Adios spring semester

Hello summer work session!  Looking forward to a larger work space and no deadlines, grades, or other bullshit structure to deal with.  Just work.

but first, got into my first local eeestablishment hocking my wares.  As soon as the semester is finished I will put together a body of work to take in.  I have a lot of new ideas.  A lot of slip casting, hand building, and throwing will be done over the next 13 or so weeks.  Unfortunately I will be doing some real work this year, but along with that I have monthly art/junk sales coming up as well with the Flea off Market.

My main summer goal is to throw a lot of vessels while also making a lot of slip cast items for multiples projects and for sales.

As far as vessels, I need to improve my mugs, tea pots, vases, and other functional vessels I enjoy throwing.  Along with that I will be throwing pieces to build into sculptures.  I am currently sketching out some new shapes to throw with certain plants.  Once those are complete I will begin building.

With slip cast items, I have found the motherload and will be accessing it in order to make some great old school pieces.  I am already getting commissions and have several things planned for several different local stores and my continuing booth at the Flea off Market.

This semester taught me a lot about how much work to put into others stuff and how much to put into my own.  I got myself behind by taking on too many group projects where the group either constantly dropped the ball or didn’t give a fuck to ever pick up the ball.  Over the summer as I work on my skills I will be spending a lot of time thinking about how much extra I take on next semester.  I am still, and will always be, pumped on the community aspect of ceramics.  I just have to find a better balance as long as I am in a community that has become a lot more about the individual rather than the group.

But back to the future.  I will begin throwing new vessels starting at some point next week.  For now I am padding a completed printmaking portfolio with more work since the required amount of work only gets you a C.  During this time I will be slip casting as many pieces as possible from my newest molds.

The future’s so bright I’m gonna buy another pair of ray bans.

clues:

 

If I can get into the habit this blog will be updated often over the summer.  If not, see you next fall!

 

Closing in on the end

Dont have any pictures of the wood fired pieces i did.  The firing was successful.  All of my pieces made it though a couple did not color up quite like I wanted.  Still, for the most part it was awesome.

Did my first solo sale this week at the flea off market.  Did pretty well.  I will be doing this monthly whenever I am free on the date of the sale.  I also picked up a lot of new contacts and have meetings this saturday to discuss selling my ceramics in stores in the Louisville area.

Between the end of the semester and my next sale I will be rolling out branding with links to an etsy site, and if I can figure it out in time, a website through wordpress.  I will be creating a logo and putting together some business cards to better represent myself and to branch out into further sales outside of the flea market.

My biggest issue now is how long the kilns will be down while they are putting in the new kiln.  This could be very detrimental during my startup time and may result in me having to find other kiln options and/or do wood firings all summer.  Im sure something will work out.  I am hoping to find time to bust out a last blast of work in order to put some out over the summer.

 

Here are some pics from the sale.

burnin down the kilns

So this last week saw the final preparations and then lighting of the wood kiln.  I also spent all weekend cleaning, glazing, and loading big eddie (and chopping wood, stoking, printmaking, etc).  Big Eddie was lit up last night and should be ready by wednesday or thursday.  These will probably be my last ceramic objects made for the semester as I must spend the rest of my time doing editions over in the printmaking studio.

Though I spent a lot of time doing ceramic work and probably made more stuff this semester than any other ever, the last few days have shown me I can do more.  I need to spend more time in all of the studios I have access too in order to make more and more and more work.  There is no reason, no excuse for me not to spend at least a few hours (preferrably more than less) in the studio every day that I can.  Sleep and work should be the only two things that regularly keep me out of the studio.

 

But back to this semesters work.  I am looking forward to seeing how things come out of the kilns today and later this week.  I have been getting a ton of requests for my ash trays.  What started out as a funny dig at the fine arts establishment may be working its way into a way to make some money on the side.  Unfortunately I dont smoke or else I would be using the extra money to buy smokes.

