Interpretation

Featured Tiles:  I like to think of this set of tiles as an example of relationships:

The tile on the left is the opening statement:  "This is what I am; This is the standard."

The tile on the right is a variation or response:  It takes the example of the above and elaborates as if it were saying, "I accept your statement and respond. I am an elaboration of you." Or, "I see your bid and raise you one."

Also working in this design dynamic is the shape and strong black framing of both tiles, bouncing the eye back and forth toward the center. The outer curves work in the same way, leading the eye back and forth between the tile: The left tile has a larger outer margin on the far left; the right tile sweeps toward the far right border, but a similar strong outer border on the right and the strong vertical in the center of the image stops the eye at the far right. 

The tree-like center designs are isolated as images, but relate to each other in motion toward the center, also bouncing the eye back and forth, yet slowing the flow by corresponding dark verticals.

How wide the center division between the two tiles is also important. If hung too widely apart, this dynamic would not work as well.


I don't think these things as I am working. These design elements are almost subconscious and are part of an artist's "eye". They either look right or they don't.


This same back and forth happens a lot in music:  Theme and Variation and so it can be in clay.

So, what do you think is going on here?

These guys are fun to move around to get different impressions.

Being Your Own Inspiration

Many times we go to workshops, seminars and conventions, listen to lectures, buy books, watch demonstrations, try our hand at new techniques and become inspired to create new works.

It's good to feed that creativity and sharpen skills,

But

Sometimes in all the flood of the new, the exciting, the dazzle, we can lose ourselves.

That's why it is a good idea to keep alive all the essence of what you and you alone can do.

Keep a good record of your work to remind yourself where you were going with a certain piece; make a note of construction, alterations, glazing and firing as well as what inspired you to make it or what your thoughts were while you were in the process.

I used to think I would make only one piece each time, but I have come to think that making two is better, at least for me.

 I also like to set the finished work in front of me and take a good look at it. I make notes about what problems I encountered, what surprises happened and what I would do if I made it again.

Those are written in the margins of my journal that I keep as I throw or construct work, through the glazing process and after firing. That way the whole history of a piece is located in one place. And I don't really care if it is messy or not. Sometimes fast is better than neat.

Inspiration can come from anywhere......

This is one of my favorite movies.

And when I finished the piece below, I named it, "Count Olaf".

I chuckle every time I look at it.
















The piece is about seven inches tall, made by slabbing out some porcelain, impressing it with pieces of styrofoam packing material, a sea shell, comb, and a palm-sized piece of car tail light picked up in a parking lot.


Really, I started with a freeform teardrop shape for the base.

For the sides, I made a pattern drawn on newspaper and cut out makes the shape for the two sides of the piece.

I join the two sides using a score tool and clay worms and coax it into a standing form. This has to be done by using a very light touch because I'm working with rather wet clay. I prefer to join these kinds of pieces while they are soft. It makes for better seams. I have to be very careful not to disturb the outside design.

I shape the spout, making it bulge at the base, roll the back over and smoothing it out.

I put the flattened ball of clay 'button' at the point where the form makes a radical change. This is really to reinforce the change of direction that stresses the clay. And it makes a very good design element.

I also manipulate the form mostly from the inside with dampened fingers, pushing it in or out to manipulate and emphasize the curves. And I lightly support the outside while I'm doing it.


The glaze is an iron glaze with a creamy rutile liner and the piece is fired at a cone 5/6 oxidation.

Jottings: "Art Advice"

Since, at the moment I don't have access to clay or equipment, I have been spending time "cleaning out" my computer.

 "My dirty old computer"-that commercial cracks me up.

++++++

**Segway Warning**

Can you become a computer hoarder?
I think so.

++++++

Anyway


In my frustration and because my MAC is now screaming to me that the Startup Disc is full and I can't download things and need to unload files,  I ran across a stored document called,


 Art Advice: Random Thoughts about You and Your Work

The first 10 years are the hardest.

Break a lot of bad pots.

Keep a lot of bad pots, but only as a reference.

Surrender to your art. 

Recognize it is an organic need for you. 

Don't apologize for taking time to pursue it.

Follow every impulse. 

Do It, 

Even though it has not been done before by you or anyone else. 

Even if it seems crazy, 

Do it.

Don’t persist in trying to ‘heal’ a bad pot; chuck it and make a better one.

Strive to know your flaws and work to correct them.

Learn from your mistakes.. 

Make notes about your mistakes so you will remember them.

Keep your best work.

Find other artists to talk to. They understand creative madness.

Flex your creative muscles every day:  

Sketch, read, dream, plan, make:  

Whatever needs doing and whatever dreaming need to be dreamed. 

