Not in my classroom.

An email to my advanced students today. I don't tolerate any of this BS.

To the person who picked up the ipod touch in the classroom on Monday:

1)If you picked it up by accident please return it to my office.

2)If you stole it:
a)You can return it to my office tomorrow, my door will be open most of the day. No questions asked.
b)Stealing from a fellow student makes you a sorry excuse for a human being.
c)If you do not return it and I find out who did it you will be failed out of my class and I will recommend suspension to the department.
d)I have no tolerance for stealing, want to test me? Every advanced student now has an F until it is returned. Mid terms are coming up soon, don't want an F? Find out who stole it.

Love,Brandon

stuff.

Well, I don't have much time so I'll lay out the current news quickly, Scott Cooper is gonna hate this post ;)

I just fired the salt kiln last weekend, it was the best firing yet. In fact the last 2 have been really good. I'm going to try to get it loaded and fired again this week. My wood kiln is currently incapacitated...but more on that later.

I've posted more brushes on etsy in a whole variety of sizes. People seem to really like them so I'll keep making them. I have more available than what's posted and I can also do custom brushes.

Part of the reason I'm so busy is because I'm helping Saybra with a show she's having next month. She mounts all of her photos in a slightly nontraditional way so it's a fair amount of work for the both of us. You can see a few images of her work here.

I was accepted into the ACC show in Baltimore for February, I'm pretty excited though it is a little daunting. I have very little work right now and I need to get cracking. I have about 1000# of clay in the drying racks right now so as soon as it's ready I can get going.

I have a draft for a post about education that will rate pretty high on the PBPRRSEC scale, so look forward to that and my unapologetic views on the subject.

Cheers!

Shameless plug.

Not just for me but for Scott Roberts as well. Holy sh*t those pots are awesome and they're not even fired yet. Enough said.

http://scottkrobertspottery.blogspot.com/

Clay & Blogs Show

Here are the pots that I am sending off to the "Clay & Blogs" show in NC. Normally for a show like this it's not really appropriate to show the pots off beforehand, but....it's a show about bloggers and I'm a blogger so there's my justification. I'm sending all these off on Monday.

Like most potters I save my best pots and let them gather dust in a corner or on a shelf somewhere being unfulfilled in their mission. Whenever I have the honor of participating in a group show I always send my best work and this is no exception. This particular group spans about 9 months and is an example of my current direction.

This is one of my favorite teapots ever. Fired in the salt kiln with my new clay body a couple months ago.


Lidded jar from the first firing of the salt kiln we built here. Amber glaze.

Yunomi from most recent salt firing.

Small bowls with hakeme'd interiors, from December 2009 wood firing.

Large jug, from December 2009 wood firing. I really like this piece but it's got a bit of heft and it's good size, shipping pots like this kinda sucks. Ah well, what the heck.

Funny fact, all of these pots have the same glaze on them. The last 2 photos are from a wood firing but the 3 previous are from 3 different salt firings where I experimented with atmosphere and cooling.

Cheers!

big pots.

I had about 100# of clay that had gotten a little too stiff for the treadle wheel so I decided to make some larger pots with it on Friday. I've made my share of larger one-piece pots but the last couple years I've been maxing out at about 14-15 inches. Pots larger than that are made in multiple pieces or with added coils. I work with such soft clay that this is much better on the body. To prove the point when I came home after making these pieces my shoulder blade started to hurt. It got so bad that I had to take a prescription painkiller and an anti-inflammatory so I could get some sleep. I should've stretched first, lesson learned. I'm fine now so no worries.

The tallest piece there is 18" so the cylinder before shaping was up to my armpit. The pitchers are about 16-17".


Well anyways, that's enough for now.

Cheers!

Brushes.

I just posted some new brushes on etsy. There are a couple med/small brushes and the rest are a medium size. I've just gotten more bamboo so I'll be making some larger sizes in the near future. If you have an idea for a custom piece let me know and I'll see if it is something I can do. And don't forget, the shipping is free!!!




Cheers!

Happy Friday

Stole this from the penland blog.

Cheers!

Molds?

I've spent some time the last couple of days making molds for some slab dishes. I've made several molds over the last couple years but I've never been quite happy with them. The piece on the left is taken from a cheap plastic serving bowl and then I carved the plaster cast to get rid of the sharp edges. For the piece on the left I built up a solid mass of clay and shaped it then took a cast of that.


Side view.


Here is the plaster cast of the solid clay piece, which I promptly broke in half. I then took molds of this to use as drape molds.


Here is one of the drape molds and a few bowls that need to be cleaned up and decorated. It's easier to lay the slips in first, let them stiffen up, and then lay them over the molds but right now I'm just trying these out.


Back to the wheel, 17 steins(I lost one, darn bugger) and 10-3# serving bowls. These bowls were my bread and butter for several years.


Close up of a mug/stein.


I splurged on a cup by Jeff/Tom Unzicker from Schaller Gallery and it is a sweet one.


I have some content that will achieve higher ratings on PBPRRSEC scale but those posts tend to take me a bit of time to put into words so for now there will be a few fluff posts.

Cheers!

Wednesday Morning.

Here are the soup bowls/mugs trimmed and handled. This was all I was able to get done in the studio yesterday, Tuesday/Thursday's I teach 2 classes that are 3 hours long, so my time is pretty well accounted for.


Here is a foot detail of some plates I did a few days ago.


I've also been making some more brushes, these will be going up on etsy in the next couple days.


Here is an example of what kind of marks can be achieved with these brushes.

Cheers!