A Self Indulgent 41st B-Day Weekend

Well, my initial plan this weekend was going to be really self-indulgent and meet up with Matt of MossBeach Ceramics for a soda fire for my birthday, but the dreaded cliché, that I hate, finally caught up with my household… “It’s the economy”… I couldn’t afford to go out to San Jose for our scheduled soda firing… whaaaaaaa!!! (Aw hell, we can barely afford a week’s worth of rice and beans right now.) Fortunately the optimist in me loves rice and beans and I’m looking forward to watching my kids finally get hungry enough to quit complaining and dig in. I’m figuring that should be tonight. Hehehehhheh… this should be better than TV.

Well, the poor man in me tapped me on the shoulder and suggested that I dig though my reclaim bins and get really self indulgent at home.

I got to enjoy spending the weekend in the studio throwing large canisters and trying out new strategies for surface designs. Now I know no idea is as good as done until it’s actually done… but I really like where this weekend's series is heading. With this series, I’ve gone back to incising my stenciled designs and I’ve combined the incising with multiple pockets of cobalt slipped areas as well. Maybe I didn’t word that as clearly as I could… but you can just check out the photos to see what’s happening. Me and the kids really like how they turned out, now I just have to foot the buggers. Woof!!!

New Sidebar Feature Links

Well it seems like a really good idea.

I've set up 2 hotlinks on my side bar to link to a menu posting that I use as a libraryed jumpsite to a whole lot of other postings.

One is my studio glazes. This will continue to be filled out as this moves along. It at least proves helpful when I can't find my recipe book.

The other is the Demo Library. This is worth checking out if you haven't had the time to dig through the past postings to see what's buried back there. I'll keep adding to it as we move forward so stay tuned....

Oh yeah... and any feed back REALLY helps!

Expecting the Unexpected

Another kilnload of question marks was fired off Saturday night. Sunday was spent pulling out the work and looking at it without expectation. Not always an easy thing to do, but after last weeks jaw drop, I'm at least expecting the unexpected.

Whoa!

Ahhh, I meant to do that...

That different...

Didn't mean to do that...

Lumpy bumpy...

Subtly cool

Glossy Clear Liner

20 G-200 Feldspar
20 Ferro Frit 3134
15 Wollastonite
20 EPK
6 Talc
19 Silica

The sample picture is of an agateware with the clear over it.

This is the simple Cone 6 clear liner base recipe that I've been using in my studio since 2005.

Very stable from cone 5 to cone 7.

To create my creamy white liner, I add 4% Tin Oxide.

One of June's PostCard Splits

I've been promoting to my local markets with postcard splits. These are full sized post cards that I have shrunk down to half size and doubled up on a single printed postcard. I cut these cards in half to create minis that I can liberally hand out at farmers markets and drop off at any coffee and tea shops that I visit.
For the price, I'm starting to create and hand-out moo-card sized minis for several of our local artists that are partisipating in the PortCity Mud Project as well.

Prospective designs are tested at my neighborhood coffee shop by dropping a card design on the floor and noting what happens. If someone picks up a card and drops it in the bin... it's literally garbage. If they pocket it after picking it up... it's a decent design.

Variation of Blue Hares Fur

47.3 Nepheine Syenite
27 Gerstley Borate

20.3 Silica 325

5.4 EPK

2 Red iron Oxide

1 Cobalt Oxide (altough I sometimesuse cobalt Carb)

4 rutile

2 bentonite

This is a very versatile glossy blue cone 6 glaze that I've been using in my studio since 2006. It's very stable by itself and interacts well with my most of my other glazes, and more inportantly, it reacts beautifully with my standard white liner glaze creating wonderful optics breaking at the rim.

When applied thick, it produces an amazingly rich blue hares fur.

When applied thinly it produces a transparent iron blue.

This glaze begins to glass up at bisque temps, but can be taken to cone 7 quite well.

I'm most commonly using it to create my GhostBlue glaze for cones 5 to 7. The GhostBlue is a combination of my studio clear glaze with a thin application of Hares Fur over it to produce a transparent rich blue glaze that really works well with my cobalt slips.

A Handful of Racers

Well... for all my whining this morning about everything in yesterdays kiln load of work conspiring to challenge my preconceived expectations, there were a good number of pieces I did really did enjoy pulling out of the kiln.

These works still play the edge of what I need to come out of the kiln verses what I personally think is fun to hold and explore. Unfortunately, these are more often than not, 2 totally differing ideals. This point is actually becoming a point of personal internal philosophical contention, (but that is definately another post).

