early on and has managed to get back there about once a year. I think travel feels precious to me right now, and so I would feel pressure that any trip I take be well planned and executed, so as to get the full benefit from the trip. But to go back again and again would allow you to just Absorb, and not worry about it, because you know you'll have another chance.

And the fact that they were comfortable taking their sons with them everywhere; I thought about this because Bill had recently said he'd like us to take several trips a year, and not feel like we can't go just because we have a house now, or the dog for that matter. I don't have the same wanderlust that I felt right after I'd graduated from college. I think the few months of backpacking around the Mediterranean that I did made me crave a feeling of being settled, having a neighborhood and a routine. I guess Alford and Duguin, by completely immersing themselves in foreign places, are able to get that settled, connected feeling everywhere they have gone. I don't know that I want to live a life like that right now, but I want to remember to be open to it, to see the value in that. So it doesn't one day become an impossibility.

Mission Statement Impossible

2008-11-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

We bought our first house and have been having new floors installed.

That sentence doesn't even begin to explain what a time-consuming process each of these things has been. Not to mention the World Series and Election Day; so while I had good intentions of more blog posts this fall, it just didn't happen.

I did, however, start taking a course through an organization called the Women's Business Development Center. It's called JumpStart, a series of classes that goes over stuff you'd want to know to start your own business. I do sell my pottery casually through word of mouth, and at the two craft fairs earlier this year, but I would like to have more focus as I go about it, I'd like to get myself together to create a store on etsy.com, get my work into some more galleries and shops (p.s. I do have ware at VIX Emporium now), and eventually turn this into a livelihood and leave my part time job. I thought taking this class would help me devise my exit plan by helping me clarify my thoughts about what I am doing, and give me more confidence as well.

One of the most applicable things I've gotten from this class has been to write a mission statement. Probably for the last year I have been trying to understand what my work is about, and have attempted to write a satisfying artist's statement. I think going over the mission statement in class helped me understand what the point of an artist's statement is (or could be): as a way to articulate your values while describing what you do. I think in the case of art, you tend to figure it out in conjunction with the making of the work. But that in turn means sometimes you need to stop making, and pause to reflect upon what you have made. I need to reflect more.

In class we did an exercise where we broke into groups and wrote a sample mission statement. Our group just made up a business (a holistic spa) and wrote the mission statement on that. It was helpful to do, and it came together rather easily. One thing we noticed was that once we had written the statement, the made-up name for the spa didn't really fit anymore, an example of how the mission statement ends up guiding the business.

I went home and tried to write one for myself. I wanted to convey that I make ceramics for casual use in people's homes, not precious or fragile, and that there is something uncommon about it, a little odd, or off, and perhaps humorous, but still well-made. I also like to think that many of my pieces have specific identities and I know sometimes I feel like I have a relationship with my mugs and bowls. People always have a favorite mug.

So far I've got: "Carol Han Ceramics produces handmade ceramic items that are made with care and attention to craft, but also live comfortably with you in your home, bringing an upbeat and offbeat attitude to your life."

I sort of want to call the business something other than Carol Han Ceramics, which sounds a little formal and doesn't really say anything about the work other than someone named Carol Han probably made it. I've already spent plenty of time working on it, but although I have some ideas, don't think I've nailed it just yet.

Ayumi Horie Workshop Weekend

2008-09-11T23:06:00.001-07:00

I went to Peters Valley Craft Center for a 2-day workshop with Ayumi Horie, who is a ceramic artist whose work I like very much. She makes functional stuff, cups, bowls, plates, out of red clay that she covers in white slip (sometimes other colors too) and scratches through to make drawings of animals. The bunnies, monkeys, whales, and birds are charming. Often small spots of bright colored glaze are added.

I've always been drawn to how loose, soft, and unworried her work is, there's sort of a bold imperfection to it. Her pot construction looks a little sloppy, like for example she doesn't erase burrs and crumbs from the surface of the clay, but maybe just pushes them down a little so they won't be sharp, or like how the place where the handle meets a cup has a seam, not trying too hard to smooth it to perfection. When she dips her pots in slip you can tell she didn't fuss with tongs, there are finger marks that show she just held it with her own hand and dunked.

At the same time, I once helped unpack a shipment of her work at The Clay Studio, and it was PERFECTLY well packed, the boxes were filled really nice and tight, careful attention to teapot spouts and handles, and this was the first time I witnessed the brilliant use of narrow film wrap to secure the bubble wrap.

So I really wanted to meet this artist who seems to run a very professional studio and effective website (where she sells most of her work- and it sells out, people), but at the same time, makes work that is playful, loose, and fun. It seems like a great combination to have.

