Friday, June 10, 2011

Wine & Clay.

Will you be in or near Lubbock, Texas this weekend with nothing to do? Llano Estacado Wine & Clay Festival! Saturday 10-5, Sunday 12-5 at the Llano Estacado Winery. You can obtain directions from their website.

Cheers!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

3rd place.

There are oodles of lists and sites out there that rank blogs, so many exist that even I've made it onto a few lists. I made it onto this list.

Their synopsis:

•Support Your Local Potter: One could potentially think of Texas as too arid to support authentic artistry. Don't let blogger Brandon Philips get word of your suspicions on the state; he's mined Lonestar country for true ceramics fertility. His blog chronicles his real, gritty, and often glorious experiences as a man of the ceramics craft. He does not refrain from sharing honest and heartfelt anecdotes about the trials and tribulations of a not-always-lucrative career in the art form.
•Why We Love It: A stellar and straightforward blog that makes it clear that the rough blows of everyday life can result in great work.
•Favorite Post: Invincible

My favorite part: "he's mined Lonestar country for true ceramics fertility." I may have to put that on my banner up top. Ha!

But seriously pottery folks, we're getting beat by the slipcasters on the "best blog list." The slipcasters!!! And they make crappy ass over-priced clay.

I've about milked all the fertility out of this piece of the lonestar state.

Cheers!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Bigger isn't better...

Here are the 3 big pots that I was working on. I'm moderately pleased with them. I think the bases are too narrow...if I could chop 6 inches off the bottom of that middle one I think it would be perfect. The termination of the textures are up for debate...it stops where it does because it became too stiff to impress, I'll have to take that into account in the future. It seems like you can get away with a lot more with big pots because of the impressive quality of the scale, so it's important to maintain a critical eye. I like to look at the pieces and imagine them in a smaller scale...would they still pass muster? I've heard my grad school prof say(over and over) bigger isn't better, bigger is just bigger, a good thing to keep in mind. The tallest is 36", the pot on the left has 85 pounds of clay in it...I lost track of the other 2.


I made some plates and a few yunomi with my new clay...I like the way it feels, a little sandy but not too gritty, perfect.


One of the important things to me is the texture of the clay when it's been tooled. I like it to have a consistent light gritty texture. I can't stand fine bodied clays with large grog...bleh! This clay is comprised of stoneware clays, kaolin and ball clay. It uses 60 mesh sand and 48 mesh grog. This looks pretty good to me.



I made this plate from the trimming chuck for the above plates...before I pulled the wall all the way out I pinched four corners(kinda like a pitcher spout) and then contined pulling and ribbing. I kinda like it, it has potential.



Cheers!