Copan

I found some old pictures of our trip to Copan, Honduras from 2004. I had mentioned it in a post a long time ago. The museum store is where I got the two pieces that have inspired much of my recent work.  It was a motorcycle trip from San Salvador across 3 borders and finally Copan.  I wasn't riding myself at that point so I had to, with much humility, ride on the back of my father-in-law's bike.

Here's the crew that took the trip in front of the temple.
Here's an inside wall...it was actually hard to tell what was original and what was a reproduction....a lot of the most valuable pieces reside in Boston at the Peabody Museum at Harvard.  That museum, by the way, is a definite must-see if you're in town. 

Mixing Bowls

I've been wanting to make mixing bowls for a while and that's what I did the past couple of days.  Most of them are squared and will get my wax, slip, incised slip treatment.  I really wanted to reference your standard mixing bowl with these.  Then yesterday my delightful friend Abigail posted this on her blog which led me to make some small mixing bowls that are really as basic as it gets....except for some reason I fluted them.  I think that it's something that I've done less than 5 times in my life.

Anyways...I'm curious about it and I may do a few more larger ones.  These are all about 3lbs each.  The first one is round with a cut foot.

These 2 are squared...again...about 3lbs of clay.

And...these are squared and will get the wax/slip combo....I may need to come up with a shorthand for that decorating style.

PS

I mistakenly posted this with just the images so this post may appear more than once in your inbox.  Sorry.

No work...just thoughts.

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.