ArtMRKT 2011

I live 70 miles from one of my very special happy places... San Fransisco. What makes it a little slice of heaven for me?

Head over to ArtMRKT's facebook page to paw through the details of this event.
These people really know how to throw a party.


artMRKT San Francisco - The Contemporary and Modern Art Fair from Arbiter Productions on Vimeo.

New Assumptions

It's the end of the week again and everything is upside-down drying. I've been scaling up an experiment that came out of the kiln last week... (that'd be the two chawans at the right), this time through, I'm throwing the crows in for good measure just to see how this all works out.

These two are still bottoms-up and waiting for their pedicure.

Drying, Drying, Drying...

 It's been a busy 6 days working steadily on a body of "RedDot" to not only test the new design, but I've been curios to see what I can realistically expect to get done during a 2 week work cycle. Studio time is basically set back to an "After Hours Studio" again.  The 2 week trial is meant to include cutting all stencils needed, throwing and trimming, blocking in designs, and all the fiddly details that go into a small run of work.
Week one has (7) yunomi, (4) small canisters, (2) 8 pounders and (1) 18 incher.
It's not a lot of work, but there's a whole lot of hope going into this run. I'm trying to keep it simple this time and I feel good about what I'm holding.

At least the greenware looks good.

Now I'll see what happens in week 2.

The Elusive Tea Bowl Workshop

SmashPot Day

They say "the world changes one funeral at a time". The same principal applies to a studio's collection of work... So swings the Hammer of Judgment...

I've been looking forward to this year's Smash Pot Day for a few months. The balance of oddballs to proper work finally tipped. It was simply too embarrassing to have anyone in the studio and seeing them looking at the clutter of 2nds. I was beginning to fear the crap was defining me rather than the work I wanted people to see. It was hard to get started, but once I got going it felt good to put a few hundred pounds of work to rest.

So swings the hammer. Let it swing!

End of the Week

I've fed myself this particular morsel of BS over and over agin for a few years now...

" If I manage to find two gems in a load of experiments, I should be happy." (Unfortunately, I've been getting way too used to smashing work again... we are missing an easy dozen of "Crash and Burns" posts that may never get posted. I'm still adjusting to the new time constraints of living full time in the gardens rather than the studio.)

What studio time that's been available, has been filled with lots of  tests.
Luckily, a single success is an excuse to play in a field of failures.

This is a Willie's 6 Tile Slip over a Laguna cone 10 B-Mix.
Bisqued and given a black wash before being glazed with a clear Chun on the exterior and a Nuka glaze used as a liner. The result is very heavy crazing in the Chun. (This combo doesn't "ping" when flicked, but I like the depth of the surface.)

 

The additional difference is that when the Nuka is used at the lip, it feels odd. Kind of like like drinking with a swollen lip.