Sawdust & Dirt

Time, Attention, and Caring

2012-05-07T11:49:00.000-04:00

The story of the last few weeks is like so many sessions in the studio that lead up to a firing! But this one included a workshop tour to Cape Cod with Ron, and a spring break with the family to Florida! That's a lot of excitement outside of the studio! I can barely remember the events that lead up to last week’s firing, much less comprehend them now. Firing a kiln and unloading the results have a way of eclipsing anything I might have hoped while working the clay or the brush. Seeing the pots coming out of the kiln lead me to question my prefiring-self with questions like, “why did I do that?” or “what was I thinking?” my prefiring-self just sits there with eyebrows lifted together and a head slightly tilted with a sheepish grin.
The gears are turning in my head as I make notes for the next firing cycle in hopes that I will have learned anything about this process, this clay, and this kiln. One thing is certain, I’ve hit rock bottom with that sort of pace! I will be spending some time this week, while I make the long drive to Austin for Art of the Pot, rethinking my work-flow in the studio and what I need to do to avoid burning out doing what I love. The saying, “one day at a time” is fine for a while, but comes a time before every deadline that a certain reality has to be faced. For me that day is when I look around the studio and find myself surrounded by stacks of plates, armies of vases and jars, all wanting to be dressed in ribbons of vines!
Somebody said in a blog post (somewhere, recently???) that pottery takes time. I read it quickly with an under my breath, “yeah it does” and read on without much further thought on the real big idea that it was trying to get across to me. Not only does pottery take time, but time is the essence of anything that is good. Especially something handmade. Think about touching clay, even in the most minor and inconsequential way. Touching the object over and over again to smooth an edge, to attach a handle, feeling its weight, these actions represent caring. Caring takes time. Caring makes stuff good.
I guess this answers my questions to the prefiring-self. Maybe? All that time I spent in the studio I was caring that the form was good, that the weight was right, that the edges were attended to, that the painting was alive, etc. I do have a willingness to make these pots the best they can be. I am willing, but maybe not quite able.
The long hours and lack of sleep made me less playful, less joyful in my work. “The work” became just that. Oh yeah, there is always adrenaline, as my fellow potter Seth Guzofsky pointed out to me in a conversation, but that comes in a limited quantity, just like the sand in an hourglass.
But don't let me bring you down, I did have joy and it wasn't all work. That's just the melodramatic-me being just that! I feel that way after not blogging for a long time ;-) and especially just after unloading a kiln full of pots!
So, now I head up the hill to take another look at the pots that wait to be sanded and cared for a little more. My joy meter goes way up after spending more time with the pots. It's a good way of trying to answer those aforementioned questions I have for myself. I will sand and sort all with the hope that they will have a life out there in the world, maybe in your hands. Someone’s hands. Someone who cares. I guess that’s what it’s all about.

Worth Repeating

2012-04-20T09:12:00.000-04:00

Here's a post I really love. Yes, it's from a while back, and yes, I could've just linked to it, but I wanted to put it front and center, today. Maybe Terry will write some more for the blog, someday. email him if you agree. (Let's fill his Inbox!)

Terry is a potter, storyteller, and former resident artist at Penland School of Crafts. He is currently the Chair of Professional Crafts-Clay Program at Haywood Community College . See Terry's pottery at terrygesspottery.com. Terry will periodically contribute his thoughts on pottery.

You can reach Terry at terry@sawdustanddirt.com

Take, Make, or Break

There’s a story told about a Cherokee woman who wore her thick black hair in a long woven braid halfway down her back. Her young husband told her often and with pride about how he loved her beautiful hair, how it represented for him so much about their heritage and her beauty. One day he came home and found the braid, a scissors and a small note on the rocking chair that he always sat in, close to the wood stove. “You love my hair so much, I thought I’d see how much you loved me.”

On the shelf in our kitchen there’s a small slip-cast porcelain cup. I visited a potter who lives alongside a small, wooded lake in the north of Finland and she gave it to me. She made it straight sided, clean & cool in the Scandinavian design aesthetic that is so admired and celebrated. It’s been in our kitchen cup collection for years.

This cup is glazed a hard, shiny green, as pedestrian as Cone 6 can get. It’s an example of how challenging glazing can be, with thickness, application, temperature, and atmosphere all conspiring beyond our fingers to take, make, or break a pot. For me, glazing is the hardest part of making good pottery.

