Sawdust & Dirt

Coffee Break vol. 31

2012-01-27T11:59:00.005-05:00

I really shouldn't be taking a coffee break so early, but it has been a chilly day here in the pottery neighborhood and with my new rapid boil kettle it was a done-deal in a matter of moments. But no sooner did my water boil and I was on the hunt for a clean(ish) cup. I looked far and wide for a suitable mug that wasn't for sale in my Etsy shop or didn't have schmutz in it from a previous beverage.

Then I saw this little pot on my OPP shelf. It's from my clay Cousins over in Seagrove, who I will be visiting very soon. I had always thought of this pot as a small flower vase. But today I was feeling adventurous and decided to hook it up with a hot coffee.

It sports a really beautiful iridescent iron glaze with a diagonal shino(?) pattern that is somewhat like a stem and leaf. Do you see the iridescence?

The shape is very comfortable and warmed my hands up nicely on a chilly morning. Is it a yunomi? Me no know.

While I having this cup I listened to the latest Brian R Jonescast. This weeks interview is with Brian Giniewski. Have a cup of something warm and check it out!

So off to Seagrove I go and hopefully I can see what goodies The Cousins are into this new year. I'll let you know.

12 X 12 Revisited/Revised

2012-01-26T09:16:00.004-05:00

Monday offers such promise, while Thursday reminds me of my shortcomings with Fridays verdict right around the corner. Not that I have ever operated on a regular 9-5 M-F schedule, but the mainstream routine sits on one of my shoulders, reminding.

Yesterday, as I was working on various projects in the bright sunshine, (read: not pottery), I had a yearning for some kind of routine, a daily goal. I remembered my 12x12. A concept that seems to have been forgotten like a dream. But it's not that hard to imagine that I could get back to a regular studio practice like that soon. It's almost February, after all! So while I was outside doing some long over fall maintenance on my mower, I had the thought that I would set my goals lower. Haha. Yes, a little lower, to avoid the self loathing that a Thursday might bring. So I decided since I had missed my 12x12 deadline(again) that I would try to just make a dozen, (ok, I made 16) and try to finish them today (Thurs).

I thought I would make a short run of cups, a few serving dishes, and some pitchers. It was a very different experience contrasted to making boards and boards of pots that would then take me a day or two to finish.

When making a dozen or more of one shape, each pot gets closer to the ideal and hopefully with the last ball of clay I make the best of the lot. That happens sometime. Sometimes, when revisiting a shape, the first one off the wheel is fresh and has a naïveté that seems more natural, with subsequent forms trying a bit too hard to be perfect. It's hard to explain. That first pot is imperfect by the mind's eye and I try harder with each redo. In the process, with each subsequent pot I become more self-conscious and sometimes squeeze the life out of them.

With these short runs of pots, I didn't get into that self conscious mode (as much). I wasn't thinking that I had 20 more to make and wasn't hoping that I would get a few really good ones. I was there with each one and then they were made. The cycle was shorter.

This is very difficult to explain, but my goal is to try to make 12-16 pots each morning and finish the pots from the day before after lunch. It's a slightly different model and will hopefully be steady and more manageable than table full of plastic.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Platesholder

2012-01-23T00:39:00.003-05:00

Just a placeholder until I finish all of these plates and finish the last in my pottery bloggery series. Later today, hopefully! I also have some shipping to do. See you then.

The Pottery Bloggery Eyes

2012-01-18T11:10:00.007-05:00

The potter blogger has different eyes. That is, the potter who writes, journals, blogs has different eyes. Since blogging offers all kinds of ways to share information about one's thoughts, various tools can be used, besides the written word. I started blogging in 2007(?) with the intention of polishing the words I use to describe this visual language of pottery I speak. At first I was pretty shy. But eventually my thoughts flowed a little easier. Yesterday's post woke me up to the fact that my writing and thinking brain had become pretty mushy from my six month sabbatical. But I will forge onward and try to be at least half as clear as John Bauman can be when he leaves his comments!

