More Tomodachis

Here's more "Tomodachi". These two are done in celadon glaze and made from imprinted slabs. The imprints are shells, a couple of bought stamps, a large fragment of patterned plastic from a parking lot and styrofoam packing materials.















































I particularly like the last two shots of another plain one. The glaze is Cayote's Light Shino and the breaks are very pleasing.

I hardly ever make anything with a raku finish, but this little pot worked well--even though I had no idea what the finished glazes would look like. All four sides were variations of direct brushwork.

I refer to these forms as "Tomo-dachi" or "little friends" in Japanese. And that's what it turned out to be. A cyber friend of mine who is a musician bought it and that's where he keeps his guitar picks.

How to make Japanese Rice Straw Rope

Attach the beginning loops to something stable like a door knob or chair finial. The beginning must not be allowed to twist.

After establishing the base of the loop by twisting it around a few times, separate into two equal strands of fiber. The two strands are twisted in the SAME direction and made into rope by twinning in the OPPOSITE direction. This creates the tension that keeps the rope from untwisting.

You can finish off the rope with a knot, bead, or weave it back into itself. Lots of possibilities!


(If you want to reproduce the instruction image, click on the jpeg and drag it to the desktop to save. Then either print it directly (MAC) or place it into a document like Word and print the image. The jpeg will print at about 6 x 8 inches on a landscape setting. Unfortunately, the graphic program I used to make the sheet is kaput - outstripped by technology - but you could either re-draw the instructions or re-align this copy.)


















You can use single strands of fiber to make a very fine rope or a grouping of strands to make this rope. In this country, raffia is the closest thing to rice straw and has the fiber strength. Check out basketry suppliers, arts & craft stores, needlework shops for sources of fiber.

Using raffia, the rope can be made of colored fibers or dyed to match a glaze. It works well on lugs, handles and as webbing on a pot. It can be used to attach a lid to a pot or loop over the top to hold a lid down. It works very well with rattan and natural twigs and wood as well. You're only limited by your imagination!






An excellent resource for a world of knots, this reprint of the original book can be found on many discount websites. I found mine in a used book store and couldn't pay for it fast enough!

Ran across this slide during my converting slides to jpegs project. This sorta sums me up....a bit of discipline and impulse. Which is, by the way, the name of the piece.

Unfortunately it doesn't exist anymore. "Discipline" does, (is that not the case?) but "Impulse" was made so much on impulse that one finger fell off after a short time, I trashed it.

"Discipline" is fun to have around for scratching the head, resting the chin and holding a book, however.

Maybe some day, on impulse, I'll reconstruct the whole thing again.

And now for something completely different

So while I'm waiting for the 'tile guy' to begin laying new floor tile in the bathroom where the shower-tile-project-that-won't-die is located, I was going through some more slides of previous work and came across a slide of one of the soft jewelry pieces I made some years ago.

Before clay, I worked extensively in fibers; weaving, needlework, ethnic clothing design, baskets. The funny thing about weaving was even before I got my hands on a loom, I knew how it all worked. but I won't get off on that right now--weaving is a whole 'nother bunch of posts.

The soft jewelry grew out of designing ethnic clothing. At one point, I was heavily involved with The Children's Art Center in Norfolk VA and a the Textile Designer's Association of Virginia. A wonderful teacher, Margot Carter Blair arrived upon our horizon and taught a great series of classes on design and application of a huge range of fibers and embellishments. She is a gifted and inspiring teacher.

This necklace is a pendent made of a cross-stitch pattern I designed, cotton embroidery thread tassels and beaded pom-poms and wrapped cording. The length is adjustable by positioning the two loops on either side of the back section. It can remain at the shortened length or lengthened by slipping the loops over the pom-poms on either side. The natural tension of cotton upon cotton holds the adjustment in place.

One day, I will repeat the necklace, but instead of cotton, use more luxurous materials--maybe a porcelain pendent and matching beads.

I'm so glad I started trying to remember to keep a photography record of my work early on. It's great to have the visual references in order to dip into them in order to think about new variations on old themes.

Tiles, Tiles, Tiles, Continued

Okay,

I've thought about this hanging tiles stuff a bit........Think I'll mark off the walls into 1/4 sections with an elongated vertical mark for each quarter, then lay out the tiles, measure them the same way and mark them off in vertical lines at 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 bits. That way, I can align the verticals and hang the tiles in segments without biting off too much at a time, and keep the spacing uniform from one end to the other.

Takes a while for these ideas to fester......

How do you ponder problems? Do you grab a piece of paper and start drawing? Do you work it out in dialogue with yourself? Sometimes I sorta' open up a space and hang a sign on it saying, "This space open and reserved" and go about my business for a while. Pretty soon, like a Magic 8-Ball, something floats up.

Same goes for finding lost objects. Another way to find lost things is to go to bed at night and say, "Okay, I will wake up tomorrow and know where the lost thing is." Then you sub-conscious , which watches you all the darn time but never says a Word when you try to find something, will whisper in your ear while you sleep.


It's just fascinating to me how people think. A lot of my thinking is in pictures. When I was teaching art, one of the first things I would ask my students is, "How many of you can visualize a cube in your mind?"

Kids would raise their hands.

"How many of you can see that cube as if it were transparent; made out of glass?"

Less hands.

"Now, how many of you can tumble that cube end-over-end in your mind?"

Even less or no hands up at all.


Update: I've just discovered that I can buy the webbing that comes as a mosaic tile backing. It is webbing attached to a contact-like paper that can be glued onto the back of tiles, then the paper peeled off to leave just the webbing so that the tiles are all linked together. 'Way better than trying to thin-set each tile to the wall. Now I have to figure out just how to do this.