What I really admire in this cup is the handle. This Finnish potter has fashioned it from a thin, lean piece of branch, a young, smooth wood with very fine specks or dots in a subtle pattern all across the bark. The cut off ends reveal a dense, yellow sapling wood, like beech, or ash. She has subtly turned the branch into a handle through some kind of hidden plug. The handle seems to float as if by circumstance alongside the cup, like an odd juxtaposition of two friends that don’t seem quite matched to each other. There’s nothing particularly special in the form or glaze — in fact I don’t think that I’ve ever even drunk from this cup — but the handle keeps it in our kitchen, an object of repeated interest, a memento of a trip to Finland, a connection with another sensibility, an approach to form that is beyond my own.

Then one morning it broke. A plate was moved and in the moment of liftoff the plate caught the lip of the little cup and sent it over the edge, down to the floor. The crash was spectacular for something so modest and thin-walled — a shattered, splintered explosion as if some pent up rage was contained in that cup, or perhaps some complex spring-loaded contraption. Amidst the slivers and shards, there laid that handle, still attached to the bit of clay lapel that bridged it to the cup. Almost as if to say, “Maybe you like this handle more than you liked this cup.”

Wednesday Pictures

2012-04-19T00:37:00.007-04:00

Maybe a few pictures can tell the story of Wednesday. See
(my apologies to iPad, iPhone, & iPod Touch users.)

Kathy King brought her class for a tour, a demo, and here, a paper plate painting exercise.
Chickens in their even larger indoor palace.
some pots and shots around the shelves and tables of the shop.

Here is a slide show of the above images. My apologies to you with iPods, iPads, and iPhones...

Straight Outta the Camera

2012-04-17T09:07:00.004-04:00

black slip over white slip/wax resist,
salt glaze

combed kaolin slip
copper glaze/salted

amber glaze w/ black underglaze
wood ash/salt effect

Well sort of. I sharpened each by 5%. The light boxes were dropped down about 18".

Now I miss the shadow a little bit. Thoughts?

Writer@Large, Katey Schultz

2012-04-16T10:10:00.009-04:00

Way back before I had this blog, Katey Schultz wrote frequently, brilliantly, and at length about her life at her web-log, The Writing Life. Katey's blog has been going strong since 2005 and it was one of the reasons I decided to give this medium a whirl and to see if writing a blog would better my writing craft. I didn't want to be a writer in the "career" sense, but I wanted to be a better writer when asked to submit an artist statement or present my slide show which I "script".

Katey hails from nearby Celo, NC and began her professional writing career writing articles about some of our better known craftspeople here in the greater metropolitan Penland area. You've most likely read her articles in Ceramics Monthly, Ceramic Arts & Perception, Surface Design Journal, Contemporary Impressions, and Metalsmith. She has written articles about Cristina Cordova, Lisa Clague, Kenneth Baskin, Terry Gess, Jenny Mendes, Emily Reason, Matt Kelleher, and Shoko Teruyama, among others too numerous to mention! Many of her artist profiles have been covers for these magazines.

My point is, Katey is a fabulous writer and knows ceramics inside and out!

In 2011, Katey started Writer@Large, a writing for artists consultation service. Basically, if you need an editor for your artist statement, or someone to write brilliant copy for web site content or press releases, Katey can take the careful time and attention needed to write great content, while you continue to do the things you do best, working in your studio making stuff!

Just last year, Katey was the press/P.R. manager to our Spruce Pine Potter's Market and attracted much attention for us with her brilliant writing and well connected press credentials.
Although I don't think Katey will write your blog, ;-) I do hope you will find Katey indispensable for all of your other writing needs. Here is what one of Katey's clients said recently of their collaboration,

“It is through the honest and intelligent interaction between visual art and writing that the subtle undercurrents of ideas can be revealed and appreciated. Through dialogues, interviews, and conversations, Katey's clear and smart voice time and time again unveils the embedded language of form and content in my creative expression. She is a pleasure to work with, open and diligent, clever and sophisticated in her analysis. I would recommend her to anyone seeking a professional and talented arts writer.” -- Cristina Cordova, ceramic sculptor

I have added a link to Katey's writing services for artists in the top of the sidebar. If you're like me, you probably have your hands full enough with the clay and don't always have the time and attention needed to update your artist statement, or send out press releases, or send email newsletters out as frequently as you should. Maybe you're applying for a grant, or a scholarship? Katey's your writer. Get in touch by clicking the link at the top of the right sidebar! You'll be happy you did. She's really awesome.

Well, it's back to the studio for me. I hope you have a great week!

Addendum: Here is a great post about the importance of those who write about art!

