Curious Layman

Hanging plate

2009-07-05T17:06:00.001-07:00

I'm still (slowly) working on a reasonable photo setup. It has to be small, quick, and simple. I spent the 4th trimming bowls and making a little photo booth. The only pot I had around was this wall plate that is waiting to be shipped out. I need to work on the lighting, but I think this might work for my purposes.

Around the house

2009-07-05T15:05:00.001-07:00

Demonstrating

2009-06-21T17:58:00.001-07:00

Saturday Franklin hosted a festival and I was asked to demonstrate. I'd never done it, so I was a bit anxious to see how it would go. The red clay I use looks good, but takes in water quickly and isn't that great for throwing tall vases. So I bought some buff clay which is much better at that and it worked fine. It allowed me to chat as I made the forms without worrying if I would lose the pot. As it turns out, I didn't loose any - even while giving a short radio interview. Maybe the three people tuned in will come by the shop this week!

Since I wasn't keeping anything I let little kids destroy the pots afterward. That went over well with the boys.

We don't really have any pictures of the actual demonstrations. This is me warming up before the festival started. The two girls were participating in the festival as well.

Sabbath Poem 1979-X

2009-06-06T19:09:00.001-07:00

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we're asleep.

When we work well as Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

From A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997 - Wendell Berry

Afternoon Walk

2009-05-23T19:44:00.001-07:00

Christy and I found a new place to walk right behind our house. There is a development that really never got off the ground, but it has a road all the way to the top of the mountain behind our house. It's a nice walk, going up about 500 feet. The view at the top is nice too:

Arboretum

2009-05-23T19:41:00.001-07:00

John Sill, a local artist has a show at the NC Arboretum in Asheville, so Christy and I headed over today. The show was great and after checking it out we walked the grounds. I was most impressed with the metal work, particularly the gates:

Christy's recent work

2009-05-05T14:58:00.001-07:00

Small Mention

2009-04-27T16:53:00.001-07:00

Many fellow Western North Carolina artists are featured this month in WNC Magazine in an article about the economic impact of crafts on this region (hint: It's a lot).

As it happens they also did a short article on Franklin, and the last paragraph is dedicated to our shop. The online version can be found here:

http://www.wncmagazine.com/feature/road_trip/bright_prospect

New Arrival

2009-04-25T17:12:00.001-07:00

Our new slab roller was delivered today. It wasn't that bad to assemble, except for the handle. I beat that thing for a half hour with a rubber mallet before taking the entire roller assembly off and slamming it handle down on the concrete to seat it fully. I think they need to machine that part with a little more tolerance. Are you listening Axner?

Plate molds

2009-04-20T18:55:00.001-07:00

Christy and I decided that we'd like to make some almost square plates. So this Saturday I made some hump molds and decided to take some photos along the way. Basically we drew out the shapes, cut them out with a jig saw, and sanded them down. Finally I drilled some holes partially through the molds so I could get a finger hold to pull the mold off of the clay.

We made a set of three nesting plate molds and a rectangular tray mold.

Really Slow Cooling

2009-03-22T05:35:00.001-07:00

For quite some time I've noticed that my blue glaze works better in the cooler parts of the kiln. I've just put up with the middle of the kiln turning my stuff the wrong color. I call it NyQuil blue-green. I put our cheapest dessert cups there. Other people didn't seem to care but it really bothered me.

I slow cool my kiln so that my glazes with crystallize some to make them matte. And even though the middle of the kiln is hottest I would assume that it cools at more or less the same rate and so I didn't think the issue had anything to do with cooling rates. But the other day I decided to slow REALLY slowly. As it turns out, this was perfect and made even the hottest sections of the kiln turn out the "right" color. Go figure.

While I hope to get a bigger kiln this year (because I can easily out produce it at this point), I'm thankful to have had a smaller one to allow me to fire so often and learn so much over the past couple of years.

Butter? Oui!

2009-03-20T18:43:00.001-07:00

The other day a customer came in and asked if we made french butter dishes. We don't, but I decided to make one that night for kicks. For those that don't know, you pack softened butter into the little cup. Then you fill part of the base with water. That way when the two pieces are together you have an air tight seal. You can keep butter un-refrigerated up to 30 days that way. And it keeps it a nice spreadable consistency. I hear it needs to be actual butter. As in from a cow, not a lab.

Christy even carved a little bird so that when the butter was out and on the table you'd see the decoration.

Inside the studio

2009-03-01T18:58:00.001-08:00

Misfire

2009-02-23T18:23:00.001-08:00

The first firing in my little kiln shed didn't go so well. For starters an element burnt out so it never reached temperature. Of course, I've never had that happen yet so I didn't know what was wrong. Oh, and by the way, opening a kiln at 1400 degrees is not good for the pots inside. I knew this of course. But when I came out in the morning and the kiln had shut off at 1900 degrees, and was now at 1400, I just had to see what it looked like inside. Glowing red. I didn't hear it happen, but the bell of a cloche was cracked entirely down the side when I unloaded the kiln to change the element.

The good news is that I changed my first element without destroying more than a pot (so far). So I have that going for me. As I tell my nephew sometimes: If you're going to be stupid, you better be tough.

