I think I'm going to be able to save the birch vase, but I think I'm going to have to refire it to do it. There were no more bad surprises in the kiln which was nice. It's still the middle of July, but the leaves are making me think about fall already. While I haven't done many shows yet this year, I have a lot of shows lined up for fall. I was actually just thinking this weekend that I need to start making holiday things now. Where does the time go?
I will be at the Taneytown Artisan Fest this Saturday from 10-4 in Taneytown, MD. If you're close I hope to see you there!
So I loaded this kiln days ago, but it has been so hot here that I didn't want to run it. Earlier this week we set a new high of 102, but it was so humid that it felt like 110. Even if I ran the kiln overnight I knew that it would be so hot in there during the day as the kiln cooled. I waited until the day temperature was going to be a "chilly" 87 to run it. Then yesterday I cracked the garage door and had a fan blowing the hot air out. I don't understand the physics of it, but I swear my kiln cools faster when it's warmer out than when it's colder.
This kiln has a bunch of different things in it, but a whole lot of it are pots made with maple leaf impressions and birch. You can see two leaf pitchers here on the top.
There are two things I saw when I opened it that made me sad. The first is this worm. I knew that this was possible. I had broken this worm while the pot was bisqued, but I tried to fix it with some ware repair. Ware repair is great, but this was broken in such a place that I knew it was quite likely not to work - and it didn't. I decided to try it out anyway though and experiment with a green mushroom. I really thought that I had used the Mayco Green gloss on Laguna 60 before, but now I'm wondering if I have. This looks way more yellow than green and I feel like I would have remembered that. That said - I still really do like the look with the black worm.
The other bit of sadness I wasn't expecting. I thought that my globe was fine, but clearly there was a join missing because it opened up. Of course it opened right onto my vase. We shall see when it's cool whether I'm able to save the vase. I'm really hoping that it's not that bad.
This Saturday is the Taneytown Artisan Festival at the Taneytown Memorial Park from 10-4. I hope to see some of you there.
I have gotten into many of the juried shows that I have applied to, but there have been a handful that I applied and didn't get in. Unfortunately, most of the time when you don't get into a show there is no feedback. You don't know if they don't like your work, or if there was someone else in your category who was better, or.....
Well, I got rejected from a show recently and they share the feedback from the jury! What was interesting about this feedback is that 90% of the feedback was about my photographs and not about my actual work. I bought some photo board backgrounds on Amazon a while back that were inexpensive, but fit my taste. I feel like pictures I take with these are nice, but it doesn't take away from the pottery. All three jurors made comments about how hard it was to see my pottery with the backgrounds.
I started doing some research and found that there are standards for how ceramics should be photographed. The standard is a Flotone black to grey to white background. I purchased one of these and it's basically a fancy piece of paper. I don't know why a fancy piece of paper is $45, especially when it seems like it would scratch pretty easily. I used some butterfly clips to attach my fancy paper to my photo boards so it could stand up.
I definitely like this background, but I'm not going to lie the fact that it's defacto required irritates me. It also irritates me that they said they "can't see" my pottery. Maybe it's not to your aesthetic, but you can actually see the pottery.
The second big piece of feedback was about my booth shot. This was another rabbit hole to go down. There is a private Facebook group about this and I've definitely done everything wrong. I took a booth photo during a show - you know what my actual booth looks like when I do shows. This was not at all correct. I need to set it up in my yard on a bright, but cloudy day with all of the walls on it. It shouldn't have any identifying information (aka my sign) since most juries are done blind. I likely need to have fewer things in my booth so that things stand out more. There's more, but you get the picture.
More than a few people have noted by trying to conform to all of these norms that their jury picture will be significantly different from their actual booth. While some variation is ok, on the whole the expectation is that it is mostly representative. The thing that keeps running through my head is, in a world where art is meant to be unique and everyone strives to be different - why is the goal to make everyone look the same?
One juror actually gave me feedback on my work. She said that I should edit myself and narrow down what I make so that it's clear what my work is. I really struggled with this feedback. I've written blog posts previously about this. Aside from when I'm learning in a class, I do have a vision for what things will look like in my head. Does everything I make look like each other - absolutely not. I actually get a ton of compliments in the shows I do attend that they like how varied my work is and how boring so many pottery booths are.
I'm still struggling with what to do with this feedback. I will use the flotone for pictures I submit. I will also probably take a new booth photo, but I'm not going to stage it to the point where it feels dishonest. Finally, I think I'm going to throw out the feedback on editing my work. If that's what it takes to get into a show, then that's not where I belong. All in all I really do like that I was able to see the feedback even if it took me a bit to process it.
I've gone out to San Diego a couple of times for work, but I'm always booked solid. We had a meeting that was only 10 minutes from the DiamondCore Tools store so I took a few extra minutes to stop. I got there 15 minutes before they closed, but Nicoli was still really happy to show me around and check me out for the couple of things that I bought. I didn't buy anyyhing cool - just a few replacement sanding pads and sponges - but it was still great to look around.
This is a little station where you can try out some of the tools.
Another station.
This is where filming is done on the wheel.
Some test tiles with the impression stamps.
These are examples for the handle extruders, but I loved this glaze. It's Laguna Desert Skye, not food safe but really pretty.
They have started selling clay and glaze too! I couldn't take this back on the plane with me, but for anyone local th is is awesome.
Been travelling for work this week, but i kicked off a bisque kiln before I
left. I'm actually on a plane right now. My husband knows how antsy I get about seeing the kiln and sent me an
update while I was away.
I made this vase when I was at the workshop
with Michael Harbridge. It's an earthenware clay which is why it was firef with
thr bisque. This vase is what I based the wine chiller off of. The glazes are
the same. I do really like this vase, but I think I liked it on the speckled
clay better.
I have made a lot of mugs in the last couple of months. At the end of last year, I made a plan for what I wanted to make this year. The spring is slower for shows than the fall so I've really front loaded the year with making. This doesn't mean that I don't sometimes veer off and spend a day in my studio making things that aren't on the list, but there is a list and I do get satisfaction wiping things on the list off the board. I get a second thrill when I update my tracking spreadsheet and that goes to 0 and I can figure out what the next set of things to do it. I'm sure that there are some artists who might read this and think that all of that sounds horrible, but for me it works.
Anyway back to mugs. So far this year I have made 135 mugs (I was able to find that out in my spreadsheet in 30 seconds :) and I feel like doing that many and doing them in batches of 12+ have really made me better. This is in addition to watching lots of videos especially on Clayshare and taking the cups workshop with Annie Crietzberg.
A few things that have been key for me as I look at what I think are the best set of mugs I've made. First, not messing with the rims until the clay is nearing leather hard has been a game changer. I learned that from Annie's process. The rims stay so much more in the round when I don't try do to anything with them while they are wet. I think waiting until the clay is less wet to shape them has also helped a lot. I add my texture (not on these bugs but on others), cut them to size, and then leave them flat until the clay isn't as floppy. Bellying them out slower has also been a game changer. I use a banding wheel and I'll go around 8-10 times to belly vs trying to do too much at once. Last, I think having a specific practice around going back to each and every mug to shape and clean them up the day after I've made them steps up the game.
By no means am I done learning. I hope that in another year my mugs will look even better.
Speaking of things that need to look better - my bowls. I specifically changed recently to make bowls that would stack better so it would be easy to transport. I also really like the "ramen" bowl shape. However, it's very different making something that starts as a cone vs something that starts as a cylinder. I don't sell nearly as many bowls, so I don't make as many, but I am trying to the practice in.
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