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!

The Fourth Assignment

The fourth assignment in my ceramics class was to put two thrown pieces together to build a tall vessel. When my teacher demonstrated this technique, her vessel ended up looking like a giant elephant leg and was over 3 feet tall. She had to stand up in order to add the finishing touches. This 16 inch pitcher is the only piece I finished to completion. The first one collapsed when I attached the top half, most likely from overworking the clay. The bottom has to be a little more set up than the top so that it can support the weight, and the top (an open-ended cylinder) has to be firm enough to hold its shape when mounted on the bottom, yet supple enough to keep pulling up and make a rim. Then there is the trick of concealing where they join. This assignment was a lot of fun and I’m quite happy with the way my vessel turned out, even if there is only one to show for my efforts. I plan on making a few more of this particular design and playing around with the surface, either by carving into it or using a slip design for decoration. How to glaze it will be another story.

Happy Easter

My eldest daughter at age 4 in a hat and dress her Aunt Elizabeth made for her. She’s sixteen now and far beyond hunting for Easter eggs. Thank goodness for photographs that can take us back in time and help us remember those wonderful days when my children were young. (Sigh)

New Work

I finally got around to photographing some of my new work and a couple of bowls with rolled and pinched rims that I did for my ceramics class. All of these pieces were wheel-thrown and fired to Cone 6 in my electric kiln. The bowl to the left and the vase on the top right were carved, and the small dots around the neck of the vase on the top left was done with a slip trailer.

The Third Assignment

The third assignment in my ceramics class was to continue concentrating on both the foot and the rim of a vessel, not necessarily a bowl. I think things are starting to gel a little and I’m getting the hang of this fancy-free exploration. I like the way these pieces turned out, especially the bottom two. I’ve gone on to make quite a few bowls like the one on the bottom left, with a rolled and pinched rim. With a rim like this, you have to poke a small hole on the underside to let the air escape during firing, or you risk the chance of it exploding in the kiln. I was a little nervous when they went into the kiln at Harvard. It’s one thing to experiment in my own kiln – quite another to experiment in someone else’s. The other students wouldn’t exactly be pleased to find bits and pieces of my work stuck to theirs. Luckily the bowls made it through the bisque firing just fine, but I wasn’t brave enough to send them through the school’s glaze firing. I figured the glaze would melt and might fill in the holes, even though I re-poked them with a needle. I ended up glazing the rolled-rimmed bowls on my own and am happy to report that they came out quite nicely, and more importantly, in one piece. I’ll post some photos of finished work soon.

Dog Dance

For all you dog lovers out there – a performance so touching, it brought tears to my eyes. I have watched this video several times, not only to witness an amazing relationship between an animal and a human being, but also to hear the hauntingly beautiful piano solo that accompanies them. I fell in love with the song so much so, that I was compelled to track down and purchase the sheet music. It is called “I Giorni” by Ludovico Einaudi, inspired by a West African 12th-century folk song about a hippo who was loved by the people of the surrounding area but shot and killed by a hunter. Einaudi writes, “The song is sung as a lament for the death of a king or a great person or for the loss of a loved one.” I haven’t touched the piano in years, but I’m hoping I still have the skills to play this one.

The Second Assignment

Here are a few small bowls I completed for the second assignment in my ceramics class. The instructions were to concentrate on the foot of a bowl while thinking about how to tie it in with the rim later on. I had a hard time with this assignment since I have never really given any thought to the foot before. I have no idea where the idea of a ruffled edge came from, but I found myself doing the same thing over and over again on every bowl I made without realizing it until I was done. I couldn’t believe it when I lined them up (there were 8 of them) and they all looked like they were wearing tutus – not exactly the effect I was aiming for!

Turtle House

A friend of mine asked me a while back if I would make her turtle, Rafael, a new house. She explained that he had grown out of his old one and looked so sad and ridiculous – with his head sticking out of one end and his backside sticking out the other – that she had to do something for him. What would be better than to have a house made out of clay. It was a fun project to take on, imagining the perfect abode for the little guy. When I presented her with the finished house, I was a little worried that it wouldn’t be big enough. Because clay shrinks when you fire it, it was tricky estimating the right size. I was thrilled when my friend emailed me this photo the other day to see “Rafe” peeking out of his doorway, very happy in his new home with plenty of growing room to spare. The versatility and functionality of clay constantly amazes me. It reminds me of a photo I saw once on the cover of Clay Times Magazine of a full-sized ceramic house someone had made for himself – now that is amazing!

Another View

Here’s another view of the same beach in the post below entitled “Dancing Dune”. It was painted in gouache by my good friend Colleen who walks the same path almost every day. It is also a good example of letting go and expressing oneself through art without restrictions.

A New View

Despite the famous saying, familiarity is not always such a bad thing. Neighbors sometimes ask me how I can walk the same route down the beach each day, but what they don’t understand is that the beach changes with every tide. “To find new things, take the path you took yesterday,” wrote John Burroughs. While it might seem that the novelty would wear off during my trips to the osprey nests, the opposite has proven true. I’m constantly surprised by what I see.

– by David Gessner, from “Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight
and Wonder”