February 2012
18 posts
Pop Quiz Answers: Problems Throwing Pots
I posted a dozen or so questions for you wheelthrowers to test your problem-solving chops when it comes to making pots.
Here are the answers I had in mind. Do they jibe with what you know? Did I miss anything helpful?
ANSWERS: Common Problems in Throwing Pots 1. Air bubbles come from insufficient wedging, improper wedging or trapping air when you attach your ball of clay on the wheel. 2. ...
Decorating with slip (with a nod to Hannah...
One of my students last night asked about whether cake decorating tools could be used to apply clay to pots as a form of surface decoration. She had intuited the gorgeous tradition of slip trailing, with strong traditions in Britain and Germany.
Hannah McAndrew, a contemporary Scottish potter, blogged about her latest work yesterday, sharing several images of the pots in process here, which...
100 followers! Thanks!
I woke up to find 100 Tumblrers following my blog - not bad for such an arcane subject. I appreciate your follows, all y’all.
In honor of this milestone, I’m reblogging this early Diving Into the Clay link that jumps the hurdle that hampers many a potter just starting out on their own: no access to a kiln.
happy to troubleshoot
Olisny [olivia] and anyone else following my blog: if I can help you troubleshoot any clay questions, I’m happy to help.
On the one hand the field of ceramics is vast, and I don’t believe there’s such a thing as mastering it.
On the other hand, I’ve made pots and taught pots for a living for years, studied clay and glaze chemistry in undergrad and grad school, and...
Call for work: 500 Teapots
From Lark Publishing’s site:
500 Teapots
Lark is seeking images to publish in a juried collection of ceramic teapots publishing in August 2013. The juror for 500 Teapots will be Jim Lawton of Oyster Street Pottery. Pieces may be functional or purely decorative. You may submit up to four entries; there is no entry fee.
Artists will receive full acknowledgment within the book, a ...
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Pop Quiz: Problems Throwing Pots (answers...
When I was an apprentice, I was like a deer in the headlights: I could hardly imagine what the next step might be without being shown it. Over the years I began to realize much of what works with clay is good old common sense.
Can you outshine my young apprentice self and troubleshoot these questions?
QUIZ: Common Problems in Making Pots 1. You open up a pot on the wheel and during a pull you...
good info on firing a bisque kiln
If you’d like to know more of the underlying processes going on when you fire a bisque, Highwater Clays - a great supplier in Asheville, NC - has a good rundown here.
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January 2012
8 posts
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Welcome, new beginning wheelthrowing students!
And remember: speed kills.
Sarratt Art Studios
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Studley Tool Chest
From Jennifer Knowles-McQuistion, book binder and fellow faculty member at Sarratt Art Studios:
Henry O. Studley, piano maker, built this tool chest in the 1800s. It holds 300 tools, measures 40”x 20” & is the thing I am most excited about today.
See it in action here.
(I rarely see both function and beauty served so harmoniously.)
December 2011
12 posts
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Call for entry - Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft...
Craft Artists Wanted Deadline: April 1, 2012. The 36th Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, a juried exhibition and retail sale, will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from November 8 to 11, 2012, with a preview party on November 7. The jury will accept 195 craft artists.
The show serves as the Museum’s largest yearly fundraising event and is devoted to bringing wide...
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Dan Finnegan vase
Dan Finnegan fesses up to his own restlessness with his work while sharing some fine examples.
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apply for residencies at Energy Xchange
North Carolina’s Energy Xchange is the first art studio to run on methane, firing their wood kilns with waste wood. Their residencies offer affordable workspace to those just getting started in their clay careers. Apply by Valentines Day 2012. More here.
(And thanks to NC Clay Club for their indefatigable clay coverage.)
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“An artist (a generic term covering poet, composer, painter, sculptor, perhaps novelist) consciously or unconsciously takes a vow of obedience to awareness. In order not to be lost in the whirl of time, either past or present, the artist must look at all things with the energy and clarity of a hyperthyroid Buddha. Frankly, this awareness is not always fun.”
— ...
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Boar vessel, Iran, 2900-3100 BCE
Found here.
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"In order to be a good potter I think you got to...
“…If you ain’t, and ain’t as cantankerous as they come, someone is going to come and change you and you’re going to be turnin’ out stuff that inside you don’t want to make.” - Zedith Teague, potter, North Carolina
Taken from Aron Sober’s blog Welcome to the Yard
(Sober wins my respect by leaving a successful 10 year pottery career to return...
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November 2011
24 posts
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Kelly Kessler's December shows in middle Tennessee
[lungs flask - 2011]
I’ll have my new line of pottery at three Nashville shows next month:
Sarratt Art Studios’ Holiday Art Festival December 1-11, Sarratt Gallery 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 37235 Vanderbilt University
Six Potters and a Painter: a holiday market Saturday & Sunday, December 3 & 4 Sat 10-6, Sun noon-4 521 Gallatin Road, studio 3, East Nashville...
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Kismet via tumblr
I started a clay blog with small intentions - a catchall for myself and my pottery students, a jumping off place for ideas.
I never factored in the sheer pleasure I’d find logging into my dashboard* and seeing an abundance of images, some new to me and some like old friends, filling the well, priming the pump. Images from around the world and beyond, from today and the 14th c. and...
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WatchWilliam Brouillard:
I learned that when I was a full time studio person that the only way you could be happy in studio was to deliberately incorporate change into your work, and that was the only thing that made full time studio work viable.
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“The visible world is a daily miracle for those who have eyes and ears; and I...”
– (via journalofanobody)
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palate cleansing: Hans Coper 3
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palate cleansing: Hans Coper 2