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Good summer morning / afternoon / evening my friends!

 

My this week's guest is Joseph Fireborn. He was reflecting lately on the following: 

  
"I have been working on making a new look for me and it has proved challenging on functional pots for food and drink. So I started making flower vase and it hit me that this was a great place to explore decoration on and off the wheel. So now I push the limits on the vase then take that same approach but dial it down on those functional pots for obvious weight and handling reasons".

 

What form do YOU make and/or use to explore a new technique in decorating or developing a new aesthetic?

 

Joseph will be here with me to discuss your new approaches... (thank you bunches, Joseph!).

 

Evelyne

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GM Evelyne:

 

This weeks QQW will be interesting for me, being a  chronic ezxperimenter i will be interested to see how others arrive at final choices. I wish I could use the currie grid system, but individual cells are not large enough tor the results I need to visually see. Crystalline glaze had been and will remain the center of my testing. I have been working for years trying to develop a cone 6 recipe that achieves cone 10 results: most will not understand that. On occasion, I send out test batches to potters who have never used crystalline glaze before, about half end up with reasonable results. So I will be stuck with very boring 6" round discs for years to come because they fit my little test kiln rather nicely.

 

Refractive Test

Nerd
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I don't usually experiment with new forms, I have been working with coiled pottery.  Coiled pottery has it own style, you think you heading one way but the coils head off another direction.  I do make maquettes that will fit into my test kiln to try a glaze out on a pot.  I only do this on a complicated creation that took me awhile to make.   Denice

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This is a great question!  Like most of us, I do a lot of experimenting, either with glazes, glaze combos, shapes, surface design, types of clay, all of that and more.  But I think for surface exploration, I tend to use bowls.  I like making functional ware and I guess that gives me a place to see how it would look in use, in the cupboard, on the table, etc.  I can make the bowls wide or tall, shallow or deep. 

 

Roberta

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It all depends on what I am experimenting for.

 

for foil color I use burnished tubes

for obvara I use orbs and textured sculptural shapes

for raku I use tiles, and slabs

for saggars I use small orbs

I tried a new clay for crackle surfaces yesterday and love it!

post-1954-0-60478400-1467727255_thumb.jpg

post-1954-0-60478400-1467727255_thumb.jpg

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@ Nerd: Interesting stuff nerd. I can see why you need the bigger tiles those crystals are amazing. That blue must be popular!

@ Denice: I have never coiled before except for back when I was in highschool. I am saving it for my old age so when I am broken down and sitting on my front porch in my rocking chair beside my wife and grandkids I can sit there and make pinch and coil pots! I have seen some amazing coil work online.

@Roberta: I love making bowls, they were my next step after a vase. I have 3 that I am letting the pot dry after I just glazed the inside right now, going in the kiln later tonight/tomorrow. There are so many forms of bowls, the actual form itself offers a lot of variety. 

@Marcia: That clay and those crackle surfaces look great. You have it down to a science it seems for what you test with what. 

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I tend to make mugs as test pots. They're small, but large enough to really try out a new design; if they come out well they can be sold or used and if they don't they become succulent pots or it's not too painful to get rid of them altogether.

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+1 for mugs. Form and surface have to compliment each other, and things like knobs and handles, feet, lips and bellies have to work together to make a functioning and aesthetically pleasing pot. The surface then has to compliment all those things. I can make a comfortable, useable mug in my sleep at this point in my game, so some of my decisions involving function are already made going in. I can then riff on small details in the handle, surface decoration, etc.

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Joseph: a lot going on in that little blue test tile. Those black specks are titanium dioxide that I soaked in sulfuric acid until they turned black: was testing to see how many actually nucleated. Was also testing a rare earth oxide in combination with tin oxide to see if I could control the separation of colorants.  You see that combination in the piece called Mountain Lake that you like, except I coated the dried glaze in places with barium: creating high gloss and matte on one piece. Think I need to see a shrink, I have crossed the line of obsessive experimentation. Although according to last weeks QQW being a crazy potter is perfectly normal. So if you will excuse me, I feel the facial tics and rapid eye movement setting in. :)

Nerd

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What a coincidence! I just read a post of Robin Hopper on facebook. Here is what he says about our QOTW (he always writes everything in capital letters because he otherwise can't read what he writes. So this is not meant as shouting!):

 

 

EXPLORING CERAMIC FORM AS THE CANVAS TO PAINT ON.

MY CERAMIC LIFE WAS ALWAYS A DUAL PERSONALITY, PRODUCTION WORK ON THE ONE SIDE AND PAINTERLY OR SCULPTURAL WORK ON THE OTHER.

