August 5, 2010

  • an artist's lonely life

    no one will read what I post here, but I don't care.  I went to the ceramics studio today at Lee college. I'd already brought in 18 pieces to bisque yesterday, and 9 more today.  I painted Mari's blue monster's eye chartreuse before loading up the kiln.  Jennifer and I loaded it. She had a bunch of nice pieces -- one was a very beautiful  12 x16 pattern maker made out of Longhorn lowfire clay.  Hope it doesn't crack in firing.  She put it on a lot of sand so if it expands and contracts while firing, it can move freely and not get stuck on the kiln shelf.

     

    I fired three monster mugs already colored with mason stains, two large monster jugs, and various bowls and teabowls.  Oh -- and about 10 jarros -- the Mexican coffee cup shaped kind of like a potbelly stove.  I am going to be glazing up a storm once all that stuff comes out on Saturday.  I need to go into the studio tomorrow morning and remove the bit of firewool keeping the kiln open.  Jen extended the first ramp of the firing (under 200 degrees) to 10 hours so that the kiln would reach 1200 degrees by 10 am tomorrow instead of 4 am.  No way in hell was I getting up and going to the studio at 4 am to remove the firewool!

     

    I've had three or four noodle bowls die on me this week -- two by my own hands.  One of them, I had just finished throwing. It was beautiful.  I was running the fishingline tool under it several times to loosen it from the bat, when my thumb hit a sharp splinter on the spinning wheel.  I jerked my hands up, still holding both ends of the fishingline tool and effectively cut the bowl in half an a graceful curve. Dammit! I wadded the clay back up and rethrew it later.

     

    Another bowl that came out beautifully cracked on the bottom while drying -- not sure why.  Then today, I was going to trim a bowl that was MUCH wetter than I usually deal with.  I successfully loosened it from the bat -- careful not to slice it in half while running my thumb into a splinter like last time.  So this time, instead, I dropped it............................................doubledammit.  It just kinda of smooshed on one side. I picked it up and tried to prod it back into a circle, but it was too depressed to comply.  I thought about turning it into a triangle shape, or a squarish shape, but finally opted just to cut it in half evenly to see how well I had thrown it, and to see how even the sides were.  They were perfect -- a little thick at the base because I had not trimmed it yet -- but truly well done.  I wadded the bowl up and put the clay in a plastic bag and will throw it tomorrow. 

    I need to make 8 noodle bowls, 8 teabowls and 8 chopstick rests.  I've already done the most difficult part of the order from Laszlo -- his two-faced Janus mug is thrown and is drying slowly in my studio damp box (actually, a busted fridge). One side is leering with an evil smile and the other side has a hopeless grimace on it that looks for all the world like an upsidedown smile.  

    So actually, despite the mishap with the bowl, I had a good day with pottery.  I still have two beautiful bowls that I threw today, spinning on wheels in the studio drying.  And I just reconfirmed my reasons for drying more thoroughly before messing with stuff -- its easier to handle and I am less likely to drop it because I can put a more secure grip on it.

    Now, the only real question left is  -- where should I blog? I've had xanga forever, and no one really uses it any more -- but I like it because I can have music with it, as well as pictures.  No other blog offers that -- at least, I don't think they do.

    Anyway, that's my thoughts for today.

    Oh. the lonely artist part.  Well, usually an artist works alone in a studio -- so yeah it can be lonely.  Creativity is a solitary course when it comes to working with clay (and many other media).  But Hitomi will be here soon, so then there will be two of us in the studio at home, so that should be fun.

    much love

    DJ  

    whoa! thunder just rumbled as I wrote my name! Is that an omen??!!