LeeU
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Posts posted by LeeU
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I love mushrooms! This is a glazed, roasted portobella cap with deconstructed "stuffing" alongside & underneath. Glaze is balsamic vinegar with just a touch of real maple syrup and chili paste. The stuffing, made stove-top, is chopped "whatever" mushrooms, shredded carrot, minced garlic, minced onion, some yogurt and coconut flour to hold it together. A sprinkle of flax seeds on top-should be sesame seed but I'm out. Delicious hot or cold/room temp. Bowl is anagama fired from a couple of years ago and a little porcelain pillow for the sticks.
- Babs, Min, Callie Beller Diesel and 2 others
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5
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@Min-the bears are coming out of hibernation-it is not good (for them or us) that they are coming down from the ridge into "civilization", so I need to be more vigilant about not leaving tempting treats out at night! All this baking looks yummy! I'm doing a Plant Paradox food plan (which has cut my blood sugar way, way down!) The only bread I eat, and minimally at that, is genuine sourdough--@Neil, yours is beyond luscious looking! @Callie-I no longer eat pasta at all---but I am coveting your gorgeous meal! @Oldlady-ya just hadda show the bacon, huh? @Mea-ooooo-pie! @Roberta12-have you no mercy? Now all I need is for someone to shove a really great potato dish under my nose, and my goose is cooked. But I don't eat goose, so maybe I'm gonna be OK and will survive this thread without having a nutritional relapse!
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I don't have a kitchen table. Just a counter in a galley-type space. So, I was taking a break from prepping freezer foods "for the duration" and came to read the CAD forums---saw this topic. Went back to the kitchen and took a pic of the reduced produce bananas I scored today--62 cents for 6 good ones--that I am cutting into chunks to freeze and at some point thaw for going into yogurt or cover with melted dark chocolate. Then I hear a racket outside. Oh-it's you again! This bear has been visiting me for 4 years now, 1 of 3 baby cubs, when big mama used to come too. I forgot that it's now time to bring in the feeders and suet holder.
- Min, Callie Beller Diesel, Hulk and 5 others
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8
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Since I am a hobby business, with the economic weight on the hobby side of things, this will not affect that. I am a bit of an isolationist anyway and very fussy about picking & choosing where I go & who I see, so not much change will be happening on the face-to-face social front either-just less than "not much socializing" in the first place. I don't worry about my health--whatever comes down the pike, I have lived way longer than I ever "should" have and have no fear of death-that got eradicated via various survival scenarios. I have concerns about my daughter & her hubby-they are in WA state, and my sister is in VA. Mostly I am concerned about my "X", who is homeless & living in his van in LA, and has serious heath conditions. He resists programs/systems and is not speaking to me or our daughter at the moment. It's an exercise in "letting go". My dad was a Scout troop leader and let me tag along. He taught me how to survive in the woods & I keep a small "prepper" stash in my vehicle for all kinds of weather, and about a months worth of "everything" including free-standing heat sources, in my house.--so I'm good. Stocked up on coffee and stuck a cheesecake int he freezer, so I'm more than good, actually! I wear nitrile gloves if I am out & about and all the fools handling everything and each other give me the stink eye and move away. It's hilarious.
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Somehow I missed this QotW when it was posted, and today, "Christmas" caught my eye. I don't make clay gifts for friends/relatives anymore-I used to. Now I just invite them to choose something from my stock if they want. What I do for the December holiday season/occasions is I make bulk quantities of smalls, like tea light holders and small catchalls and give them to a few organizations that I like, for them to give to their staff and customers. Now I've been asked to make a hundred tea light holders (paid) for a company for next year's holidays-no strings attached re size/body/glaze/design--I get to just do my thing!
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The nearest supplier to me, in New Hampshire, is out of state, Portland Pottery Supplies, in ME, over 2 hours away. I need to have a second good reason to make the trip! They're good for basic Laguna & Standard clays & Amaco & Laguna glazes (I get Coyote elsewhere). Mostly I scour the Internet for the best price combos of the type of bodies/glazes I want, including the shipping cost. The best deals vary widely at any given time, depending on what I am looking for. I guess I've used all the suppliers with positive mentions in the forums, at one time or another. I keep a wish list of bodies y'all mention that I want to try at some point. I must order small quantities-25-50 lbs of clay, and only 3-4 types at a time. Any more and I end up having to re-hydrate it-yuk-I'd rather pay for fresh moist than have to do that. I probably use Sheffield (in MA) as my main supplier-online-most often (almost a 4 hr drive, so that ain't happening!) , and sometimes Highwater. I have all the tools I'll ever need. I got my Brent wheel from wherever the total cost was best-I think Clay King or The Ceramic Shop but not sure (and those two for glazes, also). I got my kiln from Hot Kilns (L&L-thanks to Neil). I got my table top slab roller directly from Bailey.
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On 2/28/2020 at 12:10 AM, liambesaw said:
flying across the country
My daughter & her hubby live in Kennewick. I haven't been able to see her for a couple of years and have never been to WA & I have a friend in Seattle. Be careful what you ask for --might end up throwing a glaze party someday!
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The short answer is that I use commercial bodies and commercial glazes. But being a bit of a Chatty Cathy, here's the rest of it. I do not have the physical space to mix my own, nor the energy or motivation, tho I cringe and wince and grind my teeth every time I pay to get the commercial materials that I like. New Hampshire has no ceramics supply store and the drive to ME or MA costs almost as much as shipping and pretty much kills most of a day. So I pay (and pay a lot...since I use such small quantities). I don't go in on other potters' large orders because they rarely use the kinds of clay I prefer. For cone 6, I am real happy with glazes from Coyote/Amoco/Laguna/Spectrum etc. I don't get a lot of opportunity for wood fire and raku, but with my small quantity, people are real generous with sharing their glazes. For high fire bodies I use Troy wood, Sheffield's Z, and T3. I use Highwater's raku.
