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....
47.3 Nepheine Syenite
Enjoy!
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!
Here is a real cone 6 gem...This is a short stop motion animation video the kids and I shot last weekend demonstrating the throwing of an "agateware" yunomi. This is a simple process of throwing two contrasting clays together to create a marvelously swirled effect directly in the clay body. I finally got around to pasting together a first draft to share....
I'm still sorting through and cleaning up works from the latest soda firing while I get caught-up with all of the gardening. There's a good amount of sell-able works, a few racers that I'll pull aside for summer exhibitions, and there is a fairly sizable number of losses. It's a fair trade for a first attempt at soda.
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.
The studio has been a flurry of activity over the past 3 weeks. Between all of the hours and hours spent blissfully gardening, 28 cubic feet of bisque has been put through the kiln and 17 cubic feet of glaze has gone through as well. Well over half of that work was in prep for an experimental soda firing this weekend at Clay Planet in Santa Rosa, CA. with Matt Brown from Moss Beach Ceramics, (more on that in a later post). Finished works are finally beginning to flow out of the studio again. Most joyously, I’ve been very happy with the new works coming out of the kiln for my BoneOrchard collection of teaware. Here are a few works selected from the last firing that will be available at FetishGhost’s Etsy storefront.
Ok… It’s been nearly 2 weeks since I last had a good opportunity to share what’s been going on around the studio. It’s been busy, busy, busy for us here. The monkeys have all finally been cleared away from the wax bench and I’ve been working on new work and spruing up wax trees for a silver pour. I was hoping to squeeze a pour in before today, but the incessant rain this week hasn’t helped.
It did give me a little extra time to mix up some new test glazes and design, cut, and test a new group of paper stencils for my local summer markets. Ferns, gears, and bones… ooooh the anticipation is killing me!
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.
This is a quick posting showing what the studio is throwing on the pile for this season’s group exchange. They’ve decided to make and exchange bisque stamps this time; I love stamps, so naturally I wanted in on this project. I guess mine are should be considered sprigg moulds rather than stamps, but hey… I’ve always been difficult.
This time I'm trying something new and leaving islands of detail that are simply slipped. 