A new idea I am working on is lithography on ceramic material.  I hope to actually put this into practice over the summer months.  One of the first pieces I want to do is a no smoking print inside an ash tray.  I am thinking of some different ways to display these and am continuing with some guerilla installation ideas but I will work on it.  

Until next time, pictures.

post spring break

this shit is winding down.  i am not happy about that.  i am so far behind in printmaking im not sure i can dig my way out.  getting real burnt on academic art.  not even remotely getting burnt on working in the studio though, so this is good.

 

i did NOTHING school wise for most of spring break.  i had not had a vacation since 2007 and i needed one.  i have been doing school nonstop since may of 2009.  so yeah.  it was break time.  i did spend a few hours in the studio doing some organizing and other work on the saturday after i got back from austin, but other than that, nothing else.

 

sooooooo, tomorrow is my first bfa crit.  i am planning to give a brief synapsis of my history in ceramics, my current work, and my future plans.  mostly my plan is to point out that i am in an experimental learning phase.  i am learning what i can about the materials i am working with in this 3 hour block and will continue it into the next 3 hour block.  so far my time since being accepted has been extremely productive as far as setting up a base to grow on.

i have my first ceramic sale of the year coming up on april 14th and over the course of this spring/summer, will be placing my work throughout galleries and stores in the kentuckiana area.  i have had a few requests from out of town for products, but that will have to wait.  

these pics are of recent bisque ware.  i am planning to fire up big eddie this coming weekend and hope to have a boatload of work done for the semester.  i will continue to do greenware/bisque ware and hope to get some stuff in an eventual wood firing.

Semi weekly update time!

Things are going well on the molding front.  I have gotten better at mixing the colored slips I am using as well as cleaning up the seam markings on the pieces.  After two firings of Big Eddie I feel like I have a nice body of work.  Hopefully most of it will sell on April 14th so I can do stuff like eat and pay my rent.

 

I have been out researching ash trays at friends houses and in various stores.  I am finding most of them tend to have felt attached to the bottoms which covers over the pour marks from the mold.  I am looking to possibly hand build a few which I will then mold to have my own unique designs.  The only problem is my clientele is slowly dying out from smoking.  The solution is finding new uses for the trays.  I am planning to build some shadow boxes or find other ways of framing them in order to display them as wall hangings.  I want to display them as abstract art.

photo from a friends house:

 

I had a professor ask me about my molding.  The question was framed as why I was molding after I had discussed other ceramics students copping out and only making molds.  He asked if it was lazy for me to be doing it as well.  I liked that this professor had obviously been paying attention to my complaints and appreciated being taken to task on it.  

My answer was that molding is only a part of what I do.  I am still throwing lots of planters, have started throwing shot glasses, and am working towards doing sake sets, pitcher and cup sets, mugs, and other functional thrown vessels.  I have also been taking the molding thing into new directions through experiments with colorants and experiments with using sand paper and various dremel attachments to clean up bisque ware rather than trying to clean up the green ware pieces.  It was nice, as a new mold user, to be able to show people who had been doing it a lot longer that there were better ways to clean up the pieces.

And speaking of planters, I just made the largest one I have ever made yesterday.  It is 9 inches wide by 6 inches tall.  The equal parts is working out well for throwing though I have had a lot of cracking issues. The material I have been working with the last couple of days had a slightly lower moisture content though and I have been extra diligent in making sure all surface moisture is removed from the areas that have been cracking.  I will know within the next couple of days if I was successful.

 

Looking forward to my first vacation since 2007 next week and then to getting back into the studio upon my return to bust out a hell of a lot more work, do my first BFA critique, and fire up Big Eddie again.  Hoping I can do two, if not three final firings of the big man.  He needs to be sent off in style.

 

trays

midterms

Geez.  Going too fast.

 

Big Eddie fired this week.  I have yet to get any pictures of the stuff so maybe next blog.  Got a lot of good results, many unexpected, with my new colored slips.  Looking forward to continuing work.

