Monday, December 31, 2007
eye candy
this is my favorite dinner plate. by patrick veerkamp, salt fired.
these are a couple of dessert plates by randy johnston and warren mackenzie.
these are some tiny little plates by jan mckeachie-johnston. these don't get much use because they're so small, but they're so beautiful. wood fired.
this is platter by daphne hatcher of texas. it is a slab platter with a thrown foot. wood fired, about 16 inches.
three of my favorite mugs, i can't remember the name of the guy on the left, the middle is by dee buck of buck pottery, and on the right is a mug by willem gebben. willem is one of my favorite potters and quite underrated.
here are some yunomi. warren mackenzie, willem gebben, phil rogers(england), randy johnston
these are both little porcelain bowls, on the left by willem gebben, on the right by a texan native paige shelton. try to notice the carving on the right bowl, translucent and magnificent.
this is my favorite cereal bowl. by david caradori of eau claire, wisconsin. salt fired.
this bowl is by phil rogers. i spent a few weeks in england back in 2002. this bowl was love at first sight. i picked this and some other pots up while i was there. salt fired.
this small bowl is by warren mackenzie. i think i paid $8 for it. sometimes i just sit and stare at it. beautiful.
this pot is by north carolina potter ron philbeck. i bought this pot via the internet in 2002 i think. i saw it on ron's page and fell in love. i have not been disappointed. there are many wonderful subtle details in this pot.
both of these are by english potter mike dodd. mike dodd is one of my favorite potters. i picked them up on my aforementioned trip to england. i bought the one on the right the second day i was in england. i bought the one on the left 2 weeks later on the other side of the country at a craftsmans gallery. i couldn't remember what the first pot exactly looked like and when i got home discovered that i'd bought almost the same pot twice. still makes me laugh.
this is a large vase by warren mackenzie.
pitcher by patrick veerkamp. notice the quiet brushwork that has been partially obscured by the salt.
teapot by warren mackenzie. this is my favorite piece of pottery that i own. it has a special story that i'll share at a later date.
i hope that wasn't too boring to anyone.
happy new year!
Monday, December 24, 2007
firing #2
the front oxidized a bit, but it was just a few pots.
this was fired on the bagwall, and for some reason the pieces there just don't get blasted the way i thought they would. it looks just like any other pot in the kiln.
mmmmmm....
this "leaf" design is something new for me. i'm ok with a brush when i have good ones. my handmade brushes were stolen a couple years ago when my studio was burglarized, so all this brushwork is done with one of those cheapies from hobby lobby. i can get good brushes off the internet, but brushes are sort of like pots, they need to be handled before you purchase them.
this is my favorite from this firing. i loosely brushed a thin slip on hakeme style in a couple of layers to give the surface some depth. where the slip is thickest it cracked a bit, love it when it does that.
this is one of my slab platters that didn't make the cut. i'm having some structural issues with the big ones, i'll figure it out soon enough. this was about 20 inches end to end.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
a sad day.
about him here
Monday, December 3, 2007
firing pictures
Sunday, December 2, 2007
oh what a day!
Sunday, November 11, 2007
new pots.
this is my "new" workspace. i've been doing a little slab work this last week, so i set myself up a little area that i could dedicate to slab work. i've had a lot of ideas floating around in my head about some slab serving platters, so i finally made myself get to it. the process i use is fairly simple. come up with a shape and cut it into a piece of wood, cut your slab larger than the hole and drape it in, you can then manipulate the shape in the hole. i always thought this method was interesting but i didn't get into it because no matter the shape you're always left with a flat rim which is ok, but why not just throw and alter it? thats easier for me. then i discovered that Randy Johnston curves his plywood forms, which can give your forms compound curves(curving in all directions) which are so much more visually interesting.
these are the fruits of my effort. the large ones are about 21 inches and the small ones are about 12 inches. one thing that has always turned me off to slab work is that its just such a static surface. throwing allows me leave such a lively surface with a lot of gesture, so its very difficult to work with soemthing that is cold and flat, its just hard to my hands around it and leave a mark. i scrape the the slab to give it a little texture and use a rib or a roller to give it another layer of texture. i treat the outside edges much like i do the bottom of my untrimmed pots, rubbing it over to give it a rougher, slightly unfinished appearance. the boat forms are only a slab on the base, the walls are thrown in a ring and then cut up and attached, i cut them off when they're just dry enough to handle so that i can manipluate them and get some really nice edges and a bit of a handled look. the pedestal feet are much the same, i think it gives them a bit more formal appearance. i really like to make pots with formal shapes but with very loose gestrual surfaces, its a nice juxtaposition.
i've always been intrigued by this form, this particular one is a bit of a rip-off, but i will contine to work with it and make it into my own thing. its always been helpful for me to try to emulate pots that i really like so that i can see why i'm drawn to them so much and then hopefully take some of those qualities and use them in my own work.
tall faceted bottle, about 14 inches.
these are thrown in two pieces and then put together and beaten into a sortof square and then faceted.
i cast the rest of my chimney for my kiln this today. it was quite a bit more difficult than i had anticipated, moslty because i cast it in place which meant that i had to haul all the mixed castable up to the roof of my barn. but.....bisque this week, first firing before thanksgiving. keep your fingers crossed.
on a sad note, a shelf holding three mackenzie platters fell this week in my kitchen. one miraculously escaped unscathed, my favorite completely shattered and another one just lost some small pieces. those platters have been sitting on that shelf for over 5 years when not in use, so its a bit of a mystery how they just toppled over, i have a shelf with many yunomi right next to it that didn't move a bit. i was going to post a picture, but it hurts my heart a little too much right now to have to look at them. i think i'll be able to glue one of them back together, but the other may be a lost cause.
Monday, October 29, 2007
i've been busy folks
this past weekend was the texas clay festival in gruene, texas(near austin). there is about 50 or so clay artists and many demos and events. i've been going for years and now i go just to see a few potters. my favorite though is Patrick Veerkamp from georgetown, texas. in my opinion he is one of the best potters working in functional salt glazed ware, and one of the best potters period. philbeck-if you're reading this you should google him, i think you'd like his work. the sad thing is that he doesn't produce a whole lot of work because the majority of his time goes into teaching, well i guess thats not sad because i'm sure he's a great teacher, but sad because there aren't more veerkamp pots around. here is a plate i bought from him, sorry about the poor photo quality, it doesn't even come close to doing it justice.
in my free time i enjoy doing a little woodworking. this is one of two night stands for some friends of ours. its a wedding gift and i'm sending them a picture to prove that i am working on them since they're six months overdue. and yes, jaime, i am going to put in a bottom shelf.
kilns almost done. i was going to finish it and fire this month, but couldn't because of the aforementioned busyness. same with the website. soon i hope.
oh yeah, the movie "once" is awsome, even more awsome is the soundtrack. see it.