Back to the visual thing. Seeing is believing. Seeing depends on one's perceptions. How do you see the world, half full or half empty? Do you dream in black and white or in color? One of the first things I do when I walk through the door of my shop is to make sure I have the camera ready to go. Batteries charged, available memory in the card, tripod ready. The camera and the pictures I take have become an important way, or maybe another way, to "see" the pots, the studio, the things that I walk past in the field. I guess we all have blind spots. We choose what to see after years of practice of putting blinders on. The camera helps me overcome my blind spots. It also sees without prejudice. With its macro focus it helps me see things I can't really see with my naked eye.

As I began to keep this online journal to sharpen my writing skills, photography became an equally important way of expressing what I was seeing and thinking in the shop. So much so, that it was only after I had looked at the pictures of the day did a narrative for the blog emerge.
The photography fed the narrative of my studio life. For a while, you wouldn't see me without my camera. I was a pesky shutter bug wherever I went. Seeing through the lens of the camera became very important in how I saw everything around me. It gave a second opinion, like squinting does for most of us. The camera gave me a second perspective as standing back from one's work does after working with your head down.

During a firing, I keep a log. I usually record temperature, cones, damper settings, etc. but I'm not writing it down to remember later. I'm writing it'd own to remember it now! (I stole that line) I do refer back to the logs of past firings, but really what I'm doing is writing things down to map a course, to make changes, to affect the right changes in the firing. The blog and the pictures help me to affect a similar change in the work I make, or at least they have become such an influence by the vigilant writing of the blog. These effects of blogging weren't expected at the onset, but they have found their way into the work flow, just as the results of a firing enter into to my subconcious. Scott wrote eloquently about this phenomenon recently, here.

This is the critical role of my blog. It is a tool to pry open our eyes and our perceptions.

Next: Clay on your Hands

The Clayer

2012-01-17T13:46:00.003-05:00

Bay area potter, Diana Fayt is offering a cool online way to learn her techniques. Click here to visit The Clayer.

Pottery Bloggery Pt 1

2012-01-16T23:04:00.006-05:00

Recently a friend told me that she had just gotten back from a conference where everybody was telling her that she needed a blog! So she came to me asking whether she really needed a blog.

My answer in short was no.

I imagine that probably surprises a lot of you. (Maybe not, since I just enjoyed a 6 month sabbatical from blogging.) But here are some thoughts on being an artist and writing about it. (in no particular order)

Why blog?

There are several motivations for writing (and keeping) a blog. Self promotion seems to be a big one. Keeping a record or log of your thoughts/your work is a good one. Polishing writing skills was my motivation.

Self Promotion

I may be way off in saying this, but I don't think many of my customers/collectors/patrons read this blog. I'm certain that some do as they tell me at shows that they do. But I think it's a very small number. The community around any blog is the group of people who have something in common with the content of the blog.

For example, "Mom" blogs are very appealing to mothers who can share and commiserate with the blog author about being a Mom. There are so many Mom blogs that they even have subcategories, like "Craft Mom"! Now I'm sure some Dads follow Mom blogs, some may even have their own blogs about fathering. But based on the huge number of women who leave comments on the Mom blogs versus the number of men, I would guess that the readership is mostly women.

So it doesn't surprise me that most of the followers of this blog are makers, themselves, since most of my content is about making pots and most of the folks I hear from in the comments and through emails seem to be potters! I write about techniques, about firing the kiln, about the joys and tribulations of making pottery, not so much about buying or collecting pots and how great I am. After all self-promotion is really about laying on the hype, something I'm not so comfortable with. I guess I'd rather write about techniques and share my thoughts with other potters as I go about the studio.

I'm sure there is plenty of interesting "backstory" for any collector of my pottery, but I haven't heard from many of them here. Maybe it's all too esoteric. Maybe too boring. If you're out there, dear lover of Kline Pottery, please chime in with your experience! Let your loving voices be heard.