I'VE ALWAYS GIVEN MYSELF EXCERCISES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORM. I REALLY LIKE PRECISION. WHEN ONE HAS REALLY LEARNED THE DISCIPLINES OF ACCURATE THROWING ON A POTTER'S WHEEL (IT NORMALLY TAKES ABOUT 15 YEARS) ONE CAN USE THAT DISCIPLINE TO CREATE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN WHATEVER PERSONAL DIRECTION IS CHOSEN. I INITIALLY TRAINED MY MYSELF IN REPETITIVE PRODUCTION IN THE FORM OF FUNCTIONAL WORK. THIS BUILDS SUPERB SKILLS IN THE THROWING PROCESS. FOR MOST OF MY WORKING LIFE I RESTRICTED MYSELF TO ONLY USING FORMS THAT HAD A BASIS IN TWO-DIMENSIONAL GEOMETRY. I PLAYED WITH CIRCLES, SQUARES, RECTANGLES, PARABOLAS, OVALS AND TRIANGLES. THESE ARE CALLED PURE OR ORIGINAL FORMS.

THREE-DIMENSIONAL VERSIONS ARE THE CUBE, SPHERE, PARALLELIPED, CONE AND PYRAMID. THERE ARE
RATIOS THAT FOLLOWED THE GOLDEN MEAN OR THE FIBONACCI SERIES. IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THESE LAST TWO FASCINATING AND SIMILAR GEOMETRICAL CONCEPTS, IT WOULD BE INSTRUCTIVE TO "GOOGLE" THEM.

IGNORE THE SURFACE FOR THE TIME BEING AND JUST CONCENTRATE ON FORM.

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@Giselle: I also use mugs and cups a lot for form exploration. Like you said, if you get a nice combo down you have a very sell-able pot. Thanks for sharing!

@Diesel: Your comments bring up my point exactly. It is difficult to add a lot to a form like a mug, go to far and its function is not as good, do to little and its just a plain ole mug. Small changes are definitely the way to go when dealing with functional work. A small swipe of a brush on a glaze can make a huge difference in the final product as well as a hand that looks a bit different. Thanks for your thoughts.

@Nerd: I love the little black specks. Is that something you have been incorporating into more of your tiles or just that one experimentation. How do they feel on the surface?

@Evelyne: Hopper offers some great advice. The golden mean has always been a beautiful way to look at design.

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GM Evelyne:

 

This weeks QQW will be interesting for me, being a  chronic ezxperimenter i will be interested to see how others arrive at final choices. I wish I could use the currie grid system, but individual cells are not large enough tor the results I need to visually see. Crystalline glaze had been and will remain the center of my testing. I have been working for years trying to develop a cone 6 recipe that achieves cone 10 results: most will not understand that. On occasion, I send out test batches to potters who have never used crystalline glaze before, about half end up with reasonable results. So I will be stuck with very boring 6" round discs for years to come because they fit my little test kiln rather nicely.

 

 
Nerd

 

I bought a set of earrings and round pendant in Italy with a nickel crystalline glaze on it. I thought that was a good use of test tiles! Marcia

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I use a multi step approach.

 

I start with small items like pendants or ornaments and then move up to small dipping size bowls, then a small plate then I'll do a mug of a box depending on the final form I intend to use the technique on.

 

I hate wasting stuff so that's why I start with pendants or ornaments since those can be sold even if they are one offs. The dipping bowls allow me to see if it works on a concave form. The plate lets me know it works on a larger format. The mug I adjust it to be 3 dimensional with handles. The box I adjust for lid openings and handles as well as 3 dimensional.

 

I almost always have a handful of ornament or pendant tests in every kiln load. Right now I am still experimenting with silkscreening on pottery. I hope to have a more complicated perfected sample utilizing 6 different screens to make a completed design before too long. I have found that silkscreening my logo on the bottom works great and allows me to add it at any time up to glaze firing without having to add an additional firing for a transfer. That's a huge time and energy saver for me. Testing and tweaking is a valuable thing the logo only came about because I wanted to see how much detail I could get from my silkscreen and then wanted to see if I could screen all the way up to the glaze step.

 

T

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I usually start glaze testing with test tiles, and then move to small vessels about shot glass size, quick and easy off the hump. Then move to mugs and then teapots before trying glazes or processes on larger pieces.

