Gabby
-
Posts
357 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Posts posted by Gabby
-
-
12 hours ago, Mark C. said:
I lost a good friend about over a year ago and yesterday I finally started to empty his pottery shop. He was my salt kiln partner.
I am cleaning it out for his widow. mush of whats there came thru me to begin with. I worked on his glazes for many hours and brought home what I can use and we poured the water off the rest to dry them out. I am going to take the whole lot so she can have a two car space back in a ship building.
I processed a large truck bed full today at my studio.This is a huge job and since he once was doing raku and low fire it complicates the mix. I am going to try to donate all the low fire to a school and will give some clays away as well. I found him the Geil kiln and we will deal with that later-I also brought him a small electric from one of my AZ show trips 10 years ago and he has a 3 zone new skutt electric which will also sell in the future year after the shop gets cleared out and some time goes by.All the kilns are in a new connected large kiln room-finished out with painted sheet rock.He fired the gas kiln twice.
This is familiar as I have bought out 2-3 living potters in my past but this is good friend and much of what I'm moving I have handled before. It sad but I promised when she was ready I would do this for her.
The clay and glaze and material alone will be 4-5 truck fulls.I will take a month or more to work thru this.
My work bench today had all his stuff on it but now its found a new spot in my stuff.
This work is hard on a sad heart, but he knew it would be you doing this, ultimately, and likely found that thought a comfort.
-
42 minutes ago, liambesaw said:
Just a vase, the handles are just for looks, look how wide they are, that would be uncomfortable to hold by them. I'm hoping that either this one or the similar one I threw last night will make it through the process of firing and whatnot so that I can give one to my neighbor that is moving away as a housewarming gift.
This vessel wouldn't work for this purpose because of the size of the thing, but religious Jews before meals do a sort of ritual hand wash that involves pouring water over one hand and then the other with a three-handled pitcher, or with two handles 120' apart, called a laver.
-
Whenever there is a question with a very dominant answer, I like to ask myself what situation could turn the answer around.
I know that Louise Nevelson was an abstract sculptor rather than a potter, but her body of sculptural work, at least after her earliest beginnings, was painted black. She made a few all white pieces and a few gold, but she spent her career exploring form in black.
There are creative people who find it intriguing to work under a constraint, though in her case she simply felt that black contained all colors.
-
1 hour ago, oldlady said:
gabby, love your bacon press! if you want to make a tray with the image, roll a slab of clay into the metal and cut it off at the edge without rolling up the edges. fire it to bisque and use it as a model. that way the letters come out in the right order.
It is Lee who has the bacon press. I was just an admirer of the image.
-
52 minutes ago, LeeU said:
Scored an old iron bacon press; want to make a mold so I can make trays. I found a good clay for the purpose (Si02) but I need a better first impression so when I bisque it and make the final mold I get enough detail, especially in the letters (it sez bacon press). The rough & quick tray is with a direct pressing, so the words are still reversed--it's just for some glaze testing.
The image is splendid. I adore pigs. (Except in my case, because I adore pigs, I wouldn't want the words).
- Marcia Selsor and Rae Reich
-
2
-
2 hours ago, liambesaw said:
That sounds interesting!!
And my wife has changed my plans for the week. We are putting together our business plan and she wants me to work on designing and throwing some dog and cat dishes. Our animals have always been central in our life, and so has our mixed heritage so we thought these would be central themes in a family business. So DOG BOWLS!!! WOO! Now I have to go find my sketchbook
Remind me of the type and size of dogs you have. I have an 87 pound golden retriever
I think dog and cat dishes are an excellent idea for the Seattle area market.
Maybe don't make them white with a goofy picture.
-
I have an oblate sphere on my banding wheel. I have roughed in some dancing figures to circle the outside and am thinking about the underglaze treatment.
On a separate table I have an oval plaque, as yet unfired, maybe ten inches by 16." I will probably underglaze that before firing. That one is on a Year of the Pig theme, with a plan of showing up to three red river hogs, a Vasayan warty pig, and a warthog.
-
Mea makes the vital point here, I think. Many people seem to find a market, at least for awhile, with pots that are "student pots." Different people will buy them than those who seek only professional work.
I don't think this is particular to ceramics. There is a market for clothing that is not well made as well as a different one for well made clothing.
There is a market for prepared foods that have their issues as well as for gourmet.
-
5 hours ago, Denice said:
Gabby my mother in-law is doing great, she didn't end up with any physical problems and she has her speech back. She still mixes up or forgets a few words but who doesn't do that. It gives us a little time to find a assisted living facility for her, there is always a waiting list. She had 5 mini strokes and going to need some surgery in the future, my husband spent the night with her. I spent most of the day working on the tile, it weighed 12lbs when I started on it and I have taken 4 lbs off of it but I still have a lot of carving to do. Denice
I am so glad she is doing well. My sister had a mini-stroke last September. At that time I learned that mini-strokes, unlike the regular kind, leave no lasting damage, though they are scary all around. I hope you find an assisted living spot that is just right for her.
-
4 hours ago, Denice said:
I have a huge tile on my work bench that I rolled out yesterday, I am going to work on sculpting the design in it today. I am making a press mold, I need 18 tiles to build a grill in the porch window. It is going to take me longer than I thought to complete this project, my mother in-law had a stroke a hour before her 96th birthday party Saturday. I am going to be busy helping her when she goes home. Denice
Best wishes for a solid recovery for your mother-in-law. Take good care of yourself also.
-
-
I just opened up my new Ceramics Monthly (what a great magazine- and I see you have another article published, Pres!) and saw on page 20 a first exhibit by Anna Whitehouse called #100bottles100days.