Creating a Paper Stencil Part 2

Here is the second part of this weeks demo...

The first part is in the previous post. It shows the technique I use for cutting out 30 to 40 stencils at a time. I do this by cutting my design out of a billet of newsprint sandwiched between sheet plastic using a jewelers saw and bench pin. I can actually get 60 to 80 stencils out a a single billet if I plan my design around the cut, using both the positives and negitves in a design.

This clip shows how I apply the stencils to create a composition. It goes on to show the slip being applied and the paper being peeled away revealing the surface design.

Enjoy!

Creating a Paper Stencil Part 1

Alright... I know I've shown the process before, but shooting the pictures for these stop motion "how to" videos are how my kids are earning their allowance at the moment and I'm still learning how to put it all together.

This demo is divided into 2 parts. I know I have a hard time sitting still longer than 4 minutes, so I've tried to keep each clip relatively short.

I've got lots of question marks with these videos, but my big question right now is... Does it need sound? I have my stereo blasting Miles Davis and Trombone Shorty while I'm sitting around slapping these videos together, so I assume that everyone else sitting at their computer has their own trax playing in the background.

Self doubt and second guessing always seems to lurk in the shadows, luckily it rarely keeps me from having fun!

Cone 6 SDSU Texture & Crawl Glaze

Here is a real cone 6 gem...

25% Magnesium Carbonate
70% Nepheline Syenite
5% Kentucky Ball Clay (OM4)

This is the basic recipe of the crawl glaze that I've been playing with over the past few months. I found it buried in an old sketchbook scrawled in a corner of a page. It was from 8 or 9 years ago during a time when I didn't have any sort of studio access and was sucking up as much information as I could get my hands on. The recipe is attributed to a October 2000 Ceramics Monthly article on page 49, unfortunately I failed to note who the author was. (Hopefully someone can help me rectify that.)

This glaze is very temperamental and you need to place it in the kiln asap after dipping. The glaze will crack and begin to pull away but not quite fall... unless it's disturbed. It's very sensitive to thickness.The glaze will behave very differently based on what's under or over it.
Here's a link to a February post showing some of my experiments... http://fetishghost.blogspot.com/2009/02/test-yumoni-for-crawling-glaze.html

Experiment and have fun and please share any successes or failures you have.

Crawl and Soda

The morning was spent finally posting a handful of canisters into my Etsy shop.

A little cone 6 crawl...

and a spot of cone 10 soda...

Now I just wish I could find my stride on writing those darn descriptions.

The story is that this kiln is an old “Wind Kiln” that was contributed to Clay Planet in Sana Rosa, CA. by Steve Davis. It's now a co-op kiln shared among a small handful of ceramic artists in the Bay Area. It’s an approximately 15 cubic foot doghouse coffin kiln powered by 2 squirrel cage blowers. It’s proving to be a very nice and simple design that fires really well in 5 hours or less. Check out Steve’s site for a look at his newer version of this kiln, it's very cool and big. The word is that the sweet spots lurk under the shelving. This is where the soda seems to accumulate really well. I got to fire this critter with Matt Brown of MossBeach Ceramics last weekend with great results. There seemed to be sweet spots all over this kiln! The only cold spot seemed to be the far back, but this most likely had to do with having to switching out the old blowers with new underperforming blowers. No problem... it's just a matter of an adjustment in strategies.

It's fun being back to the exciting life of living on a new learning curve. This one is rather steep, but Matt and I are already planning the next firing. It's couldn't be soon enough.

Secret Studio Sale

Ok ok... it's time to get around to doing this. I've been digging through my limited storage area looking for one particular canister and I've realized that I'm begining to have an inventory control problem.

I have little or no control, that's the problem.

At the bottom of the pile I had 2 crates of ware that hadn't seen the light of day for 3 years or more. I'm not hording work, I just forgot I had it.

Well... I really need to make room for this spring's new works, so it's Secret Studio Sale time! Stop by my RedGate site on Etsy and find a great deal in time for Mothers Day.

2-27 Kiln Load

Before I share what came out of this kiln load I really need to say something... Most people don’t realize how much risk is involved with creating studio ceramics. It’s really all old school alchemy. I stead of lead to gold, it’s clay to sellable work. (It really doesn’t sound as cool, I know, but still, it still takes a huge amount of study, confedence, and work.) I really felt that this was my riskiest kiln load of work to go through the studio in a good while. I loved all of the forms, and the slip stenciled designs were fantastic. It would have been so easy to push everything though with my “I pretty much know what I’m going to get” glazes that I’ve been working with over the past 9 months. But… I have a new glaze that I’ve been playing with. It's a generally untested glaze, but it’s proven to be an amazing glaze that breaks and crawls at cone 6. This load of work was designed to test this glaze’s interactions with most of my studio glazes. this is the point where I point out all of the beads of sweat, lots by the way, over this load of work. It's over 50 peices that will live or die when I open the kiln.