 

 

best,

Pres

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I prefer  simple forms added with different techniques can do wonders/enhance the form….its again taste and preferences change as per the rainy day.The concept of decorative explores the ideas of enhancing a form induces me the following techniques: sgraffito/geometric patterns/pierced…

 

At times my aesthetic goes to the base of pieces…prefer bases to be decorated,doodling on different forms is a great warm up exercise for me.

 

 

 

Vinks.

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this is a question i wonder about.  i recently read something that suggests that making something without drawing it first and thinking about it and adjusting the drawing into a real plan makes the item only craft.  BUT   if you  think about it hard, draw it, refine it on paper and then finally actually make it, it is ART!  

 

 so, drawing it in my head and skipping all those intermediate steps is not part of ART!  no wonder i am only a potter and not a ceramic artist.  happy to be a potter.  would hate the responsibility of being a SERIOUS ARTIST!

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@ Pugaboo: I find silkscreening so interesting. I like also the iron decals as well. Lots of beautiful stuff in the world of pottery. Small trinkets to glaze test is a very nice way to see what the glaze looks like with little investment. I throw away massive amounts of test mugs and cups that I am not 100% happy with. I don't even want to post the amount of clay I waste on testing.

@ Pres: Shot glasses seem like a great way to test glaze, little investment, fits in a test batch perfectly and plenty of room in the kiln. 

@ Terrim: I did this a few months ago, I took 5 glazes and layered them in stripes by spraying stripes from thick to thin across a 15 inch flat bowl. Then overlapping. There was a lot of information there to look at and it was well worth the time to see the results. I think this is very smart. You should post some of your pictures to the gallery!

@vinks: interesting stuff. Do you have any pictures of your base decoration trails? We are curious!

@Nerd: Thanks. I was just sitting around one day and I was pondering the question, then I remembered Evelyne wanted people to send her questions, so instead of making a post I just sent it in. Glad your enjoying it. I find it so interesting how people decorate pots before they glaze them. You see people using so many techniques to discover forms, test, or experiment. It's fantastic! I love what the titanium dioxide did there, brilliant results doing that. 

@oldlady: I am exact opposite. I try to create forms on the wheel because I find I delightful surprises when I experiment. When I draw a form on paper it is always so basic in form, when I go to create my drawings I get bored and distort it.. but me personally I don't like my work to be perfect most of the time anymore. I am glad to be a potter too! 

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What a coincidence! I just read a post of Robin Hopper on facebook. Here is what he says about our QOTW (he always writes everything in capital letters because he otherwise can't read what he writes. So this is not meant as shouting!):

 

 

 

For anyone struggling to read the capitals and solid paragraph:

 

Exploring ceramic form as the canvas to paint on.

 

My ceramic life was always a dual personality, production work on the one side and painterly or sculptural work on the other.

 

I've always given myself excercises in the development of form. I really like precision. When one has really learned the disciplines of accurate throwing on a potter's wheel (it normally takes about 15 years) one can use that discipline to create freedom of expression in whatever personal direction is chosen.

 

I initially trained my myself in repetitive production in the form of functional work. This builds superb skills in the throwing process. For most of my working life i restricted myself to only using forms that had a basis in two-dimensional geometry. I played with circles, squares, rectangles, parabolas, ovals and triangles. These are called pure or original forms.

 

Three-dimensional versions are the cube, sphere, paralleliped, cone and pyramid. There are ratios that followed the golden mean or the fibonacci series. If you are unfamiliar with these last two fascinating and similar geometrical concepts, it would be instructive to "google" them.

 

Ignore the surface for the time being and just concentrate on form.

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this is a question i wonder about.  i recently read something that suggests that making something without drawing it first and thinking about it and adjusting the drawing into a real plan makes the item only craft.  BUT   if you  think about it hard, draw it, refine it on paper and then finally actually make it, it is ART!  

 

 so, drawing it in my head and skipping all those intermediate steps is not part of ART!  no wonder i am only a potter and not a ceramic artist.  happy to be a potter.  would hate the responsibility of being a SERIOUS ARTIST!

 

Me too. Old Lady.  Can't draw a wobbly line well.  Can't even trace over stuff!  Might do better while I'm having to be left-handed.

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It's all experimental (that is to say, for me only, not for sale) at this stage, but generally mugs, for the reasons people have already stated. 

 

I have just decided to take the plunge and start mixing my own glazes, so there are going to be a lot of test tiles in the near future though...

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@old lady...I am not sure one can actually separate craft and art, good or bad, intentional or not.  Art evolves from craft and craft produces art---good or bad, intentional or not! I wouldn't angst over potter vs artist..what really defines the difference...prices, venues of presentation, fancy words, types of materials, esoteric critique, historic context???

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