Also got a few steps closer to this semesters print/ceramic combo pieces.  I wanted to do some combination pieces too keep a connection between the two.  At some point I will look into doing prints onto ceramic materials.

 

Have not been throwing enough lately but that is mostly beacuse I was in hardcore experiment mode with the slip casting.  I will be doing a lot more throwing in the coming weeks in order to stock up on planters to sell for the spring.  I am also drawing up some different designs to experiment with.  I really need to make some more mugs, continue throwing the old knock off chinese ware (and improve it), and just in general work on some new throwing forms like vases and sculptural pieces.

Sculpture is not something I have really done much of in ceramics but it is something I feel like I need to do.  Not necessarily as a focus but more as another experiment.  I feel like I need to use this semester and this summer to really experiment with as many different angles of ceramics I can in order to learn a lot more about the medium before I begin working towards a BFA level body of work.

 

 

 

 

If I find time I will post cone 6 and cone 10 pictures in the coming week.

So. I forget things. Like blogging. Could be early onset alzheimer’s. This will be a three week roundup all in one nifty minimum 9 picture, 600 word posting. Enjoy!

 

Part 1: Semester Week 3ish

A lot happened in this week. Finally confronted some negativity in the studio and got a lot off my mind. I have been working about 80% in slip casting at this point and it is going well so far. At first it is very sloppy and I am losing lots of pieces just figuring out timing and whatnot. Having loaded a lot of other students mold work into the kiln I have seen the difference experience can make as far as uniform thickness and nicely cleaned up pieces. The question to ponder is where to work between the spectrum between finely reproduced, spotless near reproductions, and more loosely created, rough creations. This first picture is of glaze test tiles we made as a class.  I will discuss this further in next week’s blog post, not as in parts 2 or 3 of this post, but next weeks actual blog post.  If I remember to post it anyway. Next up is a mug I had coffee from at the Great Western Diner next to the Indianapolis fairgrounds.  I recommend it highly if you have business near the fairground in Indianapolis.  It is on the eastern corner of the grounds on 38th street.

I have been looking up a lot of old mug molds on Ebay.  I am thinking I may have to start pouring a lot of old school ceramic mugs.  From a business standpoint this may be a profitable venture.  OR I might just end up with a hoard of molds.  Ill worry about it when I get to that page in the choose your own adventure book.   This final picture from week 3 was taken at a local antiques mall.  I am looking for some asian inspiration in some future sculpting work I hope to do.

 

And on to Part 2:

I have continued with the molding.  The forms are getting tighter, my turnaround times are improving.  I am learning when to throw the molds in the dryer by the way they feel to the touch.  This is reducing my amount of pieces that break in the mold.  Two ash tray molds are continuing to cause hassles.  My biggest issue with all of them is how sloppy the pour holes end up looking afterwards.  I am hoping to work a couple with my dremel tool post bisque firing to see if it helps clean and smooth the edges. Outside the studio, I decided to finally build a shelf system for all my ceramic vessels spread across the floor in my apartment.  After writing down plans to build one I ended up in home depot where they had a pre fab unit that was to the exact specifications I wanted.  Hello credit line.

The next picture is from the dirtbags art show that we put on.  This piece is what I submitted.  The red planter had been previously shown in my ba show last semester.  The plant has since grown quite a bit.  The other piece was unshown and is one of my favorite pieces I have ever made.  It was one of the first pieces crafted to uniform proportions and one of the few where the glaze came out 100% as planned.

And finally, the hibotan collection has a new backdrop.  A gift from an amazing person, the city of Dresden.

