Dia de los Muertos Fundraiser

This is pretty cool…
I’ve been spending a few months sitting in on our local community college’s Art Club meetings (they are smart enough to offer free pizza to everyone that attends and it’s good fun). Ceramic artist and sculpture professor Gary Carlos is the lead for the club and they are looking to raise a spot of cash to keep the pizzas flowing. They gave it some thought and launched into a group collaboration project making a collection of cups to sell on the main quad of the campus. The project was to create 40 cups using slabs and coils. The outer surface was brushed coated using a black slip that the students scratched designs

through to the white body. This was a thematic project, so on one side we carved, a death’s head (the more festive the better), and on the other, a saying of one sort or another.

The kiln was unloaded today and the students got the thrill of enjoying unloading the still warm kiln and pawing through the results. This was a first for most of the students, but as planned, I don’t think it’ll be the last… wink wink…

Getting It Done

I am so jazzed!

It's been a very busy 2 weeks since the last post and lots of stuff has come and gone since the last post... I had work accepted into PBS's local on air Art auction (it's the big faceted canister that took out 2 kiln shelves in the process 4 weeks ago). This show was a big tado this year... the event organizers turned away lots of great artists this year so I'm feeling pretty good.

I made a huge mess in the studio over the past 2 weeks cutting a dozen billetts of stencils for 25 plus large and medium canisters for my local markets and a good number went twords creating yunomi for FetishGhost's BoneOrchard collection this fall too. This is going tobe the best load yet! (my wife just reminded me that I say that every single kiln load... yeah well.. but it is true!) Over 40 peices are being set aside the soda kiln (BIG, big mojo!) and another 30 are going to be glazed with this springs experimental cone 6 slips and glazes.

NEXT was the juring of art work for the local "Hands in Clay" exhibit. That was this Sunday and I am SO happy to have this behind me! Nearly everyone involved in this project has been really great to work with, but there have been a very small handful of people who seem to feel that this needed to be more difficult than it was. (I think it's a chemical thing...) Needless to say, it has been a learning experiace and I can't wait to do it again, (with out all of the speedbumps).

The show's jurors, Tom Collins and Bruno Kark, seemed to have alot of fun selecting the awards for the show. ( They were great sports and insparational optimists! THANKS GUYS!!! I can't wait for the workshop August 1st!)

My submission for the show, an urn titled "Winds of Icarus", took 3rd in the functional catagory. (that scores another Happy Dance). We even got the entire show installed before the end of the day. Still have to take down and move the art work on the walls, but hey. DONE IS DONE!

For a quick hoot, check out the time laps video of us setting up the show.

Bronze Pour

Gosh I love bronze pours! I've done literally thousands of them and I still get all giddy just hearing the rumble and smell of a furnace. There's something that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about pulling a 1900 degree pot of molten bronze out of the furnace.

High octane liquid potential.

I have to thank Sculptor and professor Gary Carlos for letting me help with these pours at Delta Community College in Stockton.
I had done a pretty good job putting out of my mind how much I enjoy the experience, but I think that's been blown... I'm hooked again. Damn!