Meanwhile, I must get to the muddy work of pottery. Muddy hands and keyboards just don't mix. So until the next time I can squirrel away a few minutes to continue this thread of pottery-bloggery thought, I bid you a bright and productive winter's day!

Next: The Potter-Blogger's Eye

OPP

2012-01-16T17:53:00.003-05:00

Here are a couple of other potter's posts worth reading.

Ron has announced our very exciting Cape Cod workshop at the Cape Cod Potters!

Tom has good news about potters that paint and help the NCPC.

Cool stuff being made over at Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway.

I'm also working on a blog post about blogging. It's sort of like pots about pots.

March 2012 in Old San Juan

2012-01-15T01:37:00.011-05:00

There is no better time to see than when you are traveling. Not only are your eyes wide open but all of your senses are fully present and alive. You are sprung out of your routine and charmed by all that you experience. There's not a better time to be inspired.

That's what make Travel-Arte's workshops seem so intriguing to me. Travel to Old Juan in Puerto Rico and learn and create with some of today's premier ceramic sculptors. What could be better?

Here's what a workshop participant said about their Travel-Arte experience,

"Everything was carefully considered from the resource materials, the organization of the work stations, studio visits, lunches, slide presentations and one on one time (with) each participant. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in Clay figuration. A tremendous amount of technical information was covered, supported with hands on guidance.

…I also think the idea of learning a skill coupled with a new travel experience was fulfilled. It is always inspiring to see how other Artists work and even more so in a culturally vibrant country like PR…it was a successful and enjoyable experience …I am looking forward to the workshops March 2012."

Jasmine Thomas-Girvan, Trinidad and Tobago,

Check out the artist's web sites below and Go to Travel-Art's website for more details.

LISA CLAGUE: Beyond Tradition March 8, 9, 10

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA : In Depth Portfolio Review March 11

JERYLIN VIRDEN : Lowfire Glazes March 12, 13, 14

SERGEI ISUPOV: Image and Form March 16, 17 18

Snow Day

2012-01-13T17:36:00.004-05:00

After some sledding and general hanging out with Evelyn and Lillian, I spent the afternoon working on my new website. Nothing fancy but it's up and running, here.
It doesn't feel like me quite yet. I really shouldn't even share it, but maybe I'll get some feedback on what is there so far. Feel free to comment below.

Although I have a real interest in all things internet, including programming, the benefits of DIY seem very scarce. While the bumper sticker says, I'd rather be "potting" I find myself drawn to endless tweeking of fonts, colors, layouts, widgets, and in the end find that I am better off trying to keep everything really simple. (whatever that means)

So as the sun drops out of the day I find my matches and build a fire in the really cold studio. Checking the pots I made yesterday and make a few more. Consistency is my goal for the coming weeks. Maybe the word would be steadfast. Everyday, build on the previous day's success. Until late February finds me loading the steadfastness into the kiln.

Not Exactly a 12 X 12 Day

2012-01-12T21:56:00.003-05:00

Not even close! More like 2 x Quizzo. I got more more work done on the soon-2-be Sawdust and Dirt T shirt. (which you will be able to acquire at our VA/MA workshop road trip!

Processing the Process

2012-01-11T18:09:00.002-05:00

Everywhere I walk today is a now familiar squishing sound. The clay beneath my boots is saturated with the rain. On the hill and in the shallows behind my house, squish. I suppose it could be solidly frozen or covered with snow. That wouldn't be bad.

I've struggled and deleted a couple of drafts to this return to the blog. Soggy brain, I suppose.

As you might have guessed by some of the previous picture only posts, I have been looking at my pots thought the lens of my camera. Seeing the pots through the camera and the subsequent viewing on the desktop photo software give one a very different view of one's work. It takes the same rigor that one develops over the years to imagine the pots after we've treated them with slips, glazes and fire or heat. The ceramic process is somewhat of a dream that is usually idealistic and never incorporates the slightly uneven firing, or the glaze applied too thickly, or the number of things that can happen during a firing. Nor does this dream imagine the wonderful things that are somewhat mysterious and surprising about the process of finishing clay that renders it into a hardened ceramic pot.

