Callie Beller Diesel

Nice!  We finally got some good days of weather and I finally got a little better hold on my settings.

Speaking of photography, what is on my workbench at the moment are  3 bins of pieces from a recent wood firing that need to be shot and inventoried, plus about half of a backlog of some bisque smalls that still need to be glazed. 

If you know anything at all about Native American culture, you know that a 19 year old white girl running around Coachella in a feathered headdress is like dressing up as a "sexy decorated war veteran" and going to a Remembrance Day ceremony. It's super disrespectful, and it's in really bad taste. There's always going to be someone who says "hey, I don't mind looking at that," or "what's the big deal? It was meant as a compliment!" but if it's your culture and your tradition, you know more about it than an outsider. If someone says "hey, the way you're doing that is not okay!" as an outsider to that culture, you need to heed that. You don't get to tell someone else what they should or shouldn't be offended by if you have less knowledge on the subject. As an outsider to a culture, you may be well meaning as an individual, but many things have been done with good intentions that had catastrophic outcomes for the people on the receiving end.
There are some really big holdover attitudes from British colonialism to just assume that another culture's artworks, religion and traditions all carry equal weight within that culture, or that the weight placed on those things are somehow analogous to how we behave in our own. In a lot of cases, it's not true, and I think that's where white folks tend to get frustrated and confused. We lack important, accurate information, and it's a serious effort to track that information down because there's a lot less in depth information recorded about other cultures than the dominant one. So we do dumb things in the name of trying to learn about something that wind up being hurtful.
But what about artistic growth and cross-cultural influence? What about all the cross pollination that happened between China, Japan and Korea in terms of celadon development? What about blue and white ware's influence on middle Eastern ceramics? How about a more modern phenomena of European Christian missionaries going to Japan and teaching the locals about knitting, a handcraft they hadn't developed themselves yet? Japanese knitting patterns are now some of the most interesting and challenging out there, and the colours used in the yarn choices of Japanese knitting designers definitely shows a distinct sensibility from European choices.
That kind of cultural borrowing is totally okay, because no one places a religious or spiritual value on knitting. There are some interesting cultural traditions around knitting design, but the motifs that are traditional in different areas generally don't have a deeply emotional/spiritual significance attached to them. There is an active conversation being had between the two cultures. Or, in the ceramic cases above, there were some shared cultural points (Zen Buddhism throughout Asia) where people were starting from, and then taking the techniques in their own directions. 
So I suppose I think cultural inspiration is possible to do responsibly, but you have to be willing to put a LOT of work into the research and learning part in order to be properly informed. I think it's best to had some direct, meaningful contact with that culture. It ought to mean something to you personally, and not just be a cool subject you learned about in school or in a book. I think you also have to not look at the specific motifs or techniques that are being used, but look at what the artists that use them are looking at and being inspired by. You have to be able to continue the conversation that's being had in that area with your own voice and contribute something intelligent to that conversation.
Otherwise, it's like Liam says and you're just profiting off someone else's ideas, which isn't cool.

I made a thing. 

@liambesaw @Pres
Yep, it's wax resist brushwork on a red clay body, and a white glaze. My NCECA loot included a lot of new brushes.

I made a thing. 

I made a thing. 

Oh I didnt cAtch the inkjet part, yeah I don't know of any ink that can be used in a kiln.  The laser ones work because black toner is a plastic powder colored with Fe3O4.  In the kiln the plastic burns out leaving only the faint oxide layer.  It turns back to Fe2O3 which is red iron oxide when heated in the presence of oxygen.
Inkjet printers use a tiny film to print onto paper so I dont know if it would even be possible to print oxides in ink. 
 

I made a thing. 

@liambesaw @Pres
Yep, it's wax resist brushwork on a red clay body, and a white glaze. My NCECA loot included a lot of new brushes.

I made a thing. 

I made a thing. 

I made a thing. 

This week I haven't done anything out in the shed but trim some fermentation jars (and feel guilty about it).  Instead I've been hunched over a computer and camera trying to get everything squared away for my business and website.  I have my photo booth almost all squared away, need to pick up some posterboard tonight and really start photographing everything.  Wish I could just make things and let them disappear on their own, hah.
Anyway, here's a picture.  I was using this mug to dial in my camera and lights.
 

Not so much on the workbench, but finished and on the wall.

I made some new stuff for spring. 

As I mentioned in the Events section, I have a big show coming up soon. Lots of good stuff coming out of the kilns now.

This is a finished one of the oil bottles I posted a greenware photo of a few pages back, flashing slips, cone 10 soda. 

I made some new stuff for spring. 

Just slip with mason stain. 

Just slip with mason stain. 

Nice work!
I never post anything here so here is a sampling of the weekend reduction firing. There are many talented artists at the studio (Clayspace ceramic arts center) that now excel at getting their favorite reduction, Carbon trapping, even ice crackle!
cool stuff and a fun mask almost sans eyeballs. Great group firings, time after time in an old Alpine updraft with some fancy digital stuff hooked to it.
 
 
 
 

I made some new stuff for spring. 

I made some new stuff for spring. 

I made some new stuff for spring.