I spent the day cleaning up the studio and gallery getting ready for the Holiday Stroll throughout town this Friday. I'm eager to get back to work in the studio but I have another day of cleaning and organizing before I can. After working like crazy, 2 firings and 2 shows my studio is a little bit of a disaster. All should be close to okay tomorrow and if all goes well I may be throwing again by tomorrow afternoon....Thursday at the latest....I hope.
I only have a little clay left and I need to put in an order tomorrow. We're off to Houston for the holidays on the 18th and my goal is to get everything together so that when we return right before New Year's I'll be able to start cruising again. I'm doing wholesale/retail in Baltimore and when we get back I'll only have 6 weeks to get ready for the show....plenty of time but I want to be clear about what I'm doing leading up to it. If I start planning now, perhaps I'll have a little less self-imposed stress before the show. So, with a clean studio by tomorrow I'll still have a couple of weeks to get a head-start in getting ready for the next firing.
I've been thinking a lot about my new work and how it seems to be more "design" based recently....as if there is a difference between that and studio pottery. There isn't, but I think that as my pots get more decoration, the design/throwing of them becomes more in the front of my mind before I approach the wheel. It is definitely a change in the way I work and I think it has been a change that has led to being more productive. I found myself re-reading
this interview in American Craft with
Ayumi Horie. It got me thinking about where this new work came from.
American Craft:
What is your relationship to design, craft and the fine arts? How do you see your relationship to each? Or one in particular?
Ayumi Horie:
....I’m much more comfortable with the moniker of craftsman and designer than I am with artist. I’m a craftsman in the sense that I’ve largely committed myself to one material and am concerned with function, use, and accessibility. I’m a designer in the sense that I understand how my aesthetic translates into various materials and am happiest when I have various side projects in media other than ceramics. Spending three years renovating my house full time helped hone my aesthetic more than anything else. Making daily decisions about trim, shingles, gutters, mullions, and tread thickness made certain aesthetic patterns evident to me and even brought more clarity to my ceramic work......
Switching back to my reduction kiln after firing soda/salt and wood for so long definitely made me re-think the design, surfaces and so many other ideas regarding my pots. But, those were process-based decisions within my work. The layers of slip, incising, waxing and the Celadon glaze were about how I could continue motifs in my work that I had been using in my salt-fired wares.
I find myself looking at amazing homes and wonderful green renovations in Austin on a variety of real estate websites. I am drawn to contemporary homes as I think about our move(something Evangelina has always been drawn to)...It is so different from our gray-shingled neighborhood up here on the Cape. So, I guess I'm making pots for my new home. Or....what I want my new home to look like.
I guess this is yet another in a long line of rambling posts here but I figured I would try to put into words what was going on in my head.
More design/making/pottery coming this week. Now....if I can only design my studio to self-clean....I guess that's where my non-existent apprentice comes in.
One of the many reasons to like Austin....Hey Cupcake!
I made a few fluted soup bowls.
Here is a close-up.
Here are a few squared and fluted bowls. They were made with 2lbs of clay.
And....here's a close-up.
This one is a nice low open mixing bowl. Everything seems to be getting a cut foot and some flutes along the way.
Here's a taller bowl made with 6lbs of clay. I usually never keep track of how much clay I use during each throwing cycle but this time I am. Mostly because I'm trying to get these pots ready for Baltimore wholesale.
Here are a few cappuccino cups:trimmed, cut foot, and partially fluted.
A few taller mugs with the same treatment.
It's a beautiful little espresso cup. It's making me think that maybe those cappuccino cups I made do need a saucer. Maybe next time....
It's a really beautiful piece and Jill took full advantage of the Anderson Ranch soda-kiln to make it. She understood exactly what was going to happen with that flame to make this piece work so well. She gave us a beautiful little talk about how that single kiln became part of the narrative of her work. I won't try to explain it...you'll have to ask Jill.
My hand is almost cramping from fluting these. 
These are the squared vases that I made the other day. Waxed, slipped and ready to dry out for a bisque.
This is a little squared bowl. I think it was about 3lbs of clay. I like the little cut away foot. I like it better than the footed bowls below...
I made this before the one up above. As I said...I think that I like other cut foot better. I think it looks more stable and solid although, we'll see once all is glazed and done....I"m still playing around with this "new to me" form. I do like how they'll relate to the smaller bowls that I made at the end of the last cycle. Perhaps the small ones need feet as well.
I made 8 of these 5lb bowls today. A mix of taller like these and lower, wider ones. They'll all have cut feet and the incised slip like the first bowl. 
These are some vases I'm playing around with. I want to have a couple sizes to play with. I really liked the larger rounder wobbly rim vases and I wanted to see how it works with a more slender form. They are slipped and waxed and ready for some incising.
I'm intrigued by these "cappuccino" cups. I made some of my more typical "taller" mug forms but then sketched these out and I made these two. I am working on the scale and form but I like where they are heading. I'm not sure if they need a saucer...I've never been big on cups and saucers but these might be asking for one.
Here are a few more tall slender wobbly rim vases. These are with the B-Mix which just throws so beautifully. The piles in the background are part of the studio that I haven't gotten organized quite yet.
Thanks Brandon!
