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Claystories Nceca Seeks Your Submission!


mugmkr

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Greetings fellow clay lovers,

 

On Thursday March 17, 2016 at 8 pm, ClayStories will be presenting an evening of amazing clay stories, and we would like you to consider being one of our story tellers.

 

Each speaker gets five minutes to tell a story about clay. It might be a story about a fantastically disastrous kiln firing, it might be a love story, it may make the audience laugh, cry, or reflect on their own experiences with clay. 

 

Whether you’ve been working with clay for a few months, or a few decades, you have a clay story. We want to give you the opportunity to tell it! 

 

Submissions are being accepted until January 21. More information, a podcast and videos of last year’s event, and the submission form can be found at our website, www.claystories.org.

 

We wish you all the very best for the holiday season, and hope to see you at NCECA in Kansas City in a few short months!

 

Owen Dearing & Steven Branfman

Presenters, ClayStories 2016

 

PS We would be ever so grateful if you would forward this e-mail, post it on your Facebook or other social media outlets and/or tell your network about this event. It really is a lot of fun!

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It was a very fun event last year.

I would like to tell a story of firing a wood kiln with Dennis Parks and Doug Baldwin while we were in Latvia on a rural farm and got stuck there when the power went out and the bus for our return broke down. Our amazing ride on a public bus through Latvia. Those in our main group were Dick Hay, Jack Troy, Petras Martinson, Don Bendel, Georgette Zirbes among 20 artists.1991. Pieces from that firing were exhibited in the Eastern European show at the Clay Studio at NCECA in Philadelphia. There were some very funny situations during that whole experience including Jack's bag of garlic dripping on my head our little bus traveling through the rain to the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania. Jack was getting sick so he got some garlic to fight off the illness. We still laugh about that.

 

 

Marcia

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Guest JBaymore

This was one of the absolute BEST presentations at NCECA last year.  Unfortunately a lot of people apparently did not pick up on the LOCATION (It was in a spot away from most of the other formal presentations).

 

DON'T miss it this year.

 

best,

 

....................john

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When I started graduate work at Penn State, one of the first classes I took was Ceramics with David Dontigny and James Stephenson during a Summer session. I had learned to throw at a small state college in northern PA, on  Randall motorized kick wheels. On the first throwing day of class, I had wedged up around 50# of clay to throw for the day, in 10-12# balls. I had my water bucket full of water, the clay on the wheel with all of my tools arranged on the Brent model B wheel. I had never thrown on a direct drive wheel, but figured one wheel like another. . . right. As is happened, D. Dontigny was walking around the floor right down my isle in front of me, I put my foot directly down on the foot pedal, full bore, the clay flew off the wheel, hit the water bucket, and the whole mess went right on to his feet and legs.  After much apology, embarrassment and humiliation, I resumed on the wheel after he made a speedy departure. For some reason or other we didn't really see much of each other the rest of the class, and he stayed far from me as I was throwing. Never forgot it, but it softened my approach to my students as I had found that even the best of intentions can go astray.

 

 

best,

Pres

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I did tell a story last year in Rhode Island. It was about my last NCECA conference in Minneapolis. There was the blizzard of 1997, and then the flood of "97. About 6 of us were trapped in the airport as they had closed the Winnipeg airport. None of us even had a tooth brush. Stuck there for 2 nights. We finally did make it home. There was a sea of un-attended luggage all over the airport. Pre- 9-11 obviously.

I got a great mug, which my wife uses every day. Also got some great memories.

Tom

I urge you to step up and tell an amusing anecdote.

T.

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When I started graduate work at Penn State, one of the first classes I took was Ceramics with David Dontigny and James Stephenson during a Summer session. I had learned to throw at a small state college in northern PA, on  Randall motorized kick wheels. On the first throwing day of class, I had wedged up around 50# of clay to throw for the day, in 10-12# balls. I had my water bucket full of water, the clay on the wheel with all of my tools arranged on the Brent model B wheel. I had never thrown on a direct drive wheel, but figured one wheel like another. . . right. As is happened, D. Dontigny was walking around the floor right down my isle in front of me, I put my foot directly down on the foot pedal, full bore, the clay flew off the wheel, hit the water bucket, and the whole mess went right on to his feet and legs.  After much apology, embarrassment and humiliation, I resumed on the wheel after he made a speedy departure. For some reason or other we didn't really see much of each other the rest of the class, and he stayed far from me as I was throwing. Never forgot it, but it softened my approach to my students as I had found that even the best of intentions can go astray.

 

 

best,

Pres

As Bill Daley use to say, the Road to Hell is paved With good intentions!

Marcia

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Marcia and Pres: it would be great if you could tell those stories next year in KC! And I hope that Tom has another story too.

 

I am way too shy to stand in front of an audience and tell a story, English not being my mothertongue....

 

The clay story evening in Providence was really absolutely great. I loved every story. I will be in the audience in KC for sure!!

 

Evelyne

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This just happened to me, and although it doesn't merit telling at a conference, I thought someone else might get a chuckle out of it.

 

I don't usually drink loose leaf tea, but I had a stash of some that I particularly like except that my tea strainers were too coarse a mesh and I would get fine tea particles in the brew.  So I bought a fine mesh basket brewer that worked wonderfully except that it was too small and the strainer would fall into the cup.  Well, I can fix that, I thought.  So I designed a ceramic holder that would just hold the basket in place, and rested on the rim of the mug.  Took a little finesse because the sizing had to be just right. I threw them on the wheel, and glazed them.  I made 2, and was so happy that one worked perfectly.  Unfortunately, before I actually brewed my wonderful tea with my nifty new ceramic tea strainer holder, the dog got hold of the bag of tea and ate it.  True.

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Since I won't be at Nceca, I'll briefly tell this story here:

I enjoy setting up at art in park and other craft shows.  I form faces on some of my wall hangings. 

At one show a couple expressed interest in one of these pieces and bought it.

As the man was paying he said, "This is for my mother-in-law. It kinda of looks like here."

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To those of you who would like to share a clay story but either won't be at NCECA or have do not wish to tell your story at the ClayStories event in Kansas City next March, I would love it if you would use the story submission form on our site and send your story along, which I will be happy to publish on the ClayStories blog. If you have not yet checked out the blog by all means check it out, there are some wonderful stories posted. Thanks and happy holidays! Owen

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Same class at Penn State, Summer remember. Stephenson had a lesson one day where he had two large barrels of slip, and a bunch of toys and household items for us to dip into the slip to try to inspire us in the directions that were popular in the day-everyday objects remade in clay. It was quite a rousing success, so long as the objects lasted, but alas they ran out, and folks were dipping their shoes, and body parts in the slip. Sometime during this Stephenson was called away to an administrative meeting. About two hours later a family of 4, parents and two grade school children, was leaving the creamery when they saw 3 or 4 folks running by them covered from head to toe in a gray wet solution with nothing else covering them-a few ice cream cones were dropped. There was a tea party taking place with several slip covered folks sitting around a table in one of the large kilns, and there were folks cavorting in the large bath tub that was used as a slop bucket. I had seen several boxes of slides of the whole affair afterwards, and never heard if there was any uprising in the administrative offices, but often wondered. Great memory, but then those were the early 70's and life was a bit different.

 

best,

Pres

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