Jewelry Dishes

Set of cups

I made several cups to practice pulling handles and this set came out very nicely - although it reminds me so much of what we had in the 70s in Germany :) Heavy, rustic cups (+ a long forgotten vase in the same color)! But I have to admit they are all nice to drink out of. They don't spill, the handle is nice to hold and the lip is smooth. I might give one to my Dad for his B'Day... He's a real coffee drinker and would appreciate the good feel of these!

Vase turned into a teapot

I've been working on a teapot - that was supposed to be a vase, but after I threw it, it became just a boring vase. So I turned it around, put a bottom on it, cut off the top, made a lid out of it, attached a spout and a handle and some decoration. Ever since my teacher looked underneath one of my pieces and noted that it wasn't finished and looked sad I try to add detail, where one might not look at first, but once he examines the piece; the inside and the bottom.

Et voila:

New Porcelain Bowls

I hope these 2 porcelain bowls will make it through the bisque firing without cracking and without everything falling off...

Teapots (update)

Here are the teapots I have been working on for the past weeks. I added trimmings, nails, and slip and will finish with a black overglaze and iron oxide. These will go into the wood firing in the beginning of April:

Chili Bowls (almost done!)

Alright, here is the Chili Bowl countdown! I got another couple of bowls out of kiln and am happy to wrap up this project (and the bowls!) and give them all away! I kept the nice ones (Mandela Quote). I'm not sure I succeeded, but it was a great practice - at least I know now what I DO NOT want to do for the rest of my life *grin*:

Chili Bowls w/ Mandela Quote

I'm very happy with the way these three bowls turned out. I am amazed how the red glaze is really RED!!! The inside and rim is nice and smooth and rich, while the outside is rough and rustic. I love it! So these are a keeper, while all the other bowls are going to the charity sale.

Fall 2008

Here are some pictures from my projects for the Fall 2008 semester. I am very much into surface "manipulation" and love to take my time with a piece. It sometimes takes over a week to get one piece finished. I also love to just throw or cut clay and then piece it together somehow. I have been lucky with firings; no major cracking so far! I've stayed away from glazing as much as possible, since I find them very unpredictable ;)

This piece has been inspired by Jason Briggs' "Ground". It was very interesting to look at the original and see what can be done with the porcelain surface (although I somehow missed his source of inspiration at first ;)

This is a four-piece porcelain vase, put together, decorated; black underglaze, then sanded.

This is a similar piece, this time a teapot. I was lucky to just end up with this great spout and lid; it was thrown to see what I came up with and ended up perfectly as part of this teapot.

This is a six-piece porcelain teapot, put together, decorated; black underglaze, then sanded.

This teapot was inspired by Steve Hanson's work. I find it amazing, how he uses his images on different forms. Instead of sending out a political message (as Hansen does), I simply put my hubby's initials on with slip and this was his Christmas present.

This is stoneware, slab built with tons of slip.

Teapots

I've been working on these teapots for about a week now. I spray them almost every day and am able to add more clay elements and different slips. I actually added a new spout to teapot #1. I forgot to take pictures though. The new spout is thrown round and fits the whole shape much better now.

Today I put black slip all over teapot #2 and added more clay, in order to make this piece more realistic. I'll apply red slip to the (now grey) clay and will put on tons of iron oxide once it has been bisque fired. I've been thinking about what else I might put on; maybe Obama in slip, if I can figure out how to do that! Maybe something related to him... We'll see!

New Teapots

I have started 2 new teapots and today I have attached a handle and a spout to both of them. Both have the same body, but handles and spouts are different. I took pictures to see if I still like what I did tomorrow morning. I am planning to fire them in the wood firing I'm attending in April. I'll put some slip deco on one and the other one I will leave bare, so I can see what the firing will do with the different surfaces. That will be interesting to see!

#1:

and #2:

Oh, yeah, and more chili bowls - this time with blue slip :) I glazed the insides transparent, so you get the rough slip texture outside and the smooth surface on the inside:

Lights Off, Spot On!

I wanted to glaze 8 of my chili bowls today and drove to the studio around 5PM .I had just waxed the bottoms and was in the process of taking a template off my first bowl after dipping it in the glaze when the lights went off at 6PM sharp! We had to finish and clean up in the dark...

YAY! I'm going!

NCECA 2009, 43rd ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Ceramic Interface: From Dawn to Digital
April 8-11, 2009 • Phoenix, AZ
Phoenix Convention Center • 100 North Third Street • Phoenix, AZ 85004

Just work!

Alright, after a week full of thinking and having silent conversations with myself, I figured that nothing is going to happen until I actually DO something. And just DOING seems to do the trick. I'm not good at planning things out, making drawings, even templates, etc. I rather sit down and do what comes to mind. I am going with the flow and that is how it's supposed to be.

