You Can’t Talk the Work into the Kiln….

Wouldn’t you know it, as I move along this path that I’ve found myself on, I’m beginning to rethink how I look at this colloquial bit of wisdom. While it’s true, you’ve really gotta do the work to fill the kiln, I’ve been spending a bit of time learning about the flip side, that is, that there’s an awful lot of talking that needs to be done to empty the kiln out.... like it or leave it, it’ll be a constant vocation that comes with the job. (I don’t remember this on the job description!) So to the old saying, I’m chalking on one more line,

You can’t talk the work into the kiln….… but you sure better be ready to talk it all out.

Amen

P.S. Thanks for the support this week everyone! Your input and feedback really helped pull a few projects together.

Dorer la Merde

Pardon my French, but I had to find a polite way of stating this project.

I had grabbed a double handful of yunomi and chawans that weren’t going to be heading to the studio door and set down at my bench for an experiment. I needed works to explore a gold luster… I read up on it and it seemed kind’a strait forward, but everything does until you discover the hidden nuances that trip you up… well, me anyway.

I haven’t taken the time to appreciate gold lusters. I know what I like, (I'm not always sure why), but I do know that if done wrong or for the wrong reasons it can muck-up a perfectly fine piece, and if done to merely spackle over shoddy workmanship it’s just “gilding a turd”.
This experiment falls across that range pretty well. I wanted to see how the gold luster would play on surface a few of the different textures in this group of test pieces. I liked a few of the results, now I just have to judiciously apply what I learned.

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…

And What If I Don't

What a title of a post...


It's actually the title of the background music by Herbie Hancock and I like how it pushes and groves this video along all the way to the end. The kids and I were all pumped-up from all of the great feed back the past 2 days... thanks everyone for chiming in, the feedback really helps. We ended up spending some more time figuring a bit more of this process out. Learning to divide up and compress time is a something new for us, but we are having fun trying out a few ideas. It's not hurting that I'm learning you can buy enthusiasm for a project with the prospect of an ice cream.

This is another wack at slip stencil demo.

When I Fall in Love

Another beautiful fall day…
I was out playing in the studio this afternoon, (It can’t be counted as work because I’m enjoying myself way too much), the kids are playing in between the houses, the leave on the trees are rustling up in a lazy approaching storm, the smell of burning fireplaces... Ahhh, fall is really here and I am feeling mighty fine. Halfway through cutting feet on two ware boards of yunomi I remembered I still needed to collect more samples of video with these cameras just to work out the kinks of familiarizing myself the menu options without actually hunting down manuals, (tch! Who needs manuals…? Manuals are for people with attention spans of… well… well… not me apparently). It’s still a bit stop and go, but that’s part of the fun.

For better of worse, I’m getting a handle on working with the Windows Movie Maker program. I’ve got a ways to go still though but luckily it’s not too complex.

Here is today’s segment. I like the feel of this clip. It’s supposed to be part of a short personal essay on the virtues of a foot. Yeah I know... nerdy, but I feel a bit strongly about this. I like where it’s going though… it kind of has the feel of a love note… maybe that’s the direction it’ll go.

I guess Miles can make anything seem like a love note.