But the perspective that the camera and the photo process give, help me to see the details of the pots that in a different way. Similar to the distance that time gives after a firing. The ceramic dream gets revised and the reality of the finished pots sinks in.

So, like Rip van Winkle, I slowly wake up from my long blog sleep and dream about the pots I will make in the coming weeks. The blog helps me to process the process and understand the results of the kiln. I look forward to sharing it all with you here. I hope you will come along with me.

Thanks for reading.

- Posted using BlogPress

Pixwork

2012-01-10T23:57:00.002-05:00

Too Many Pictures, Not Enough Words

2012-01-09T20:33:00.001-05:00

Talk soon.

;=)

Rainy Corner of the World

2012-01-09T20:30:00.003-05:00

Potter Geek Summit

2012-01-07T21:08:00.001-05:00

Etsy Bound Pottery Fashion Shoot

2012-01-06T23:45:00.002-05:00

Split

2012-01-06T14:22:00.002-05:00

New Desktop

2012-01-05T11:22:00.002-05:00

1/3/2012

2012-01-04T21:20:00.002-05:00

Put In My Place

2011-10-28T10:01:00.006-04:00

Don Pilcher lives in Champaign Illinois where he taught for many years at the University of Illinois. A gifted potter, thinker,and provocateur, Don shares his unique views on the field of contemporary ceramics. Visit Don's web site where you can read more of his stories.

When Ralph Bacerra wanted to deliver his final dismissal of some piece of work he’d say, “What is it, Don? Just a pot with a glaze on it.”

I thought this summation was much too inclusive. He couldn’t possibly mean to excuse the great Sung Dynasty, a hundred and fifty years of American salt glazed jugs, Swedish porcelain made under the name of their King and even some fairly recent wonders by Ken Price. And then I thought about the source; this was coming from Ralph Bacerra, who never let an empty space pass for very long and whose brushwork celebrated even the inside of his elevated foot rims. Reluctantly, I concluded he was just asserting his personal creative terms and that a pot with a glaze on it simply didn’t do anything for him. Turns out I was wrong.

Earlier this spring I received a letter from the Director of the Racine Art Museum, a small but very nice museum on the western shore of Lake Michigan. He was writing to tell me that some of my work would be on display throughout the summer in an exhibition of recent acquisitions to their permanent collection of American ceramics. He closed by inviting me to drop in and see the collection.

As luck would have it, I had scheduled a trip to Milwaukee that very June. My wife would be along and she has a real interest in these things as she’s the one who got me to return to ceramics twelve years ago. Racine is only a few miles off Interstate 94. Parking was easy. The exhibition was in several galleries on two floors. You could see the first and largest gallery as you approached the entrance.

Lots of major work there by a Who’s Who list of American potters. In addition to Ralph, there was Betty Woodman, Don Reitz, Beatrice Wood, Adrian Saxe and more. Not mine. Not surprising.

The second large gallery, adjacent to the first, had equally fine work by folks with a little less reputation; people like Paul Dresang. (How does he do those leather satchels? They look as if they are grown rather than made.) But no Pilcher. There was another large gallery upstairs and we struck out again. I was ready to skip it and get on to Milwaukee but Linda insisted that we ask someone and just then a museum assistant appeared. I told her my story, said we couldn’t find my work, and she said, “It must be in the intensities.”

INTENSITIES? I’ve been going to museums for six decades but I’ve never heard of an intensity. She assured me I’d find the intensity cases at the end of the hall. So out of the galleries, down the hall, past the restrooms, past the office spaces, past the janitorial closet and, finally, we reached the intensity cases. Still in the museum, but just barely. These are glass front cases, about chest high, the size of a huge office aquarium. Inside were about sixty pots - as tightly packed as any bisque kiln you ever saw, tighter than white on rice. Mine, a porcelain bowl with a black glaze, was larger and near the back, partially hidden by a Sandy Byers jar, a Heino bottle and a Natzler bowl. I think there was also a McKenzie pitcher nearby. The fact that you couldn’t see all of my pot was just as well; certainly not one of my best. Well, that happens.