Make it a daily habit. 

Inches add up to miles.

Photograph everything you make.

Take notes about your work. Your initial intention, the happy mistakes that happen, techniques, inspirations, whatever you will need to think about, whatever you see or do. You may think you'll remember later, but sometimes ideas are fleeting. 

You don't want them to get away.

Search out your own truth and keep returning to your own themes.

Keep pictures or examples of your inspirations.

Copying an IDEA is good; duplicating another artist’s WORK---not so good.  

It robs them and robs you.

Build a reference library: Keep the books that are relevant, sell the others

Avoid looking at ugly.

Listen to everybody. 

Ignore bad advice.  

Keep only what feeds you.

Strive to master the medium.

Don’t worry about Style, worry about Skill.

Set your standards high. 

I mean HIGH. 

So high you will always have to chase them.

Don’t worry or ask yourself, ‘Is it good enough?’ 

It’s good enough until you can make better.

Find your market niche.

If you need a tool, figure out how to find it or make it.  

If you can’t, find a good craftsman to make it for you.

Take care of your tools.

Keep learning. Don't rely on somebody else to teach everything you need to know. 
Teach yourself whenever you can; you will learn better that way.

Find your own best work environment, be it solitude or group, silence, music or talk, sloppy or neat, etc. 

If a piece does not sell, pack it up and don't look at it for a long time. Then, unpack it and look at it again. Decide if it should be kept, sold or destroyed.

Don't offer anything for sale you would be embarrassed to see again.

Live with your pots. What looks great today may not look so great tomorrow. And surprisingly, vice versa.

Don't get into a rut. 
Everybody's work changes even a little bit. Embrace it.

Don't take yourself too seriously, but seriously enough.

CLAYART

How can I explain CLAYART? 

It is an internet community of people involved in clay: Artists, publishers, gurus, authors, equipment experts, educators, amateurs, gallery owners, hobbyists, newbies and old hands.

The physical boundaries have no end. Anywhere that an internet and computer are available, CLAYART exists. It is one enormous club. There are no dues, no initiation, no jury, only the requirements of civility and everyday grace you would exhibit and experience.

After a NCECA convention in Las Vegas about 18 years ago, an email discussion group that would evolve into CLAYART was formed to carry on the dialogue that had been started by the conference. The initial group wanted to continue the flow of information about all things clay. And we wanted to keep up the network that had begun with other potters.

Today. it has grown into a huge population with a daily traffic that can amount to around 100 messages or more. (I really don't keep track.) That could be daunting if you set out to read every word of every email, but you quickly learn to pick and choose what is relevant to your own environment and delete (in my case, mercilessly) that which you judge can be eliminated. Most of the time, the Subject Line and the sender will tip you off as to whether you choose to read or not. I pass up raku or woodfiring, for instance.

And, a subject-word-keyed archive can be used to research a particular question that might arise, so elimination of messages doesn't usually mean they are gone forever.

Additionally, once you are enrolled, you can address the CLAYART "Brain" to ask an open question. The avalanche of replies or opinions will almost fall from the screen. We are a helpful and giving folk in the main.

It is helpful, as in any new environment, to sit back and observe the protocols and 'lurk' until you're comfortable, but it you have a bad problem or want to respond right away, that's okay too.

Mel Jacobson (or "The Mayor" http://visi.com/~melpots/) runs it most of the time along with a couple of other volunteers and serves as a basically hands-off moderator yet knows when to 'send us to our rooms' when things occasionally get too hot or protracted. In other words, telling us to 'ride that dead horse outta here.' But in a good way.

Current discussion has included the question of making donations to charity. (You cannot write off the price of the piece you give, contrary to common folklore; only the cost of your materials can be taken off your income taxes. The discussion suggests how to say, 'no' politely and some win-win solutions for dealing with organizers.)

Make a visit by joining. (link below) Get your toes wet. Follow the directions and wait. It won't be long until your mailbox will be bubbling with a plethora of subjects.

Beside being an internet discussion group, CLAYART is also a sub-community that meets within the yearly NCECA (National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts) convention.  

Depending on the year and circumstances, CLAYART secures a large meeting-type room at the location for the group meeting place  throughout the time of the convention in order to relax, talk, show our work, trade, present mini-programs and meet in real-time with members  manifest in the flesh who we have come to know from the ether. 

At the end of the convention, we have a mug exchange drawing which is great fun.

We all walk around NCECA with our nametags showing a red dot as a way of recognizing each other amid the masses. (People involved in clay are for the most part a truly friendly lot anyway.) 