That said, I have to 'fess up that I truly miss making clay bodies and formulating glazes. I spent several years saturated in the learning and doing based on Daniel Rhodes and D.G. Lawrence (clay/glazes/ceramic science) plus an excellent education in potters/clay artists and the history. I was enraptured with the making of the materials that were at the heart of my final work. I got my degree but that was just barely a taste. Then I took an economically-driven detour of 30 years. When I retired and went back to clay, I found that the minor brain injury I have pretty much obliterated everything I learned, including much of the physical processes needed to function with reasonable skill as a craftsman. It took a while to integrate the sense of loss/frustration with the thrill of being back at it, however limited the effort. So, long story long, I use commercial bodies and glazes, and they are just fine--pretty sweet actually!
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Somehow I missed this QotW when it was posted. I have a nice hot and cold water utility sink set into a large closet, next to my shelves for glazes, in my home studio (aka former master bedroom). I had a Gleco trap but for some reason my landlord decided he could do something just as effective at no charge and I could sell my trap. So far so good! It is such a blessing to be allowed to have a studio in a rented mobile home & a kiln on the back porch-properly wired/vented etc., that I don't mess with him when he wants to do something his way! Plus, amazingly, they haven't raised my rent, so there is that. It is great not to have to haul water, that's for sure!
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No food, since my studio is in my trailer (pardon me--mobile home) and I usually eat at my computer, in the living room. In the studio, coffee, tea, water, always. Mostly coffee, and in my favorite mugs by Steven Zoldak (slip trailed) , Andy Hampton (genuine tea dust glaze), and my own. The red clay one gets the heavy traffic.
- Callie Beller Diesel, Stephen, Babs and 3 others
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15 hours ago, Chilly said:
Anyone know what they are?
They might possibly be for holding short stick incense--the kind that is just a thin rod, not the kind that is on a thin stick. I used to make these, very similar, but I have no pics of them. The incense stands upright from the hole. Some have 3 holes, like a triple-wick candle. The incense shown is just in a porcelain cube holder made for the purpose and normally sits in a pretty catcher dish. I posted the photo just to show the size of the hole and scale of the incense rod, though some are longer, or can be broken into shorter lengths. Of course, I could be way off the mark!
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Threw myself a small textured bowl w/a center foot for lift. The interior is smooth. Haven't cleaned off the burrs from the wire brush yet. This is for a pending raku fire.
- Hulk, Min, Callie Beller Diesel and 1 other
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While earning my BFA in ceramics I spent an inordinate amount of time and energy deciding what to make, preceded by hours and hours of learning, practicing, researching, studying, observing, questioning, filling notebooks, building a library, shadowing mentors, haunting galleries/museums etc., doing small exhibits, more practicing, planning, drawing, designing, revising, redoing, thinking-thinking-thinking---I could go on.
Detour through a 30 year not-art career and fast-forward to retirement and a decent home ceramics studio. To answer the question: I spend about 5 minutes letting a thought come into my head as to what I might do with any given lump of clay. Boom, done.
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Beginning "No. 7 " in my Hidden Mask series. This is a raku piece to be fired at Hampton Pottery, NH, in the spring.
- Chilly, Hulk, Bill Kielb and 2 others
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5
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Well, I have to go with "all of the above", as a baseline. Yet those attributes alone won't do it for me as much as when a piece elicits an inadvertent little internal gasp...because it's just so gorgeous. Just don't ask me to define my ideas of gorgeous (or lucious, or sweet, or way cool, etc.). Essentially I just "know it when I see it". Loving a piece covers a lot of territory, from craftsmanship to color to design, to form to function to whether it can earn its keep, and so much more. For me it's intuitive, or at times even highly counter-intuitive, evoking a kind of primal or visceral reaction--or response-- (those not being the same thing) to the piece. I guess it's a vibe, or an energy, or a perception of something being shared, that just sparks something and connects me to the piece, and sometimes, at least peripherally, with the maker.
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Each of my work stations (for functions in the process) has its own array of most-used tools and assists placed as neatly near by as possible. I use little household bins to hold horizontals and jars for uprights, bowls/catchalls for sponges, hooks for hanging things, carefully chosen shelving, and planned use of spaces under tables. My clay is in 5 gal buckets set on those plant-moving things with wheels, I use carts with drawers to store smalls, labeled by category. I label everything so I can remember what's what (i.e. this shelf is bisque for glazing, that shelf is greenware etc.). I write the type of clay and cone, and type of glaze and cone, on masking tape and put that where I can see it at a glance. I try to put like items together-by size or type or function.
I have such a small space and I don't tolerate mess very well, especially my own, that I just have to keep it functional or I get put off and back out when I need to press ahead. It's kind of a mental containment strategy, to keep my studio so that I can walk in and just get to work and have what I need at hand without having to search for things or clean them off first.
- Stephen, Pres, Callie Beller Diesel and 2 others
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5
I stand behind the idea that you could stick incense in the holes, tho! 
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What's On Your Kitchen Table?
in Aesthetic Approaches and Philosophy
Posted
Ha ha---someone noticed! I don't of course. I cut it up...I took the pic with it still whole just to show off...opps, I meant to show it off.