The Sixth Assignment

For the sixth assignment in my ceramics class, we worked on thrown and hand-built plates and platters. For these two, I used a wooden mold for the forms. I glazed them in Malcom’s Red Shino again (the same glaze that is on the planter below) and fired them in the studio’s gas kiln. I’m not sure the red markings work with the shape of the plates, but the effect is wonderful. There is a lot of mystery to shino glazes. Depending on how the glaze is applied, dried and fired, the results can be extremely varied. In this case, once the plates were dipped in the glaze and just as the wet sheen disappeared, I brushed on wax resist where I wanted the deeper red to come through. The blackened areas are where the glaze trapped carbon during the firing. I’ve come to really love this glaze and have already made a batch for myself to use in my friend’s gas kiln over the summer. Next time I’ll give a little more thought to the design now that I know how this technique works. I have a feeling though, that the same results might be difficult to achieve in a different kiln, but it will still be fun trying.

The Fifth Assignment

The fifth assignment in my ceramics class was to make something out of clay using the shape of an isosceles trapezoid. We could duplicate it, orient it in different ways, cut it in half, use it in different sizes, but we couldn’t alter the actual shape. My project was rather simple compared to some of the others and it warped a bit in the gas kiln, but I still like the way it came out. The glaze (Malcom’s Red Shino) is very bright and warm and gives off a lustrous sheen in the light. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but every other panel is impressed with a leaf pattern. I think it will make a nice planter and the warped panels won’t be so noticeable once it is filled with dirt and a plant of some sort.

Self Portrait

Fooling around with the camera feature in my computer (lodged in the top of the screen) and Photoshop – something other than pottery for a change.

More Wine Cups

A couple more yin and yang wine cups (as my blogging friend Katy calls them), although these aren’t exactly usable in this state – the result of a somewhat failed “naked raku” experiment my ceramics class decided to take on. We got this far by painting terra sigillata on leather hard porcelain and burnishing the surface with a soft towel. Then we fired the pieces to Cone 010. After that, we dipped them in 2 different raku glazes that my teacher found on the internet and fired them in the Raku kiln. The idea is that once the pieces are taken out of the raku kiln and placed in a combustible material (newspaper and sawdust in this case) contained in a reduction chamber with a lid, the smoke from the burning material leaves a free-form pattern on the surface where the glaze has cracked like eggshells. The glaze is supposed to be easy to scrape off after the piece has cooled enough to plunge into a tub of cold water, but for some reason we had a hard time with it, most likely because we left out the “plunging into cold water” part. The cup on the left came out a little better once I sanded off all of the black ash and polished the surface with wax, but the coating on the white one was like chipping glass. After cutting my fingers on the shards a few times and breaking the rim, I gave up, but at least I got a photo of it while it was still in one piece. There’s definitely more research needed to be done on naked raku if we were to try it again. Besides that, now I know that raku isn’t meant for functional ware – it isn’t food safe or water resistant, but used for decoration only. The cup that made it through does make a nice pencil holder though…

Wine Cups

I’ve been working on a couple of ideas for wine cups, inspired by nature and what I see on the walks I take in the woods behind our house. For these two, I painted acrylic varnish on the surface when the cups were bone dry where I wanted the design to be raised. I waited for it to dry, then took a sponge and wiped away the clay around the design until I got the depth I wanted before I bisqued and glazed them. It’s a technique and look that is virtually the opposite of carving. Here, the glaze “breaks” around the markings causing the color to be thinner and lighter on the raised part, whereas with carving, the glaze pools in the incisions and the design is darker in contrast to its surroundings. Both effects are very nice, however I find painting with varnish easier and more comfortable than carving, probably because of all of the years I spent with a brush in my hand painting on canvas. Carving is another type of skill with different tools and will just take a little more practice. As for the design, to me these cups look gender-differentiated – at least that was what I was thinking when I made them – which would a man or a woman like better over the other.

Garlic Jar and Honey Pots

More new work, glazed in Spodumene (top) and Oribe (green) and fired in the studio’s gas kiln. The Oribe didn’t work out so well in the beginning. The glaze may have been too thin when I put it on, because the surface was rough and dry when fired – not the sensation I was looking for when picked up and held in my hands. Thinking I could fix the problem, I reglazed the pots in a clear glaze at home, then fired them to Cone 6 in my electric kiln. The result was better and the color fantastic, but the inside walls crumbled for some reason. Next week I’m going to show the pots to my glaze chemistry teacher in hopes of getting some advice on how to repeat the experiment with another piece. I’d like to see if I can get the same “teal glow” without the crumbing next time.

Spodumene Pitcher

I finally found a small block of time to photograph some of my new work. I’ll post my favorites over the next few weeks or so, but for starters, I thought I’d show the tall pitcher I made for the fourth assignment in my ceramics class, glazed in Spodumene and fired in the studio’s gas kiln. It seemed fitting to choose a glaze that was on the warm side in keeping with the palette my friend Colleen used when she painted a portrait of this pitcher before it was fired. Spodumene has become one of my favorite gas-fired glazes at the studio, mainly because it goes on easy, never runs and has great variation and color. I’m trying to fire as much work as I can in the studio’s gas kiln before my class ends in a few weeks. There are some amazing results that only reduction firing can achieve. After that, it will be back to purely oxidation and electric firing in my basement, which has its own merits and beauty.

My Girls

I don’t post much about my children – mostly because they would raise quite a protest if they caught wind of their mother bragging about them on the internet – but I do indeed have two girls who are as different in personalities as they are in skin tone and hair color. One takes after my husband (the dark one), and the other takes after me. This is a photo of my girls when they were 7 and 4 years old. They are 16 and 13 now and although they most surely wouldn’t allow me to post anything current, I just might get away with this one.

Harvard’s Ceramics Program Spring Show & Sale

This is the postcard for the annual Spring Show & Sale at the Harvard ceramics studio where I’ve been taking classes this winter and spring. At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be in the show, which is open to anyone who is a part of the studio. Quite frankly, I was more than intimidated of showing my work side-by-side with some of the best potters in the area. If you check out the website, you’ll see what I mean. But after talking with the director, who was very encouraging and assured me that there were all levels of skill in the show, I decided to take the plunge. Needless to say, I was very surprised when I saw that a photo of my ceramic pears was chosen as one of the images on the postcard. When I asked the director if many people came to show, she looked at me humorously, rolled her eyes and said, “Let’s just put it this way, we have a mailing list of over 10,000 people.” Yikes, I thought, I better get rolling – and throwing!

Besides the visual feast of some of the most interesting work around, one of the neat things about the show is that on opening night, free wine cups made by the participants are given away on a first-come, first-served basis. I can only imagine the varied and unique array of cups that will be on display and the line of people at the door before the show opens, anxious to rush in and have the first pick. I’ve been thinking about the 8 cups I’m required to make for the give-away and have a few ideas in the works that so far look like they might pan out. It always amazes me how being under pressure can cause the creative juices to flow. It’s one reason why I took the plunge – to push myself to a new level of personal accomplishment. And that, my friends, is a great feeling.

Pitcher Painting

My friend Colleen (who is generally a landscape painter), thought it would be a fun exercise to paint the pitcher I made in my ceramics class. I love the colors she chose and the lively, expressive way she applied the paint. I haven’t glazed this pitcher yet, but seeing it in color has given me a few ideas of how I might go about it. Thanks, Colleen!