Because clay is fun, and while I know there is a part of me that is very serious, and perfectionist, and gets stressed out, I seem to remember that there was a time when I was a more whimsical and joyful person, and I think part of what I am trying to do with clay is reconnect to that old part of me, before she got beaten down by school, and office jobs, and loss of love, and credit card debt, and lack of health insurance. The good news is these things are no longer active parts of my life right now, but the bad news is I got kind of dried out in the meantime.

Clay is moist. There was a studio tech at Peters Valley, who, every time he opened a new bag of clay for us would breathe it in deeply and say, "Aahhh". The smell is like being on a dewy mountain at dawn.

Ayumi demoed her "dry throwing" technique, where in fact the clay is moist, fresh, and soft, but the idea is to make pots on a wheel without adding water. It's like trimming away and scooping out everything that is not part of the pot, and also some stretching and pushing it out with ribs. She said she originally started doing it in order to deal with tendonitis in her wrists, but also likes it because there are marks you can make this way that you'd be unlikely to achieve through wet throwing. For example, she'll use the edge of a credit card to press a line into the outside of the her clay cylinder; then later when pushing the wall out, that hard line will soften, warp, and open up.

I played around with this technique the first night, it sort of lends itself to making chunky pots, which is fun. (chunky is fun!) But it's a little distressing to have so much "wasted" clay. In her studio Ayumi has an assistant who immediately takes her trims and scoops and wedges it up to use again.

The other parts of the workshop included some exercises and slide/video/lecture. Maybe I would have liked a little more time for exercises. There were these slab tiles that were AROUND the studio all weekend, being moved from shelf to table to shelf again, and dipped in slip, and the techs were HANDLING them and preparing them ALL weekend, and I kept anticipating this exercise we were going to do with all these tiles, and we didn't get to it till the very end of the 2nd day (it was a mark-making exercise). I could have used one less slide show in order to have more hands-on time. I did skip the Peters Valley slide show the first night in order to spend a few hours in the studio to play around and try stuff out. That was good. I don't usually let myself play. Playing around is something I ought to do more if I want to loosen up, soften up, and if am concerned about seeking my own style, or distinct vocabulary, for my work.

The slide lectures were a good way to see a lot of pots made by lots of different potters. It made me consider many adjectives and words I would or wouldn't want people to associate with my work. Or me, for that matter. That's something about making stuff that falls under the category of "art", it ends up being an extension of you, or at least an expression of you. I hear potters say to make "honest pots", I guess because it's going to be the most convincing way.

She also showed us a fascinating movie, Isaac Button, Country Potter, a B&W silent film document of the last potter at one of the last England countryside potteries. He did everything from digging the clay out of the ground, to throwing and glazing all the pots, to shoveling coal (coal!?) into the kiln. I found an excerpt from it on You Tube.

His pot-making responded to the needs of a different lifestyle; the pottery had been there for centuries making ware for the villagers' every day use. It forces you to think about your own work in this context. No one who buys a mug from me "needs" it in the sense that he'd be out of luck for drinking, otherwise. So why do I make, and what other needs shall I fulfill? The industrial design student in me hopes my pots would provide interesting solutions. Must think about this more. More later.

The Latest Glaze

2008-08-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

What on earth have I been doing since my last post?

Making more pots...

Testing glazes:
I'm looking for a soft fawn brown,
should I go with...

...or without speckles?

Trying to find a warm yellow using
red iron oxide and
instead
getting baby poo!

Getting closer to it with a mason stain...

I like the results using rutile.
I think I will combine it with the mason stain
and do more tests.

Trying out this orange mason stain

but getting some crackling.

I wonder if adding

zinc would help.

and testing several pinks,
so hard to achieve a good pink!

But I think I can work
with shrimp.

Tool-torial

2008-06-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

I want to test a lot of glazes over the next few months, which means I'll be making many very small batches that still have to be well mixed and sieved. I have been wanting to make myself this tool that I saw in the Sept/Oct 2007 issue of Pottery Making Illustrated mentioned by Jonathan Kaplan. It's just a toothbrush that's bent so it can get into a small sieve. Simple and ingenious.

Materials:

toothbrush

(I picked the largest, most-evenly bristled kind.)

heat gun

(I believe you could also use a hairdryer)

pair of pliers

(if you're a tough guy, just use your fingers)

Procedure:

Point your hairdryer or heat gun at the neck of the toothbrush for about 30 sec. - 2 min. depending on the intensity of your particular appliance.

When the plastic is slightly softened, grab the head of the toothbrush with the pliers to bend it backwards to a 90-degree angle.