To get started, go to  http://www.ceramicist.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Eye Candy

I have a bookmark on the computer entitled "Eye Candy". It's a place where I put things I want to just look at in order to feed my artistic soul.

I used to collect beautiful books and files of images in order to do this, but electronic images are even better. Mainly because they are more vibrant, created with light and more real-world than print matter.

This painting is by Paul Hodges. He is the Artist in Residence at Highclare Castle, the film location of "Downton Abbey".

Looking at things that inspire gets the creative part of your brain whirring and you begin to daydream about making wonderful things. I don't want to lose that.

So, after this inspiration, I want to do a few colored pencil drawings of my feather collection and then a study in black and white.

Eventually, when I am able to set up my clay studio again,  I will apply what I learn from the drawings on a clay piece; maybe on a box lid or a tile.

I will also print off this image, put it into my paper "Springboards" file folder along with my drawing studies for future reference.

And the jpeg will also go into my cyber file on the computer desktop for easy access as well.

That way, I will be able to tap into the original feelings I had when I first ran into this piece,  recapture the creative thinking and take it further.

What do you look at for inspiration?

Medium and Large Sized Bowls

Seems as though people make either small bowls or really big bowls. I hardly see medium bowls at shows. Yet, these bowls are sometimes the most useful.

It may have to do with kiln fit--small bowls can be placed around the perimeter; big bowls take a lot of kiln room, but are more impressive and therefore can be more expensive. Medium bowls are sort of misfits.

"Geographic Bowl"

This is a bowl I made in another studio setting than my own. It was an experiment with a different clay and different studio glazes. It's good to work with unfamiliar materials sometimes.

(Unfortunately, it is no more--lost when we had the flood and the packers didn't know how to pack pottery.)

It was about 6-7 inches across and of medium depth. Very handy size.

"Snowflake Bowl"  

This is another glaze test mostly. And it is a slightly bigger and deeper bowl than the previous one. The white glaze was poured in first, then the maroon glaze rolled around the rim. Great contrast where both glazes overlapped and were poured out.

"Gold Leaf Demo"

I love this bowl. It's totally useless, but I just like to look at it.

I was doing a demo about how to apply gold leaf and used this earthenware bowl to show the contrast in surfaces.

Come to think of it, since this is a non-utilitarian bowl, I wonder if another surface application like acrylic paint would be added to either the leaf or sealed earthenware???

Could be interesting.

"Flower Bowl"

Here's where painting with glaze works. The base is a yellow matt glaze. I decided to add green organic-like leafy applications and then use a stain for the darker cobalt blue and brown accents. 

This is a medium to large bowl, quite shallow, but with a larger circumference. This bowl barely left my hand in one of my first shows when it was snapped up. 

"Great Wall of China"

This very large bowl was a challenge. It is a monster. All hand-formed, it was made using a big, awful orange plastic mid-century salad bowl as a mold for the top and a paper pattern for the base. I worried quite a lot about getting a good fit between the two parts and about firing it, but it all went well.  This piece is still in my collection. It is worth an encore, I think.  

The glaze is Coyote Shino. It was murder to glaze; very cumbersome.

"Big X Bowl"

A very early piece, this is another bowl made using hand building over a form. Early in my claywork, I used mostly white or clear glazes, focusing mainly on form. It was quite large. The black glaze was slapped on using a big paintbrush. A second layer of a plumb brown glaze was laid on over that with a smaller brush. 

I made this after working on another piece that required very detailed and meticulous work. It's good to lash out on something else a bit, just to release that energy.

Not pictured here are bowls made using a blowtorch while throwing on the wheel to hasten the drying of the clay. Although a bit frightening at first, the Ken Turner workshop I took some years ago dispelled all that fear and I love to make whopper bowls using this method. Ken is doing a workshop on foil sagger firings right now. You can find him on the web.

The good thing about medium to large bowls is the opportunity to work with a bigger pallet and surface; make a bolder and a more eloquent statement. And, as in the "Snow Bowl" and the "Flower Bowl" expand experiments on a larger surface.

Recently, I saw a posting on Remodelista.com, an excellent design website. And, since good design is always of interest, I posted a comment and reposted the below from a few years back......  

These are my safari chairs.  They came from Peshawar, Pakistan, and were manufactured around 1970 by a man named M. Hayat. 

The chairs are designed to come apart and will fit into transportable canvas bags. They are leather and rosewood with brass fittings.

This is handy since over many years of moving courtesy of the U.S. Navy, our chairs have alternately graced our living room or sat sleeping in their bags in some basement or closet.

The Backstory:  They have many names, we referred to them as Safari chairs, but Rookhee chairs is another name. They are sometimes classified as campaign furniture. The original chair design came from India during the British Raj. (At least that is the time the chairs became known among the British community.) 