Kiln Shed Ready

2009-02-21T20:47:00.001-08:00

I spent the last week digging a trench to get power to the shed, mounting the sub panel and installing heat shielding in the kiln shed in the evenings after work. Today I was able to finish the last bit, including installing the kiln vent.

Bread Cloche

2009-01-30T18:14:00.001-08:00

A friend asked if I could make a bread cloche yesterday. Since I had no idea what one was, I got busy finding out and decided to try a couple yesterday.

This evening I trimmed and handled them, while Christy applied the carving:

Waiting on the Kiln Shed

2009-01-21T18:58:00.001-08:00

I ordered a steel shed from friend in that business this week. It will take about two weeks and then I'll have to get electricity to it and build some piers to support it. In the mean time I need to fire a few things, so here is a shot of how I'm set up. The hoses running to the window vent the gasses outside. This is to increase the likelihood that we wake in the morning.

New Studio

2009-01-06T17:59:00.001-08:00

We are moving the pottery operation to the other side of the basement, which doubles the space. I need to get my volume up for the shop and I'm hoping this will help. I was glad to tear out the last bit of carpet in the house and for now we just painted the floor on this side.

I've also got to figure out what I'm going to do with the kiln. I need to fashion some type of shed or something. Anyway, whatever I do I better get to it quickly.

Also, there we may have an opportunity to move our gallery around the corner to main street. It would be a much bigger place. More on that soon hopefully.

It's not like real life

2008-12-19T18:43:00.001-08:00

It's been too busy around here. But not so busy that I didn't kill a few minutes watching people play music on youtube.

This guy plays a mean gas can banjo, but I just love his opening lines:

"Hey it's just an experiment, it's not like real life. Ya'll don't get freaked out about it. Don't mean nothing."

Well said my friend. Well said.

Pots everywhere

2008-11-23T18:14:00.001-08:00

Last week as we were all set up to glaze, our spray guns were malfunctioning. We use cheap guns and they aren't made for glaze so they wear out pretty quick. The setup I want will cost roughly $800 for 2 pressure feed setups with carbide coated parts so......

We got the replacement guns midweek and while I was at work yesterday Christy got everything set up and started. She's starting to learn how to spray them so I left her alone for a while so she wouldn't have been bothering her for not doing it exactly like I do (though I couldn't fully resist). Of course she did at least as well as I do and didn't really need any help. I took over after a while so we could finish by dark and now our basement is flooded in pots.

Also, we were trying to get another kiln load of pots out of the bisque so we unloaded the kiln when it was still way too hot. All of the pots were an odd color. They were colored the same as when they went in and I assumed that the kiln had malfunctioned and not gotten as hot. I came back 30 minutes later and they had become the "right" color. Who knew?

Pottery Collection: Johnston

2008-11-15T19:41:00.001-08:00

I'm still trying to get my photo system setup. I have been able to take decent pictures using one system, but it was cumbersome and I had work on the image quite a bit after it came out of the camera. I'm getting closer to being able to have a simple, compact system with little image processing, but still a ways to go. Here is another practice shot of one of my favorite pots.I realize I need to just use a reflector to cut the glare, but for some reason I just won't give in.

Daniel Johnston - Seagrove, NC

Current system:

Two years already

2008-11-12T18:00:00.001-08:00

It was two years ago this month that I first touched clay. I had wanted to learn for a while and I didn't have the opportunity to take any classes. So when I saw a Brent B on Ebay I went for it figuring I could sell it later if it didn't "take". Well, it did. Meaning at least I was hooked.

So I didn't have to sell the wheel, but pottery is definitely eating the entire downstairs and back yard of my home. There is clay drying in my driveway with covered with window screen as we speak. There is a utility sink where a normal vanity once stood in my downstairs basement. There are bakers racks with bisque ware on them in the "guest bedroom". Christy says we're the only ones she knows working to un-finish a finished basement. At least she says it with a prideful smile.

Etsy Shop Up

2008-11-10T04:05:00.001-08:00

I finally got an Etsy site started yesterday:

http://barberpottery.etsy.com

Window Wonderland Video

2008-11-08T20:32:00.001-08:00

Every year, Franklin has an event called Window Wonderland. The main street shops stay open on Friday night and serve things like cider and cookies. There are carriage rides, carolers, and luminaries. The really neat thing is that most of the windows have live people in them creating a scene. For example the shoe store has a cobbler and other stores might have children for a Christmas morning scene. Our shop doesn't have room for people in the window space so we're getting creative. We've shot a short promotional video that we are going to have playing in the window instead. It's not a high quality production, but maybe it will occupy the men while their wives shop.

I've put it up for now on BarberPottery.com @

http://www.barberpottery.com/seeitmade.aspx

Unaker - Processing

2008-11-02T11:29:00.001-08:00

I'm trying to get a little more of the white clay processed so that I can make a few items for processing. Also, Annie mentioned the pieces I showed in the blog earlier, wondering how they made it through the kiln

Well, they made it fine. This clay is very high fire so it isn't vitrified at cone 6. I'm almost positive it wouldn't be at cone 10 either without amendments. But it looks good for decorative purposes with the clear glaze. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the bowl before I took it over to Tom. This time I'll actually post of photo of the next finished piece.

Anyway, here is a short video showing how I process the clay: