Refining

Today I went down to do a slide talk in Morganton, NC at Western Piedmont Community College. The presentation was for Shane Mickey's students who were ceramics majors taking a Marketing course in the crafts department.

Sorting through all of my images, I found myself looking back to the past at a lot of my older work. It was really interesting to see pieces I had forgotten I made, or pieces that were just the bridge for developing another piece. From each kiln firing, through the last 5 years, I continually try to refine my work, right down to the last detail. Sometimes I make big leaps, but it seems more often, I make small steps in refining my forms.

These three tumblers I've pictured show a progression from this form that I started working on about 5 years ago. The first image of the two green tumblers was from 2006, the tumbler image in the middle is from 2008, and the last image is from 2009. The form has changed quite a bit, yet it's still the same form I was continually working on improving. There are subtle changes in the relationship of the foot and the rim, or the angle of the carving pattern, as well as more dramatic surfaces from the soda kiln.

I think being able to write about your work is an important tool. Speaking about it is equally important. I haven't had that much opportunity for presenting slide talks, but it is something I want to refine as well. Doing a slide talk is not much different than typing up an artist statement or even a blog post; it's just a series of carefully formed thoughts strung together with images of your work. (Oh, and I guess those things like nervous jitters and that audience out there watching you!) I hope to be able to keep working on this aspect of my career so I am able to clearly explain all the aspects of why and how I make the work that I do.

Assimiliating

I have returned from the workshop I was assisting this past weekend and am settling in back to my routine. It was a great weekend of learning and teaching and it felt like the students left inspired and full of ideas. Pocosin Arts School is a wonderful organization and this retreat was held in a beautiful, quiet place on the coast, a perfect scene for sharing and exploring creativity. I really enjoyed being a team with Gay and assisting in teaching beside her, as well as being inspired by her own approach to teaching. Off and on, I have assisted Gay in her studio and around her home for the past two years, and have enjoyed our relationship that began as mentor and has continually grown into even more; a friendship. She continues to inspire me with her energy and strength she puts into every aspect of her life and work.

As we were demonstrating our particular approaches to working in clay, we were also trying to reveal how one would 'find their own voice' in clay. Often Gay would repeat these words:

"Imitation, assimilation, and innovation"

Looking around you at other artists and imitating their work for yourself is a great tool for learning. Yet then you must take time to assimilate that information, incorporate elements of it into your own work, and in turn, come out with your own original interpretation, one that speaks of yourself and your own aesthetic. These are great words to remember as you are working and learning as an artist.

We began each morning of our classes with favorite quotes that people shared. This was one of my particular favorites:

"When you make a pot, you are trying to put into it some aspect of that oneness, that wholeness you have felt at moments in life - in poetry, music, paintings, philosophy - a moment of highest delight." Bernard Leach

Teaching and learning

I'm headed out of these cold mountains this weekend for the coast of North Carolina for Pocosin Arts Folk School, in Columbia, NC. I'm the teaching assistant in a workshop by Gay Smith, Making Lively Pots: Altering the Form & Surface of Freshly Thrown Pots. This weekend retreat at the arts school is called "Cabin Fever Reliever!"

Since I am a teaching assistant, I will be demonstrating some of my pieces and assisting Gay in her teaching. I feel like I always am needing to improve my teaching skills and am looking forward to see what Gay has to teach as well as see how she teaches. It's a weekend of teaching and learning for me.

As far as demos, I'm set to demonstrate my carving, a reed handle and a ewer!

The moods of clay

~Having fun in the studio lately!

I've been carving some clay on some medium sized bowls and have been working on a small batch of ewers, which is always a fun project, connecting spouts, handles and other various parts. I'm also undergoing an exploration of a new form, boxes! I dragged out some old dark stoneware clay that I reclaimed that is very groggy and grainy. Ooh, I love groggy dark stoneware. Usually I hand build my bark textured wall pieces and baskets with this dark stoneware, but it was fun to bring it to throw on the wheel for a change. One day I'm loving the lure of a clean crisp porcelain, its' sleek soft edges refined with pooling glazes within my carved lines. The next day I might be craving the richness of a dark stoneware clay, accentuated by its grainy textures and sandy feel between my hands. It's similar to choosing a particular coffee or tea brew for whatever mood I might be in. I love having the freedom to work in a few different flavors of clay depending on the nature of the pot I'm making. With soda and wood firing, the variety of light to dark clays bring out a rainbow of tones that I'm always eager to get out of the kiln. Just talking about this is getting me itching for a wood firing....to see those warm, toasty flashing slips painted by the wood flame.