But here’s the kicker. All of the pieces in the intensities, as Ralph would have it, were just a pot with a glaze on it. Not a mark of overt decoration anywhere. So prescient. What’s going on? Could it be true that a straight forward, finely made pot, beautifully, even exotically, glazed can no longer entertain, inform and gratify in today’s larger world? Or at least the cultural world inhabited by people like Ralph and this curator? Was the canon tossed while I was away? Does anyone still teach Yanagi’s theology about the unknown craftsman? I’ve been letting this museum experience turn in my mind for several months now. I have concluded nothing. The questions mount.

Do simple pots like this need an app to sufficiently and dramatically amplify the potter’s art? In this case, somebody thought so. For this collection, the museum boldly aggregated our expressions and then, like those photos of hundreds of nude people on London Bridge, intensified the viewing situation into something as curious as “Where’s Waldo.”

I’d love to share this experience with Ralph, but he’s gone now. Still, his caution remains and it resonates while I consider my place at the back of the pottery bus. After all, I was warned and it seems appropriate to ask oneself why this has happened.

Is it the pots? Is their sin simply one of being small and undecorated? Or is this a new time and place? Does America now move so quickly and loudly that we have no eye or ear for the inaudible yet very real chords of form, weight, color, texture and function? Maybe. These are qualities that were indispensable when most of the pots in the cases were made. But in the last fifty years, most Western nations have been overtaken by disposable containers. Time was, at most gatherings where a beverage was involved, the party ended with twenty minutes of kitchen time - washing, drying and putting away the china or glassware. Seems quaint now. As a result, we are living with a least two generations who know almost nothing about hotel china much less Royal Copenhagen or Rose of Canton.

If simple, quiet containers are now seen as simply dull, should I be moved to respond? At my age, do I want to be jacked around by overcrowding in Racine? Some good company there. Maybe I should be happy to be in any collection at all. And how much mind-time do I want to yield to this curator?

Then again, to think more ambitiously, every day that I walk into the studio is the first day of the rest of my life… as it is for all of us. I am retired to the extent that artists ever retire and I work primarily for the fun of it. Rascal Ware actually has a license from the State of Illinois to make whatever we goddamn well please…as long as they can collect sales tax. What’s to be lost with some new and very decorative moon shot at ceramic extravagance? (Whatever extraordinary hand skills might be necessary have now been lost to arthritis -and mine were never a match for Ralph’s - but there are ways around that.)

In a world of no coincidences, the current issue of Time magazine has an article on the “secret” that every parent has a favorite child. The gist is that the better looking child is usually favored over the plain child. I’m guessing the plain child is just a pot with a glaze on it.

apples

oranges

So I conclude here with photos of two pieces; a Japanese cocoa pot that came to me via my great grandmother and a yunomi by Shoji Hamada that I bought directly from him in San Francisco in 1963. I have an obvious attachment to both. I leave the intensity question to you. The apples/oranges problem is clear. But be certain of this, in the actual museum world of Racine, all the oranges wound up in the intensity cases, gasping for air and light. What might we draw from that?

"Potter is what I do, who I am, where I come from."

2011-09-23T14:38:00.001-04:00

"It is still an enigma to me how and why I enjoy potting. I feel about pottery what William Stafford said about poetry: 'I don't want to make good poems, I want to make inevitable poems.' Pottery is what I do, who I am, where I come from."

I was fortunate to be at Gerry's Penland slide talk a few years ago and left with my jaw dragging the floor as I put my folding chair against the wall afterwards. As with many folks that we think we know from various meetings and associations, we never really know them until they've spoken about their art or until they reflect on their work during a slide show. Gerry covered 50+ years of making in about 20 minutes, no small feat in itself.