In a situation like this I quite honestly I would have been happy with a 50% loss ratio with this experiment. Hell, I’d have been happy with a 90% loss ratio. I had already seen what this glaze could produce and it would be worth loss just to get a handful of racers with it. I just didn’t know whether the racers I had made before were accidents of application and atmosphere, or whether my assumptions with this gaze were correct. Luckily I hit my marks with 6 out of 10 assumptions. There will be a few refires, but the bulk of this load is going up for sale. First come first serve, these really are amazing yunomi. A local venue has already laid claim to work that’s unsold by the 15th of March.

The first works I want to quickly note are the results of the Agate ware. These have been fired with a clear glaze. WoW! They really look great. The form’s true profile is pleasantly hidden by the marbling effect.
Love it! More in the next few day's...

Experessions

After 5 days of Ibuprofen & Hydrocodone to help with a hurt back, I’ve got to celebrate this small victory by saying “Yes!” The 2 vases submitted for the “Expressions” show in Tracy, CA. sold last week! Happy dance! Doh! Ouch…

Secret Studio Sale

Scorpio's LateNight Static Sale priced at $18

I’m starting the Secret Studio Sale project to highlight some of my personal favorite works from my studios inventories. I’m offering to share a few of these selected racers one at a time at a price temporally set to get them in your hands. These pieces really need to be handled to be appreciated. They are top quality examples of my pursuit of excellence and craftsmanship.

Click the photo for the link to my Etsy shop. Check back here over the next few weeks for a link to the current Secret Studio Sale item.

Your purchases goes towards helping fund my community activities that promote the Studio Arts in Northern California's central valley.

Thanks!
-Zygote-

Expressions -- Tracy Art League's Annual Juried Art Show

The spring shows are getting into gear here in Northern Cali. They are popping up like winter Hyacinths. I know technically its still winter somewhere else… but hey, the trees are budding to bloom in a week so it’s spring for me! I got a little thrown off my step two weeks ago with a surprise call to travel back home for a family funeral and missed the shipping dates for 3 major shows in one swoop. Doh!
Ever onward… Still recovering from last night’s gala fundraiser for the TideWater Gallery, I drove down to Tracy to submit 2 budvases to the Tracey Art League Spring Annual. I’m not hoping to win any prizes, but I did price to sell. I’d be nice to cover the cost of the entry fee and gas to get there. Still, it’s fun to play in someone else’s sandbox.

Tidewater Souper Supper Finished Bowls Part 3

I'm aiming to hit the hoop this week. This was the third and final kiln load of bowls for the TideWater Souper Supper. It was a gas firing hosted by Delta Community College’s ceramic’s department.

Thanks’ Joe!

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to put a good amount of faith into student glazes. Any questions that were asked about the suggested application or behavior of any of the glazes were met with shrugs.”Eh?” Guess that’s par for the course. Love a challenge though. Here are six of 30.

TideWater Souper Supper Finished Bowls Part 2

So after spending days and days of throwing, slipping, and glazing oodles and oodles of bowls… I’ve finally unloaded the 2nd of 3 glaze kilns that I’m burning for the TideWater’s Souper Supper fundraiser. Here’s 6 bowls from the second kiln load.

This is a quick selection from the second kiln load of 40 bowls for this year’s TideWater’s Souper Supper fund raiser. I’m really happy; there are a lot of very nice pieces this year. I’ve only lost 3 bowls this time through. One more kiln load to open still. This last load is part of a kiln load up at the local community college’s gas kiln. Professor Joe Mariscal volunteered to donate kiln space for a community cone 10 gas firing in support of the project.
Thanks Joe!
It’s been cooling down for a few days; it’ll be ready to be opened first thing tomorrow morning. The anticipation is needling me.

I Love a Great Racer!

“Racers” are my top-shelf items. These are what I consider to be either exceptional gallery quality work or work that I consider pivotal for my studio. The latter usually means making a leap of faith combined with a touch of experience to steer the results to a dramatic finish. This is generally how I make head way. It’s usually rather self indulgent I admit… but it is what I live for.

These are experiments using a new crawl and texture glaze. When this glaze works, it’s amazing! But it doesn't always work.

Here are 3 racers from this week's firings.