This concept of a compact, portable chair expanded into other household pieces of furniture as well. Even canopy beds, as the photo shows, were designed to be taken apart and transported easily from the hot summer lowlands of India to the cooler mountainous regions.

Those Victorians took everything with them. One source says:

"Campaign furniture is primarily military, often multi-purpose with folding or separable parts. A sofa-cum-bed was first seen amongst Campaign furniture. Legs were made to unscrew, and the chair backs came off.

Made in British India from the late 18th century through the 19th century, this kind of furniture consistsof such pieces as chairs, tables, settees, chests, desks and beds. While it provided comfort, it also maintained the prestige of the officers. It evolved during the Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian eras of Great Britain.

The only catch was that the more portable the furniture became, the more the officers ordered it. Reports suggest that "60 horses, 140 elephants, two or three hundred baggage camels and bullock carts without end" were used to transport the Governor-General and his two sisters up the country from Kolkata.

You could get a portable billiard table, folding chessboard and a portable shower."

Assembling one of these chairs makes me think of something akin to saddling a horse. The leather seat has lacing on the bottom and is slipped over the front and back supports. The front and back also have leather belt-like straps that tighten. The leather backrest slides down over two upturned side pieces that pivot and the armrests are leather straps that attach from the backrest to the front leg post. The chair is designed so that when a person sits on the seat and leans back, the weight of the sitter creates tension making a very sturdy, supportive and comfortable chair. The original chairs had enough flex to adjust to uneven ground.

My Story:  I discovered this chair when we were stationed in Bahrain in the early 1970s. I saw a couple at a friend's house and got all the information about the manufacturer. I called Mr. Hayat long-distance in Pakistan, to asked about the price and how to go about ordering a set. Mr. Hayat said he could ship them to me via Dhow and they would be ready in a few months. I ordered four. (I'm sure I couldn't have paid more than about $20-25 dollars for each chair since at that time, we didn't have a lot of money.)

After a good bit of time, I got a call from the Head of Customs in Manama, Bahrain, requesting that I come down to his office at the port to 'talk something over' with him. After scratching my head for a minute, I realized that the chairs had arrived. I assumed that some kind of import tax may be due, so I loaded my children up in the tiny car we had and headed downtown.

I was welcomed into the Head of Custom's office and we were made comfortable with soft chairs, sweets and casual chit-chat while a man went to get the reason for my visit. He arrived with a large canvas bag which he placed on the floor and stepped back. We all looked at the bag. The Head of Customs asked if this was my shipment. I said "Yes, I think so," sort of puzzled by the whole production.  I said there should be three more bundles just like this one. Mr. Customs asked if I would please open the bag. Puzzled even more, I said, "Sure" and then it dawned on me.

My chairs had been made and shipped from the area in Pakistan famous for handmade rifles and other firearms. Guns were forbidden in Bahrain. I was under suspicion of being a gun-runner!

I could hardly keep my amusement under control. I said, "It's a Chair! It comes all apart and fits into the bag. Here, let me show you." and while they (more men had trickled into the room by then) all took another step back, I opened the bag, pulled out the legs and supports, unrolled the leather back and seat and gave a demo, with running comment, on how to fit together a safari chair.

We've had the original four chairs since and, in the course of raising teenagers, one chair was enthusiastically flopped into and the back seat support got broken. So, it and the other three chairs have been stored in the basement for some time. One day while cruising the net, I happened to see an exact duplicate set of two chairs listed on an antique site. An Inquiry about price caused me to almost fall backward away from the computer screen. 

It sent me to the basement really fast to take a look at mine. I had wanted to replace the one, but couldn't even think of buying two (they Had to be sold as a pair). The asking price was incredible. Even with the wheedling I did with the seller got me a price reduction, but it was still just too high, so I shelved the idea and considered finding a woodworker who could either repair or replace the broken piece.

Within a few weeks, ANOTHER chair came up for auction on eBay. And this one included the ottoman shown in the picture. I had never seen an ottoman before in the Middle East and certainly not here either. I won the chair (at a considerably lower cost than the ones on the antique site) and after a space of some 26 years, had replaced the broken chair and got an ottoman too.

But it even gets better. After the sale, I found out that the man who had it lived within a short driving distance of our house. We arranged for a central meeting place for us to pick it up and had a very nice visit with him and his wife to boot. Turns out, he was very relieved because the chair had never been disassembled and he was worried about packing and shipping it.