Gerry's retrospective show, "A Life in Clay" opened Sept. 15th at the Sawyer Fine Arts Center, Marian Graves Mugar Gallery, and continues until the 22nd of October.

Copies of this catalog may be available at the Marian Graves Mugar Gallery.

Thanks Gerry for your pots, your vision, and your leadership in our community of potters.

Reruns

2011-09-12T21:14:00.000-04:00

Mr. Fitch

2011-08-16T13:18:00.003-04:00

Here's wishing our pottery bloggery cousin Doug a very happy birthday!!

Summer Reading: Dave the Potter - Artist, Poet, Slave

2011-08-07T21:24:00.018-04:00

By Laban Carrick Hill
Illustrated by Bryan Collier
Published by: Little , Brown and Company 40 pages, color $16.99
Reviewed by: Martin Tatarka

If I am lucky enough to be home around mid-day during the summer the couch has been a place I can grab a short siesta and get out of the heat of the day. I don’t need much maybe just 15 minutes to a half hour does me right. But I can’t just flop down on the rust colored couch and close my eyes and nod off I need something to read or look at.

Recently I picked up the children’s book “Dave the Potter - Artist, Poet, Slave” and had it with me when I hit the couch. We don’t have kids around but I have always found pleasure in kid lit, there is something about the combination of words and pictures that is hard to beat. Short and sweet like haiku with drawings.

The meat of the book is the story about how Dave made pots in Edgefield, South Carolina in the mid 1800’s. It starts with getting clay ground in the pug mill and carried to his studio and follows with kneading and glazing. Sometimes he would start with as much as sixty pounds of clay on his kick wheel. There is a center fold of paintings with four stages of throwing a pot, centering to bringing up a cylinder. Later he builds up the pot with coils till it reaches the desired height. Before the pot has completely dried Dave takes a stick and writes a short poem or couplet. An example on one of his pots was written on August 16, 1857, “I wonder where is all my relation / friendship to all- and, every nation”

The book's illustrator Bryan Collier uses a unique combination of watercolors and collage. The palette he uses is mostly earth tones with browns and tans dominating the pages. The text is placed on the sides on what looks appears as textured and colored paper. The illustrator says that there is no visual record of what Dave looked like so he found a model who he feels represented the spirit of Dave.
The text itself is mainly descriptive of the processes that are illustrated and pretty straight forward. There is a bit of poetry in the writing as in: Dave’s wheel spun “as fast as a carnival’s wheel”, and likening the pulling of a cylinder to that of a magician “pulling a rabbit out of a hat”. Personally I prefer the poetry examples written on the pots by Dave given at the back of the book.

I think that the illustrations really carry the story. The pages are loaded with images and fractures of real photos and textures and atmosphere.

The last few pages are really for grown-ups with a bit of history and notes by the author and illustrator. Finally there is a bibliography and a list of a few websites to follow up any interest the reader might have.

I think that clay offers a wide range of activity and importance for many. For teachers this book connects the making of pots with history, geology, physical activity and poetry. For potters it reminds us how much things have stayed the same; the wheel, glazing etc. For collectors of pots it provides a context with which to understand certain historical work. For historians his work provides a voice of an artist and slave, a quiet but lasting sedition to a repressive system.

So next time you are heading to your couch for a short snooze think about taking Dave along. There is enough in this little book to dream about.

To learn a bit more about Dave check out these links:

http://www.sciway.net/afam/dave-slave-potter.html
http://www.usca.edu/aasc/davepotter.htm

For Martin Tatarka the highest form of art is the art of living. “Making our surroundings and aesthetic choices artful is just as important as what we do in the studio”, he says. He has taught in Africa, lived in Spain and been a fishing guide in Alaska and earned his MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook. Martin lives in Asheville, NC.

Editor's note: read more about the making of the book here.

Mountain Cousins, Aug 26 and 27, Bakersville, NC

2011-07-10T16:36:00.004-04:00