Think I'll start by tracing each tile out onto a large sheet of paper--taped together paper grocery bags should do it--cut that out in one long wall-strip and see how well it fits. If I divide that into fourths, I will know how much spacing I will need.

I COULD lay out the tiles and when I got the width right, take the very wide transparent Scotch tape and stick it in strips onto the face of the tile. I could cut intervals apart with an Exacto knife, hang the tile and then peel off the tape when it is set.

Tiles, Tiles, Tiles!

The Tiles are Fired!


Everything came out beautifully; no warps, no breaks,

.......ah.......well,

just one little glitch.

You knew there had to be a glitch, didn't you? I mean, the gods just can't let things be perfect, now can they? Otherwise, we'd just get tooooo cocky.

One of the witness cones just ever-so-gently leaned over and kissed the edge of a tile. I looked at it and thought, "Right. All I have to do is try to lift that off and the whole tile will give up a hunk of clay."














How do you make a replacement for a piece that fits like a jig-saw puzzle? I shiver to think of it.

A light tap brought the cone away. The glaze was a tad disturbed, but a bit of grinding will put it right.

This picture doesn't show how the finished product will be. This is all the pieces laid out to make sure everything is there and I didn't leave one piece laying on the slab roller waiting to be loaded in the kiln. (Oh, stop my beating heart!)

A running band will be fitted onto a wall to encircle the shower stall. The big hole in shown here in one band is the location of the shower control fitting.

In a moment of total paranoia, I made 'spacer tiles' just in case. They are small rectangular tiles the vertical measurement of the band but made in three sets in varying widths of 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch and one inch. They're designed to be inserted next to the door mounts should the frieze band be too short in length. I marked them with my signature stamp and the date. Don't think they will be need though.

Next question: How do you mount these kinds of tiles on a vertical wall? Do you start at one side wall and stick them into thin-set holding them up until they 'take' then move on to the next tile hoping the grout allowances will come out okay on the other end? I think I'll try outlining them with a black marker to see how well they'll fit, then use that as a guide.

The estimate of the shrinkage came out just fine. Fitted tightly together as it is shown in the photo, the tiles on the narrower walls come out 2 1/4 inches shorter than the wall measurement. The larger wall came out 4 inches smaller. This should allow for grout lines of about 1/4 inch or less between tiles.

An interesting side note here: The next time I do this. (Insert derisive snort here) I will make each tile approximately the same size as the next because the larger tiles that go from the top to the bottom of the band, the full width of the design, came out just ever so slightly smaller than the ones that had one cut or more somewhere intersecting the width, therefore calling for more than one groutline and widening the entire width. In other words, if there are to be horizontal cuts in the design, there had better be corresponding horizontal cuts on the next tile and so on, so that the expansion of the width of the sections will be equal. When I mount this set of tiles, I will have to fudge the placement to make up for the space taken up by grout.

I've decided that the fudge factor will have to be more at the bottom of the frieze than at the top. At the top it would be much more obvious.

And, for all of the stuff above, the grout had jolly well be close to the color of the tiles so the fudge factor won't be as obvious.

If I ever, ever agree to do this again, please have me committed.

Soap Dish

I've been kicking around some ideas for soap dishes. I'd like to mount one in the corner of the shower below the water source, yet high enough that it will not get that soap jelly in the bottom of the dish. It is sort of folded down at the sides and dished up in the center.

The shell shape shown actually has areas on the sides that drains water away, yet keeps it far enough away from the walls avoid soap scum running down the wall tiles. (Difficult to see in this shot.)

I have another fish-shaped dish that has the head and tail of the fish lower than the body, but after firing it to bisque, I decided it would be too small.

Firing Update

Firing completed. All tiles came out perfectly. Now to waxing the bottoms, a glaze dip and the final firing. Yea!

I'm firing a second bisque load now with glaze tests to decide on which glaze to use. The tile guy comes tomorrow. He was sick all last week which gave me some wiggle room.

In celebration (Not of the tile guy's being sick, but of the successful firing), I had the last piece of lemon pie with strawberries. I'd show a picture of it, but it's all gone now.

Actually, it's the extra pie that I stuck into the freezer after everybody left following the Fourth of July. Didn't know it for sure at the time, but it freezes really well. This pie is about the easiest, simplest pie Ever, hands down, bar none, tampoco:

EASY LEMON PIE

1 Graham cracker prepared crust
1 can Eagle Brand Sweetened condensed mink (14 oz.)
3 medium egg yolks
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (ca. 2 lemons)

Mix lemon juice with egg yolks using a wire whip. Add condensed milk and blend well. Pour into the prepared crust. (Turn down the aluminum edge to protect the crust from too much heat. And of course, unfold the rim for serving!)
(Save the clear plastic lid so you can put it back over the pie for storage in the refrigerator or to seal it up for for freezing. Crimp the rim back over the plastic lid edge.)

Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Check and rotate the pie. Bake about 20 minutes more. Pie should be lightly brown. To test for doneness, insert the tip of a knife into the center. If it comes out cleanly, the pie is done. This is a very rich pie, so smaller slices are in order.

Serve hot, cooled or frozen. Great with strawberries.

The entire shower enclosure tiles are in the kiln s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y firing to bisque stage.

Um, these are not my fingers. Note the long fingernails and the absence of clay, flaky dry skin and wimpy muscle tone.

Feh! No self-respecting potter would ever let their hands get into this condition.