Amber Bowl with Combing

2012-04-15T10:33:00.001-04:00

bowl, 5" in diameter

another image taken recently with new lights

Yunomi

2012-04-15T03:04:00.003-04:00

a funny pattern?

Anne Mette Hjortshøj at Modernpots.com

2012-04-14T09:26:00.001-04:00

A beautiful short on Danish potter Anne Mette Hjortshøj.

Big Week?

2012-04-01T18:07:00.008-04:00

Not exactly.

My week was good, but I didn't exactly kick the kind of pottery ass that I had hoped I would. Nonetheless, I managed to get at least 12 pots made and finished each day. Most of them were yunomis, plates, and small jars. Thank goodness for quotas.

Here are a few plates that show my current interest in various textures I can get from braided rope.

In the top image I used a pretty standard braided rope, not pictured. I like the way the overall pattern is created from the overlapping. The rope is rolled immediately after throwing, the clay is very soft and care is taken to roll with even pressure. I like the way the plate is ever so slightly deformed from the rolling.

With the middle plate I used a short section of cotton clothes line rope(shown). Curiously the overlapping pattern was concentric, more or less. The resulting pattern is a composite of many side-by-side rollings. If you look closely you can see each individual rolled "path".

In the bottom plate I used a small nylon rope (shown) that I saved from my push mower when I replace that starting rope late last summer. It's smallness resulted in a slow and tedious impression, which was not so easy to roll and I didn't enjoy, but in the end I liked the subtle pattern that resulted. This may be the best pattern for over-decoration as the impressions aren't very deep and won't interfere with the painting of floral motifs.

Every day I get more and more excited about the upcoming trip to Austin Texas and the Art of the Pot show there. I just found out that I will be showing with my buddy Peter Karner, as well as my Penland neighbor, Gwendolyn Yoppolo, and Deborah Scwartzkopf! Keith Kreeger will be our illustrious host at his studio in early May. Here's a link to the Art of the Pot web site.

Well that is a little of what I am working on these days. The coming week will be mostly free of packing and shipping, appointments, and other distractions, so I hope to really get a lot made. I hope to be able to share what happens here on the blog.

Here's to the coming BIG week! I hope you all have a great one.

Grass

2012-03-28T13:26:00.002-04:00

The grass is growing and I'm thinking of my scythe and looking forward to mowing the field with it. Last summer i burned most of the grass and goldenrod and got this,

last summer's grass/weed ash from the field for glaze materials.

Sundried Pots

2012-03-27T13:33:00.001-04:00

Better check these. Don't want these to get 2 dry 2 fast. Absolutely gorgeous day!

Location:State Road 1170,Bakersville,United States

On Course

2012-03-27T01:07:00.002-04:00

It took a cup of joe and an earthenware taco to get the rest of my 12 made this evening.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, not a good day for staying focused in the shop. I helped Stacey with her new garden and when the girls came home, we did some bike riding.

We took the training wheels off Lillian's bike and after a few falls, she made her first successful rides down the hill in the field. (where was the flip video???)

It's good to take some time with the family after being away for a week and I just needed to spend a little "after supper and bedtime" time to stay on course.

Look out Tuesday!

Monday

2012-03-26T09:29:00.005-04:00

On the road trip to Cape Cod, I consulted with Ron on his work flow and how he schedules his making, firing, etc. But despite Ron's advice to abandon the 12 pots a day approach (when he found out how much time I had before the next firing) It has been a good way to just get back in there to make pots. I plan to crank up the volume in the weeks ahead leading up to my trip to Austin, TX.

Speaking of road trips, I have hunnids of pics from our excellent Northeast workshop tour to sort through. When I get caught up on all of my pots, shipping, and other chores I'll try to put together a slideshow fo'ya. Don't hold your breath, though, get to work on your 12.

It's later than you think.

Give 'Em Enough Rope

2012-03-26T00:03:00.004-04:00

You gotta be careful what you listen to in the studio. It might rope you in a different direction.

FYI: the pattern in the cup is due to an impressed rope. See above link for musical influence.

It's a Start

2012-03-24T23:29:00.004-04:00

On to the next one: Wood Firing #42

Quick News

2012-03-06T09:01:00.003-05:00

I've worked day and night to get the 300 or so pots painted and glazed for Thursday's firing. Here are a few pictures from the shop.

'nuf

2012-03-02T17:05:00.004-05:00

After a trip to the mill with Lillian, I think I will have more than enough for the firing. Some of this Poplar was a little green and I think I'll need more of it. Better to have too much than not enough. If anything, this represents the confidence needed to light the fire in the first place.

