Journey Workshop Mar 16 to - 20 The foot fits the pot

I have been thinking about Alex Solla's comment to my Jan 20 - Feb 20 blog. It was about a show years ago that Steven Hill had juried in California. Alex had a pot in it, and he still remembers Steven's comment about it - that the foot related (or not) to the pot and lid. I have been mulling over that comment and have been looking at my pots trying to analyze the feet in relationship to the rest of the pot. I have trouble with feet. It finally hit me when I was polishing the bottom foot of my large stamped fish platter. The rim was nice and thick. The foot was also quite deep, and set off the platter nicely but in cross section was not very wide - so it really did not look like it went with that pot. You would think that it would be obvious - but not to me.




Well after the disappointment of not making it into the Masterworks East Show hosted by the Ontario Craft Council, I decided to enter 4 pots (maximum entries)into the Ottawa Guild of Potters - I had joined them last summer as I wanted to get exposure to other potters. All 4 were accepted - which was fantastic, including the piece pictured called "Our Fragile Earth" (homeage to James Lovelock's 1970's theory of Gaia) and the platter with the weak foot. I guess Steven was not the juror! As 3 of the 4 pieces that I entered were very different in style I wonder if the juror thought they were picking three different people?

While in Ottawa I visited Octopus books - to see if they had any pottery books but quickly learned what a wonderful store it was - it labels itself as a different book store specializing in books that encourage analytical thinking on politics, the environment and society. I ended up buying two books - both of which I will find inspirational for my pottery work. The first was a short picture book "Revolution" - pictures done in red, black and white and simple figures done with paper - cut out and torn. The other book I have just started reading and found that I am having a hard time putting it down. It is called Dark Ages America. Very depressing - and perhaps sensationalist and extremely anti American - but lots of good points being made about the future of our society.

We had another pot session at the Guild - this time looking at cups and how they functioned. Definitely no consensus about what handle works best! However handles must feel smooth and several handles had rough edges - definitely would not make it into the favorite category. Same with the lip - some just lacked that slight indent at the lip to make sipping a little more comfortable. Almost all the cups had flat bottoms - no holding pools of water in the dishwasher that way!

To see a slide show of the Masterworks Show - http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj224/crag_photo/MASTERWORKS%20EAST/?albumview=slideshow

Journey Workshop Mar 7 to15

I am having difficulty getting the fishing lady design to fit the curved rim of bowl/plate. The last one I also made the fish bigger - to simplify the design - less fish. I also textured the background on some parts to make areas stand out a bit. I plan to use the water blue under the stony yellow in these areas as that seems to highlight the texture.



Somehow the my applique designs are beginning to loose their appeal to me - they seem now rather old fashioned - sort of 1950's 60's look. The shellac versions also don't seem that successful either. So tried some freer designs - but hard to do for me successfully. Hard to use applique on plates and platter. The one pictured was just an experiment that I did not keep. Instead of applique perhaps I should try a similar design in shellac.



Well we had a functional teapot session at the Guild - members brought in teapots - either commercial or handmade - by themselves or others and we had a testing session to see how they handled and poured (did not get into critiquing form). We had about 30 teapots and could see huge differences among them, mostly in how easy they were to pick up when full. All poured not too badly, though ones with the flaring spouts tended to gurgle or splash when pouring. A few had tea coming out of the lid as well as the spout when first pouring if the teapot was full, even though the spout end was quite high.

I can see Steven's point when he suggested that I make non-flaring spouts. The trouble is I like the look of flared spouts, though I am slowly getting to like the tapered ones. Several Japanese and Xixing teapots poured just beautifully - so smoothly and quiet - these had very small spout openings, and as the teapot was small they fit the form. I never thought that a smooth pour was such a big deal, but after seeing the two types of pours side by side - smooth and gurgling - it is amazing how much better and classy a smooth pour is.

We decided if the teapot held more than 2 cups, a side handle should also have a small lug above the spout to help in lifting the pot, or else an overhead handle should be used. Side handles also needed thumb stops to help with the lifting.
The flat bottomed teapots seemed too heavy for a side handle and so an overhead handle would have been better.




On my teapots I do not like the steam hole in the lid as it detracts from the lid form unless it can be hidden by a knob. So I have been putting the hole in the rim of the pot at the side opposite from the spout. However when there is a side handle, a finger might be placed over the hole when lifting the pot - and this could cause an uncomfortable hot spot on the finger so will have to be careful in placing the steam hole in relation to side handles.

Journey Workshop Feb 23 - Mar 6

Well I did not make it into the Masterworks East Show. There were about 140 entries with 80 crafts people entering. Evidently ceramics was the largest group - so that makes me feel a bit better. Anyway have been a bit slow to do any work in the last week - seem to be running out to ideas and steam.

I did work on several vases again - but ended up refraining from putting on any appliques - will try just to do the decorating with the glazes.



I also worked on another teapot with wire additions - adding a double loop for the knob to give it more presence. I also made the handle wider as with the last ones the wire created some cracks near the edges. I have tried to make the spout non flaring - maybe finally I have succeeded, but it seems a bit small for the teapot. The others had spouts a tad big. I wanted to get a handle that has some movement - but this handle again looks rather static. Will have to work on that.




I have long been trying to make some plates and bowls and tie them into my other applique work, without using appliques. I feel that the applique does not work well on plates and bowls. So have been trying out similar designs - fish/hair/ladies but using shellac resist and some carving.