After writing this, I just found this interesting post here for another potter's view on flavors of clay...

click on the sand texture picture and you can find my shop where I sell this photo

Upcoming Workshop

Will Baker and I will be conducting a one day workshop at Claymakers in Durham, NC on Saturday, March 13, 2010, 10-5 pm. For more information on our workshop, you can check here. If you would like to sign up, the number and email is below:

705 Foster Street
Durham, NC 27701
Phone: 919-530-8355
Email: info@claymakers.com
www.claymakers.com

WORKSHOP: Making a Mark: Thrown and Altered Forms

Join us for this one day demonstration workshop as two potters from the Asheville area of Western North Carolina share their different approaches to creating and altering wheel-thrown functional forms. William Baker and Joy Tanner, both potters from the mountains of Bakersville, create distinct forms destined for a soda kiln. William works mainly on the wheel to create strong forms with accentuated edges, often altering these wheel-thrown pieces both on the wheel and off to further enhance the crisp surfaces and lines. His work is fired in a wood burning soda kiln, where the surfaces are enhanced by the flame, ash and soda vapors enveloping the pottery. Demonstrations will include wheel thrown forms and techniques as well as altering on the wheel and off for squared pots and refined lines. Discussion topics will also include considerations for firing in a wood /soda atmosphere. Joy Tanner creates functional and decorative wheel-thrown forms with patterns and textures inspired from her observations in nature. By altering and impressing freshly thrown forms, carving in the leather hard stage, and decorating with glaze accents, Joy creates balanced compositions using the interplay of line, texture, depth, and tone. Combining deep textures and high ridges, soft flashes of warm color from the soda firing and inviting pools of glaze, Joy's work exhibits wonderfully balanced contrasts. Demonstrations will include altering fresh pots on the wheel, as well as impressing and carving textures into wheel thrown pots. Discussion topics will include ideas for adding texture to your work, as well as considerations for decorating with slips and glazes for the soda kiln.

Instructors: William Baker and Joy Tanner
Saturday, March 13, 10:00-5:00 (one hour break for lunch)
Fee: $70

Inspirations

I've been busily carving a batch of twelve bowls I threw the other day. This is a detail shot of the carving. Below are some shots of interesting textures I've been looking at lately, all with a similar beach theme. (The beach is always calling, especially in February!). I put some of these pictures on my studio walls, along with postcards of other potters, as well as inspiring quotes. It makes for a lively studio atmosphere, and is always fun to glance up and see these along the wall while I am working.

Most of the texture photos are from my adventures outside; these are all along the coast of South Carolina at Pawley's island. The textures created by the incoming sea tides along the tidal creeks are extremely fascinating to me!

Oh handles...

I've been playing around the studio with some new mug forms, trying a slightly different shape with the carving in a different place. With that brings about some different carving patterns, as well as trying to improve the ever so hard handle. The ends of the handle are where I'm concentrating on improving right now. I'm trying to use the 'dogbone' approach, which usually I start off with a 'carrot' form. This pottery jargon refers to hand forming a clay into a shape resembling a dogbone , with the ends being fatter/fuller than the middle, then you connect this piece to the mug, and continue to pull/or form the shape of the handle while it is connected to the mug. This creates a different effect and is proving hard to pull off to my liking.

As they [potters] say, you can ruin a great cup with a bad handle. It's probably one of the harder things to get just right for a potter. Seems so simple, really. Why would it be so hard? But in my mind, it has a big role to fulfill. Obviously it has to function properly in order for you to enjoy the comfort of the handle in your fingers as you deliver that hot sip of coffee to your lips. But to me, the form of the handle in relationship to the form of the mug is an equally important aesthetic consideration.

Bird tracks and potters marks

I've been trimming bowls off and on for a few days, which is always a fun thing to do. I love trimming the foot on a bowl, it's a nice way to finish up a form. These ridge bowls below are finished and awaiting a fresh skin of flashing slip for the soda kiln.


While I've been at the wheel, I've been watching the birds out the window hop about the snow making tracks all around. I love how the snow hides yet reveals. On a bright sunny day, the brightness of the snow reveals all the activity in the winter woods.


As I've been observing all of this activity, I've been thinking about my own track; my potters mark. Some would call it a stamp, or a chop. All potters have some way or another of marking their signature or essence on their pot. Mine is a simple JT design that I made into a stamp, but I've been wanting to change my mark lately. So I've been musing that over in my mind. What do I want to say? What symbols? What letters? What I think I want it to say is joy. That seems obvious enough. I just have to figure out a way to design it so it works well on certain forms.

It's such a simple thing, really, a stamp. Only a mark, a track, a record of sorts, like the revealing of little bird feet as they scamper across the snow. But I feel it's a very important detail that exemplifies the originality of a handmade pot; the mark of a potter.