I made 2 bowls and am now seeing what I can do with them. I am playing with the porcelain, different textures, different techniques adding clay, taking clay away , and so on. I am pretty satisfied, so far and am hoping that both will survive the firing - without stuff falling off! I 'm going to leave the pieces covered in plastic and let them dry slowly, simply because I have porcelain at different stages of dryness. So keep your fingers crossed :)

I forgot my camera again and couldn't take pictures, but I'll go in again today and hopefully I will remember to get some images up here.

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I've been thinking of getting a small kiln for low firing. At the College we mostly do high firing, but I would like to apply some low-firing glazes after wards as well to my pieces. Unfortunately I have no clue about firing... If somebody knows a good reference, please let me know. I think I have a book here, but with our house being under construction for the past year, I have no idea where it might be...

Obamaware

In October 2008 I purchased some ceramic pieces from Ayumie Horie's Obama Ware eBay Sale: Diana Fayt, Democratic donkey and Hope bowl and Janice Jakielski, Obama and Donkey cup. I finally took some pictures yesterday; celebrating the inauguration with green tea and crisps :)

Sense of Direction

Slowly but surely I have to make a decision on what I want to be doing. For me it's pretty clear that I want to do modern things, with loads of porcelain, clean lines, and minimal but tasteful decoration. And of course, it will be super chic as well! I can get a lot of inspiration from the blog writing artists to your right and the things they do, but the general American pottery studio makes totally different stuff. I'm getting a kick out of Western European and Japanese artists and am grateful for every American that thinks outside the box. Nevertheless do I also get ideas from the traditional pottery pieces; and I'm not saying this in order to step on nobody's feet, but I believe there is a place for everybody in this! Unfortunately I often feel like my criteria mentioned above does not hold what I want it to be. My work is often heavy and rustic. And when I then glaze it with our studio glazes, it looks way too traditional for my taste.

I really like Peppa Studio and I absolutely LOVE Diana Fayt's pieces. Actually I have one of her bowls (Obamaware) here at home and I use it all the time. It is cute, yet modern and fun and simple. I would love to see how she works! Since I have no talent drawing whatsoever I doubt that I can ever decorate my pieces with birds and flowers and donkeys... oh, and OBAMA! Unless, maybe, I use a stamp or a stencil. Hah! That might be an idea worth trying!

I've been trying to get my better half to take some pictures of some really nice pieces I've done last semester. Two are inspired by Jason Briggs' "ground". A teapot I did was my humble way of immitating Steven Hansen. I'll try to put some pictures up soon!

Getting sick of Chili Bowls...

Even though I said, after trimming the last Chili Bowls, that I wouldn't throw any anymore, I did again today. What got me thinking was a conversation I had with another ceramic artist; we were complaining about all the time we spent making the bowls and then trimming them and then people would probably be cheap and pay a dollar or two for the bowl + chili. I guess we were making the bowls with something else in mind: getting a pretty bowl out there and people appreciating it for what it is. Looking back at the crazy designs and slip and all, I would expect people to pay much more than they probably will. So, I went into the (empty, YAY!) studio this morning, I prepared 8 2lbs balls of clay and gave myself exactly 2 hours to finish 8 bowls. I focused on giving 3 or 4 pulls and then shaping it with another 1 or 2 and then have it FINISHED, without any further attention to detail or shape. I spent about 5-10 minutes MAX on the bowls and VOILA! it actually worked better than I had expected. I had 8 perfectly shaped bowls in about 1 1/2 hours. Compare that to all morning throwing sessions for the same amount!

By bowl 8 I was actually throwing some really nice ones, so I prepared 7 more balls of 2lbs clay and threw another 6 bowls - one collapsed, because the second batch of clay was very wet and therefore not as sturdy. I had those done within an hour and I had pretty similar shapes and sizes - something I always tried to achieve, but that never happened; call me a snowflake, no two pieces alike :)


I glazed the 7 bowls I made in the beginning of this Chili Bowl Ordeal with a transparent glaze. I used a black underglaze to bring out the detail of the stamps and designs I made and am hoping that they will really pop out! These bowls will be fired at cone 9. They are on the shelf to go into the kiln, but unfortunately I have no control over when they will be fired - they usually take their time and won't fire before the first project is almost due, which can take another week or two...


I counted and now I have 33 Chili Bowls, believe it or not! Maybe I really will make more than 50, who knows... Here is our sign-up sheet. I changed my amount of Chili Bowls from 10+ to 20+ and this morning I changed it to 30+!!!


But with those done and in a timely manner, I won't be sorry, if they go for a buck or two, as long as they are being sold and we can get a lot of small donations.