I carve around the shellac design after rubbing with a wet sponge, as that gives the design a bit more depth. Also if you rub too much the shellac comes off. A bit is okay as that softens the design. The best way to use this techniques is to use hot paraffin wax as I used to 40 years ago, but that is messy, plus hard to work with when using a brush - though I have used a brass batik pipe(?) (not sure what they are called) to make lines.
On the deeper bowl I first painted on coloured slip - metallic rust and Titanium white mixed 1:1 and then used the shellac resist. Will see how that reacts with the stony yellow.




I also did another plate with stamps and carving and will redo the same glaze - stony yellow/Hannah ochre and try to get a better result with less Water blue on the hannah blue ash.

Journey Workshop - Feb 15 - 22

There was a Guild gas firing while I was away in Florida and so came back to some fired pots. The firing was not very good - somehow there was no copper red and the shinos on some tiles turned out totally white just as in oxidation, though other glazes seemed OK.
I did get one reasonable pot out of the 10 or so pots that I had in the firing - a large porcelain platter with stamped fish.




The blue/ green area may be a bit strong, but still not too bad. It would have been nice to have blue ash rivulets in that area instead of a solid wall of blue green. Water Blue is very fluid and a little goes a long way.
I used Steven's suggestion of using water blue on the stamped area, rubbing it off and then glazing over with the stony yellow - this accentuated the stamps very nicely. I was a bit worried about using a very fluid glaze under a stiff one as I might get bubbles but it worked beautifully. Thanks Steven!






At tall "Parade" vase finally made it into the refire - turned out better glaze wise, as the blue and green areas turned out less black after reglazing. However the whole form is not very good too narrow if you look sideways and the top window cutouts look weak. I must remember not to focus so much on the decoration, but on the form as well.
I may try another one - with a better tree and the windows integrated better.




I also finished another mirror - this time using the fish hair - but it may have ended up too complicated. I again dried it very slowly and this time used a heavy bat on the mirror frame as that is where I got some warping last time in the firing.

Journey Workshop Jan 30 - Feb 20th

The end of the week was spent photographing some pots that I planned to enter in the Eastern Ontario juried craft show - Masterworks East. I decided to enter the social commentary pots - the shopping ladies and the balloon pot. The glazes turned out pretty well on those.

The glaze runs on the chins, give the shopping ladies a self righteous expression that works well with the theme. I called it "Only 265 Shopping Days Left". I was going to call it, "And I encourage everyone to go shopping more", Dec 20 2006,- George W. Bush. But as this was a Canadian show I felt using an American quote was not appropriate.

I did not enter the balloon pot with the wire as I was having trouble adding the wire. Not sure quite how I will do that. I used the other one that had the balloon string done with clay. I called it "Why?". I was going to call it, "So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private citizens will occasionally kill theirs." - Elbert Hubbard, but again it was an American quote.




In the balloon pot, I managed to get enough copper red on the balloon, and on the blood area. As well the ash glazes ran enough to give the effect of trees - both sides ended similar so that you are left with the impression the action on both sides takes place in the same place. Both of these were made with Tuckers Sandstone instead of Prostone. It seems to be a bit lighter in colour and so gives a whiter effect that I prefer with the stony yellow.

I think several of my other pots may have been better - like the mirror - but it would have been hard to photograph and I was not sure how to finish the back. One of my pre-Steven pots "Ladies Who Lunch" was a possible as well, but then after looking at how they were glazed with just one colour - it looked just too bland. I can see Steven's point that you can go more with glazes on my pots.





Along with digital photos I had to submit a bio, CV and artist's statement. I had never done that before so it was a bit of a struggle to write that.

I will find out at the end of February if I had my pieces accepted. I heard that they had about 80 entries - so lots of competition but maybe not as much as in other shows.

I did not get much else done in February as we had to visit my father-in-law in Florida and did not get back until the 20th.

Journey Workshop Jan 19 - 29

Well I am falling behind in my blog - about a month behind - so will try to remember what was happening.
I tried to work on Steven's suggestion for my balloon pots - to try to get the viewer to realize that there is another side to the story pictured on the front. I made another one and added another balloon protruding at the top at the back, hoping that this will entice the viewer to look at the back. I couldn't really use a wire to hold up the balloon but will add the wire once the pot is fired. I was also able to add a notch on the back side to guide the viewer to that side on the shopping ladies pot.

The rest of the week was spent glazing - it's always so time consuming. I also did a whole series of test tiles - with the stony yellow, Hannah ash glaes and other - with lots of overlapping glaze tests.

Our January gas firing came out on Thursday and I feel that finally I had passable results with the stony yellows/Hannah ash glazes and water blue. I find that the stoneware clays need only .5% iron in the stony yellow to get good colour and up to 2.5% for porcelain. Also on stoneware using a white slip under the yellow also gives it a whiter/yellow look that I am aiming for rather than golden hue. Too much Hannah ochre ash also gives you a browner, golden hue.


The fishing boat ended up looking almost the same as the first one from the December firing. Unfortunately it cracked again on the upper right corner. I may have to try some paper clay on those large handbuilding projects to prevent cracking.






The bowls with the stamped fish on the rim - I have not been very happy with them This time I had used the blue on the fish - so that the stamp and blue colour were all in the same area - otherwise the fish and the blue area competed for attention. However after looking at all those bowls from various firings it seems that the one with just one colour on the rim were the best - the stamp was enough. Sometimes less is more!





The Devolution pot - the lady with the fish hair - turned out not too bad, but unfortunately again has small cracks at the bottom front - may not be large enough to affect it as you have to look closely to see them and they are just surface cracks where I added a bit of clay to the foot.