But wait, there's more! Within about another week, YET ANOTHER Chair appeared on the web. It looked awful. But only because whoever had put it together did it incorrectly. The seat was looped around the side supports instead of the the back and front ones. The result was the chair sagged and the seat and back looked like they didn't fit. I bid on and got the second chair at an even greater bargain.

Footnote: The chair that had never been apart did disassemble easily. The only difference between it and my originals was a metal name plate attached to the back.

Since the spate of Safari chairs on the web, I haven't seen another listed. Occasionally, ones supplied with special edition Land Rovers, some canvas versions or or light brown leather ones designed in Denmark in the '50s and '60s will appear, but so far, no more black leather, brass and rosewood ones. 

----original post

Today:  If one or more of these chairs are within your budget and if you do or might live a mobile life, I highly recommend them as an investment that will stand the test of time. 

My Small Bowls

I love bowls.

They are the earliest evidences of humans found in archaeology, made across multi cultures and ages.

I collect them.
I could eat every meal out of them.
I love making them.
I've sold a lot of them.
Everybody likes bowls.
I don't think they are appreciated enough.
Every bowl made by an artist has a personality of it's own.

No two bowls are alike, even if they are made as a set. And why should they? They are like siblings in a family: Related, but individuals--that's the best kind of set to have, to my mind.

Besides, slight variations make a set of bowls so much more interesting than identical ones, to my mind.
                                                                                                 

This was in a museum show. I still have it.

An experiment with terra cotta, applied lines on greenware and a clear glaze overall.  It is an homage to early bowls with round bottoms. Desert peoples had no use for foot rings.

This one belongs to someone somewhere.

I love to use bowls to test glazes. This one was to see what 3 glazes would do over/under each other.  I use this bowl a lot.

This was a test of various glazes over a white base glaze.  Still have this one too.

Not the best shot, but the only one I have of a "Glaze Room Floor" glaze I loved while it lasted.


Great Coyote glaze inside called Rhubarb. Really nice paired with the sage green.

Glaze test.

I like to use small bowls to test glazes. And why not? I get a much better read of how the glaze behaves and a good bowl to boot.

Probably should be making 2 bowls to test--I Could sell one and keep one, right?

This was fun. I call this series "You Tiga Now." after the funny commercial.  It's just two glazes, but look at what I got.


The "Viking Bowl" design. Love rimmed bowls, but they don't stack well in a cabinet. The Coyote light shino broke well on the rim, though. Great for sloppy eaters.


Ah, my throwing mistake. The rim ran away from me, but I loved it. I wish I still had this bowl, but it got dropped and is no more.

Painting with underglazes on greenware. This is porcelain so, with a clear glaze, it is a nice white.

Dog bowl.

The previous and these two were made for a charity sale to support guide dog training.

A joke gets old when it's in porcelain, but the dogs don't mind.

Huh, you wish.

                                                                                                   *This is a very tiny bowl. It's a joke too. Chicken or egg kinda thing.

Tiny bowls are great for saving a half tomato. Just turn it over and put it in the bowl.

Little bowls are great for sea salt, dipping sauce--anything extra on the table like garnish, spice or extra seasoning.

*I know I've posted this before. Sorry. I hate repetition. Can you guess?

This bowl holds about 1 cup. Perfect for tea or a small serving of anything.

This tiny bowl holds any small  tidbit. A handy thing to have in the cupboard. (Glaze Test)

This last bowl is one of my favorites. I use it a lot. This form stacks well in the cupboard too.

Return to Semi-Normal

Well, sort of.......

Things are looking better.  I'm certainly getting acquainted with my household again. At least we can sleep in the house, I Can find towels, sheets, cooking utensils and dishes (although I'm still missing some of my everyday china. They're in a box somewhere......)

Of course, I very carefully packed away my ceramic works.  Guess what's important to me. heh

Soon, I will be able to reassemble my shelf units in the basement and unpack my pieces.


I was in town this morning to pick up a decorative life ring (couldn't find a real one small enough) to hang on the door of the house we have for sale. I had a Styrofoam blank that was just the right size, but wanted to find a ring to hang around the porthole set in the door.

Anyway,

We left the real marine supply store and were charging toward the brass nautical dealer's shop when we swerved into a new gallery en route. I loved all the great work inside and after talking to the owner, discovered he dealt with local artists only. I like that very much. So, I said I'd send him some jpegs of my work and came here, to my blog.

It wasn't until then I realized my work is not very well delineated or isolated within this blog. It's mixed in with other images as part of the discussion.

Also, my iPhoto files are giving me fits because they are so bloated. So,

I'm embarking on a project to try and show more of my work as groupings to relieve my image program files and define myself a bit more.

Some of the images have appeared before, but others have never been published.