Saturday, July 3, 2010

Dry Run

I'm 3 weeks into throwing a load of wear using a years worth of my studio clinker clay. This year its not just about clearing the bins... this year it's a dry run to see how long it takes to blast through a 17 cubic load of work; the entire load is paper stenciled to get some sort of metrics on the stencil process.

So far I've found out that it's a lot of wedging,
cutting a lot stencils, and
a whole lot of time spent sitting at the studio window blocking in cut paper designs.

It took me a whole week to push through 20 pieces, and most of these were 4 pounds and under. I was hoping that smaller meant faster, but it didn't work-out that way. My hope was that when I scaled down the surface designs that I had been using on last weeks larger jars, the designs would go on quicker, but... the approach was still elaborate enough to joyously eat-up time like PEZ.
I like PEZ...

Managed to sneak a skull in too.

A weeks worth of 40 stenciled yunomi and chawans are supposed to finish off this test load, but I'm taking a pass on using the house clinker clay for cups... it's always the mystery what-nots that have been wedged into the clay body that can turn a beauty into a louse.

So with that in mind, it looks like it takes 4 weeks to fill a 17 cuft kiln using 250 pounds of clay.
Hmmmmmmmm...

5 comments:

jim said...

hey joel, i know what you mean about having the decorating phase go slower than i'd like but i'm sure it will be well worth it when those beauties are finished. love those bulging covered jars. the drawings are nice too in the previous post.

Ron said...

Yep, I've found myself spending ages on a cup. Crazy. But I do love cups and so I guess it's worth it. Small things like that take up as much time or more than larger stuff if you really get into it. I've been thinking more and more about the forms I make, you know just concentrating on certain forms for a period. Cups, bowls, plates, a few jars. Whatever. That can always shift and change. I've thought about you Jim, and how you make mostly bowls, and how much time you put into each one. It's almost impossible to make a wide range of things and spend a lot of time decorating each one. Just stuff I'm thinking about. I liked the drawings too Joel. Have a good week.

julietteisdead said...

i also like PEZ.

FetishGhost said...

Thanks for chiming in you 2.
There are a lot of people who take the time to learn to make great forms, but not as many make the time to develop an amazing approach to surface.
After watching you two and everyone else start their own personal "walks to Egypt", I don't feel as hesitant about investing the time it takes to create a body of work that just feels right to me.

Thanks

PS
love to see you go large Ron...

Ron said...

I do have some larger platters waiting for deco. I kept thinking I'd have to scale my drawings up, which was intimidating. Now I'm thinking more along the lines of breaking up the space and keeping things at a comfortable scale. Maybe I'll try and tackle one of those this week. I could do the same thing with jars I guess. (cogs begin turning in my head)