This made me wonder whether anyone here, at any time in your practice, undertook something like this, an item made in different versions over a course of a large number of days. I know people who have done a painting a day or a drawing of a nude each day...
If so, what was your specific objective in the exercise?
-
What I notice most, shawnhar, is that you have increasing control over the shape you are producing, so that you can make many that are the same.
How much time in each week are you now able to spend at your wheel?
-
I don't have an image of myself in clay, but I will take that challenge on in Spring when I am more clay-active.
I love Lee's series. Another series I admire very much is Robert Arneson's series of self-portrait giant heads that chronicle, for example, his cancer journey.
-
-
1 hour ago, LeeU said:
I've had these 5 pieces on my worktable for over a week---can't make up my mind. I'm submitting sets of 2 to 2 different exhibits. One will be in our capitol city, at a Victorian estate that has galleries and an art school-it's for the NH Potters' Guild. The other is for the NH Institute of Art and includes external clay artists associated with the community education program. The small dish with the nice celedon glaze and the firecolor on the back is from their anagama kiln, as is the one with the white inner glaze. The other pieces are from my L&L, and are very hefty. The rectangular one is 1 lb. 10 oz. of porcelain. I added the pic of their undersides because the pieces are meant to be heavy, tactile, and inviting to be looked/touched at all over. Help me eliminate one piece and put 4 into companionable pairs! Any feedback welcome. Thx-Lee PS-I added a detail shot of the little bowl w/the black circle 'cuz the outside doesn't get a fair shake in the group shots.
Hi, Lee. I think I would leave out the stubby little dark one, as it looks least unique.
Everything I make on the wheel looks like that, so it isn't that I don't think it is cute. It just doesn't look as special as the others.
-
Finally, after several weeks of looking wistfully at my worktable (while attending to study unrelated to ceramics), I got back down to the studio.
What is sitting on my worktable is a large elliptical cylinder about the dimensions of an office wastebasket. Red stoneware, as usual.
I have the basic features painted on it in underglaze but still haven't decided on the detail, whether to go entirely with thin black line work or to have something more going on.
Independently, I opened my newest Ceramics Monthly today and find the articles very intriguing. I am so glad to subscribe.
-
I fell in love with clay when I was four years old, in kindergarten. Thank you, Mrs. Owen .
We had a three day rotation in which one third of the class worked in clay, one third in paint, and one third built with blocks.
What appeals to my now in clay is not that different from what appealed to me then. It was how the clay felt in my hands, that it was plastic, that the form was three dimensional rather than two dimensional, and that the potential forms were limitless.
The act of shaping drew me much more than decorating.
-
Listening to Min and others talk about the plate design for someone with a physical impairment brought to mind this question:
How does your process involve object design before the fact, whether planning a new design simply for the novelty of it or creating innovative designs that provide solutions to practical issues or uncommonly met needs?
-
5 hours ago, LeeU said:
Well, if you must know, I was filling a humidifier container from my utility sink, forgot to close the top off, tripped over my own feet, and--to keep myself from tipping over--quickly set the thing down on the clear edge of the glazing table so I could free my hand to catch my balance, where the unit wobbled over and crashed into the greenware, and then spilled water just to add insult to injury. That is the sad story. Oh well, no handmade Christmas candy dish for Aunt Ruthie.
This sounds like a comedy sketch.
-
-
12 hours ago, liambesaw said:
Well worked my way through all of my bags of iron-rich stoneware.... Or so I thought. 100 lbs of reclaim looks just about ready to throw with, so I'll be wedging up some of that tonight to see if it's still got legs. While burning through my bags I used this stuff called Goldbar Brown and it was pretty stiff, but it made throwing large pretty easy, might have to pick some more of it up if I like the fired appearance. I made a pretty good sized lidded jar with it and I know with my standard clay I would have had the torch out a few times at least.
Very interesting! What are the dimensions?
-
1 hour ago, shawnhar said:
They were originally used as a protective charm by one tribe, the webbing (spider's web) was supposed to catch bad spirits. They never had anything to do with dreams, but now every redneck within 200 miles of me claims they are 1/8 Cherokee and has one hanging from the rear view mirror, even worse, I have heard some of them say the other rednecks should't hang them from the rear view mirror because your'e supposed to have them near your bed to have good dreams.
It's the twisted meaning, the use of the thing, that people don't care to know, that the native americans I have spoken with say it is offensive, it's like wearing a cross because you like Madonna's music.
Ironically, the placebo effect is a real thing and they probably DO have better dreams....sigh...
Thank you for the explanation. I don't think I have seen a dream catcher in thirty or forty years, since everyone was doing, for example, macrame. Present day popularity may be regional.
Interestingly, the art that in Australian Aboriginal cultures is called Dream-time also has nothing to do with dreams. It refers, rather, to a period in their ancient history, or perhaps legendary history, like creation stories.
-
I think some ideas are getting intermingled here that are not the same.
Learning about other cultures is not at issue here. No one disagrees with this.
Producing something that coincidentally resembles something else is not the issue.
Doing something because one feels, or gets richer, for it is not adequate reason to take an action that hurts others. When people produce knockoffs of something, say, and make a business of selling them, they do this precisely because they will be richer for it. We need to be conscious when something that makes one group richer makes another poorer, whether you think it should make them feel poorer or not.
And the fact that something is beautiful is not adequate defense for reproducing it as ones own. I am imagining an art forger making this case.
QothW: Does size matter?
in Int'l Ceramic Artists Network (ICAN) Operations and Benefits
Posted
I would like to be able to work larger but do not at this time have the skill to do that on the wheel.
One reason I prefer that is that I do not do this as a business and am interested in narrative decoration that doesn't cause me eyestrain.