Insta-Pitchers

2012-03-01T09:34:00.007-05:00

It's March and my firing is coming up fast. Why am I still making pots?

[rant]

So much for 12 pots a day. That luxury is out the window as I try to cover my bases for upcoming place setting shows at NCECA and the Penland Gallery. It seems like the place setting show is this year's cup show. They seem to be popping up everywhere. It's understandable. It's logical. But is it profitable in the context of a group show giving 50% to the gallery? Is the risk equal to the publicity that one might gain from such a speculative venture?

Be ware, says the old potter.

I guess the price just needs to go up like everything else these days.

Consider the loss rate with warping, cracking plates, the shipping that I have to pay, the price of fuel, and on and on. The flip side, for me, is that I really like the frame of a plate for my painting, and doing these shows give me the "permission" to break out some new riffs and motifs. Obviously for anyone trying their hand at the pottery career, it's not about the money. But you damn well better make some along the way or you'll be out before you're ever in!

Speaking of adding it all up, and getting back to the 12s that Ron mentioned briefly in his post yesterday (do I hear a pottery bloggery echo?), it appears that I just didn't do the math or maybe some days I didn't make the 12. Whatever the reason, there's always more planning one can do. Next time I need a checklist of pots and maybe keep a count of what I've made as I go along. It's a process, it's timing, it's cyclical. You (read "I") have to factor in last minute requests, like 4 pitchers for the NC Museum of Natural Sciences!

[/rant]

OK, now they are made.

Now, where did I put those brushes???

[addendum: Carter just posted a very thoughtful edition on the subject of the 12's. the pottery bloggery pool ripples again!]

Cupboard Confidential

2012-02-29T10:52:00.002-05:00

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"Cupboard"
How many can you name?

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"Cupboard 2"

Mountain Monday

2012-02-27T20:42:00.001-05:00

The painting of stacks of bisque ware awaits while I catch up with a whole lot of plastic. The firing date has been changed again and the maple is flowing with cold nights and warm days!

Life is good.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Motif-ated Dish Towel

2012-02-26T19:27:00.005-05:00

The week ahead has a lot of painting in store, so I am thinking of motifs and pattern. I found these motifs on a dish towel that use everyday.

Also, Diana Fayt's online surface design workshop begins tomorrow and lasts for 6 weeks. Check out the Clayer web site. It's not to late to sign up!

Lot's to do and see this week, I hope you'll check in again. Thanks for reading.

Today, So Far

2012-02-22T15:38:00.001-05:00

The shop this morning as I looked back on a walk with Jack.

The table at 3:30 p.m. EST.

Everything matters. All things take time.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Cup

2012-02-21T12:08:00.002-05:00

Just cut the foot-ring on this cup and was really pleased with everything about it. But this pot has a long way to go before it is raised with someone's beverage! So I'm not going to get my hopes up. But with a good start the pot has a good chance of being a nice one. I'll dote on it, for sure.

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"Cup"
(taken at Kline Pottery)

Instagram Today

2012-02-20T22:36:00.009-05:00

Instagram is a cool picture taking, photo manipulation app. It's also a social network where you can follow folks you know or folks you don't know, but like the pictures they take. Like most social networks, you can like, comment, and share. Unfortunately it's only available on iOS (mainly because the iPhone/iPod/iPad camera is so amazing!) If you don't have the instagram app on your iPhone/iPod/iPad or if you're not on Facebook, or Twitter, more than likely you didn't see any of these pictures from today. If you *are* on instagram and want to follow me and my photographic adventures, my username is klineola. Just go to the app and search for me! Here is an interesting article about instagram and how it is enabling anyone to take interesting photos.
Anyway, I just thought I would share some of the scenes from today. I may do this regularly, if you like. Let me know. Operators are waiting. Thanks.

Salut

2012-02-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

The time to honor this little white cup is long overdue. Wine drinkers tend to turn their thumbs down when considering the 'umble pot for their Zin, but not this potter! I got this cup from my good friend Rick Hensley years ago and it has been my go-to cup for my red wine. Like many of life's best experiences, it's only in reflection that one has the inclination to wonder of the mysteries that contribute to a memory that lasts. Puzzlement, a tugging at one's understanding is what a good pot prompts. The feel of the glaze. The fit in one's hand. The undrinkable pool at the very bottom of the cup that remains with gravity's insistence.

The 'why' and 'how' of a good pot is our life searching and the answer may never come from too direct a viewing, but maybe from countless glances, like stars in the sky or glare of the sun.