What a lovely neck. Notice that some of the brush bristles were singed, so, I could've been more careful with that heat gun.

See how easy it will be to sieve small batches of glaze now!

Art For The Cash Poor 2008

2008-06-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Art For The Cash Poor is a really cool art fair event that supports InLiquid, an online artists' resource. Having just done the Art Star Craft Bazaar two weeks ago, I can't help but compare and contrast the two. I think from the outside they look like the same thing: artists and crafters set up with booths, live music, & vegan food vendors. But if you look a little closer, there is more of a fine-art representation to Cash Poor, which makes sense seeing that many of InLiquid's members are painters, printmakers, photographers and the like. Meanwhile, the vendors at the Bazaar seem more likely to be makers of really cute/ironic crafts, jewelry and silk-screened T-shirts, although certainly these folks were represented at Cash Poor as well.

It wasn't until I got to the Crane Building that I realized that Art for the Cash Poor is meant to be a benefit for InLiquid, what with the extensive raffle, and food vendors, such as the nice folks from North Port Fishington Cookie Factory over there to the right, informing customers that a portion of their proceeds will be donated. There were also a festive fotobooth, and an artist wellness area featuring massage and reiki on the spot, which I thought was really interesting, although I didn't have any time to experience it.

And not to say that anyone at Cash Poor was unprofessional, but it seemed a greater number of the vendors at Art Star were fully entrepreneurial, marketing-savvy, prominently displaying their logo and signs, business cards at hand. There were artists at AFTCP whose art I noticed, but unfortunately I can't tell you what their names were.

But here are some booths where I picked up a card: Rotorcaps- Jen Roder makes jewelry from bottlecaps, which sounds at first like a tried idea, but hers are extremely well-crafted with sterling silver, and she has a way of isolating the bottlecap imagery from its context, allowing you to appreciate it with a new perspective. Wolf Bait - Kelly Wolf was selling zippered purses made with *unbelievably cute* fabrics from Japan. They were as cute as the 4-month old biscuit-colored French Bulldog puppy named Olive who came to my table on Sunday. I can't believe I don't have a picture of her. Here is an obligatory picture of my dog Jonah instead. (p.s. this photo keeps automatically rotating itself when I upload it, if anyone can tell me how to correct it, please do)

Would I do these fairs again? Absolutely. I learned a lot at each one and saw them as fun networking opportunities; it also makes me feel like the most popular girl in Philadelphia when so many people I know stop and talk to me at my table.

Art Star Craft Bazaar 2008

2008-06-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't love a Bazaar? I was amazed by how many friends came by, SO good to see everyone. Yeah, the weather was a real drag on Saturday, a lot of the vendors closed up, but since pottery can pretty much stand up to the rain I ended up sticking it out, which worked out. Still I was glad that Sunday brought sunshine and lots of foot traffic, to make for a real festival atmosphere. It was exhausting, but fun, and encouraging.

Details to remember for next craft fair:

Have tape and twine. Always.

Get a dolly/cart. My family let me use their "Total Trolley" on the second day which was completely marvelous, as seen on TV.

Use paperweights to hold down the mailing list.

Bring TP and baby wipes, especially if uncertain about the bathroom situation.

The little tent that could!

Oh Jonah, did that load-in tire you out?

Kiln Time

2008-05-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

A sampling of results from the kiln we unloaded today, just in time for Art Star Craft Bazaar!

I used Mason Stains in order to get brighter colors. I love them and will definitely test more.

I've also been making these fun cylinders that you can group into pithy, ironic, or inspiring phrases... kinda like magnetic poetry.

Pitching Tents

2008-05-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

I will be selling my pottery at two craft fairs this summer!

Art Star Craft Bazaar
Sat May 31st, 11am - 7pm & Sun June 1st, 11am - 5pm
Rain or shine
at Penn's Landing Great Plaza (Columbus Blvd. between Walnut & Market Sts)
My booth is #78, down around the fountain closest to the river.

Art For The Cash Poor
Sat June 14, 1-6 pm & Sun June 15, 1-6 pm
Rain or shine
at The Crane Arts Building
1400 N. American Street (at Master Street, a little north of Girard Av.)

Both events should be a lot of fun, with live music and over a hundred talented artists and crafters at each show.

Leaving my office job in order to focus on ceramics has been simultaneously energizing and exhausting, but overall I am immensely satisfied with this choice. Many people have the opinion that a career in the arts = penniless, but I disagree, and plan on turning this into my livelihood. Although I have sold my work before, being in these shows is a major step. Thanks for everyone's enthusiasm and encouragement.

I'd love to see you at one or both events!