 

And finally we arrive at part 3:

The molding is still getting better.  I have begun experimenting heavily with colorants.  I have been making formulas for creating colored slips.  So far I have made five.  A slip mixture with red art, yellow ochre, rutile powder, yellow iron oxide, and teal mason stain. 1: The red art mixture came out really well.  The pieces have molded well and it ends up a very light pinkish on the clay body.  I plan to mix another version of this slip but with a lot more red art.  I am hoping to make a more terra cotta like slip.  It will likely be low fire but I have been making cones with most of these colorants to temp test them. 2:  The yellow ochre was very difficult.  Only a handful of the pieces came out.  It dried very slowly.  This made the pieces warp and tear easily during removal from the molds.  The pieces that fired all the way ended up pink after a bisque firing. 3:  The rultile mix pieces performed just like regular slip.  I added less of this powder than I have other additives and will be making another batch with a lot more powder.  These bisque fired to a very light yellowish grey. 4:  The yellow iron oxide pieces came out very well.  It thickens/dries more quickly so some of the pieces are heavier but I barely lost any.  It was a much heartier body than the others.  None of these pieces have been bisque fired. 5.  The teal mason stain pieces came out as well as the yellow iron oxide.  After dry they are a very light pastel blue.  None have been bisqued. I am hoping to create a lot of different color clay bodies to later experiment with various glaze combinations.  Some I plan to leave unglazed, others I hope to wood fire, still others I hope to simply clear glaze.  It should be interesting. The first piece is bisqued regular, rutile, and red art molded pieces. This next is yellow iron oxide and mason stain pieces.

The final picture is also yellow oxide and mason stain

And we are caught up to monday, february 13th.  Its my dad’s 70th birthday.

 

Another week down

Its been a slow start as far as work goes this semester but a great start as far as preparation goes.  I have pugged about 400 lbs of clay, made 200 lbs of equal parts stoneware/porcelin, and made a batch of casting slip.  The plan, now that I have a ton of material to work with, is to start doing work.  I am going to make some regular porcelain at some point in the near future but for now have two trash cans full of ceramic material to make into various objects.

I have been doing a lot of research on various historic and recent vessel makers and plan to make a lot of water vessels, mugs, bowls, cups, and other functional vessels.  I am also looking into ceramic bodies for making tiles, brick, and other construction materials.  Beyond that I have mostly been looking up casting slip recipes and researching color additives to use in casting slip.

I recently purchased some old ash tray molds as well as a full chess set mold.  I am hoping to find some high fire slip recipes that I can wood fire as I would like to make a wood fired chess set.  Mostly I am enjoying the slip work because it is easy and you can get quick results.

Meanwhile I am continuing to throw planters and will continue to do so throughout the semester.  I have a large amount of them for sale so they are not my main focus but I do try to throw one or two every time I sit down at the wheel to work.

 

Here are a few shots of the casting work I have been doing.  This is just the beginning of what will hopefully be a large body of work by the end of the semester.  I am searching for other ash tray molds, a few specific ones, in order to do some combination pieces using printmaking and/or paper made elements along with the ceramic elements. 

All in all, I have a shitload of work to do before my first BFA crit.

Spring 12 begins

3 hours of BFA starts here:

First, there was work over the holiday break.

This is the not quite finished wood fire kiln pad.  Hopefully this will be finished within the next 7 days.  Shortly after that hopefully there will be a kiln here on fire.

 

A pitiful amount of actual ceramic work made over the break.  I blame jesus for being born, and zelda.

 

 

Some old louisville inspiration.

 

So the new semester begins.  Pugged some clay.  Going to make some mugs, planters, tea pots, shot glasses, vases, and other things.  Got to get stuff ready for a wood fire.

 

Hoping to look at some molds, and find some tile molds.  I have thought a lot about bricks, tile and other building materials to use in pieces and/or to sell and/or to build things with.  Going to try and get some more shots of antique tile and other such ceramic building materials in order to incorporate them into my work.

This will require researching ceramic bodies as well as glaze mixes.  This will work well into the glaze component of my ceramic assignment for the semester. Tiles should be a pretty easy thing to make, fire, glaze, and fire pretty quickly.  Off to research and drawing.