glazenerd

Pres:
i was not going to respond, and had actually turned off my Ipad....but... I felt the need to respond.
after reading your personal story: it is my honor to bestow upon you a Masters a Degree in Tenacity, Adaption, and Courage!
a life well lived.  tom

I didn't clean it (yet). I just ran away..........

As I mentioned before somewhere I have leukemia. When I was diagnosed I promised myself a few things. One, I would do what I wanted the way I wanted as much as possible from then on with the time I have left. Working with clay to some extent gives me a focus and relieves my depression to a large extent, helps me to handle my fear, and though I don't really believe in 'legacies' it's sort of nice to know that a few things I made will be around a long time after I'm gone. Right now I actually feel physically pretty good and thought I was doing well in remission. A visit about a week ago with my oncologist cleared my hopes up when he said it's time for me to get in line for a bone marrow transplant. Hm, yes, well.
Anyway, on the bright side I got to quit my job (after not being able to finish a shift at work due to having pain from a swollen spleen, a health care provider with no health care, thanks to the heartless health care system in the US) three years ago when I finally walked into an ER and got diagnosed. I'd been managing and working through horrible symptoms undiagnosed for at least two years not knowing what I had. The ER doc suddenly got excited saying my white cell counts were off the scale and I was rushed over to another hospital in the middle of the night, put into all sorts of contraptions, IV's inserted, etc. The oncologist assured me I didn't have long if it was one type, about 25 yrs if another. My only thought was "Christ I can finally quit my job!" -that's how much I hated it. After recovering and getting social security and medicaid worked out, I sold my wee house in Idaho, (also hated Idaho, I'm from CA originally, seriously a fish out of water) and used the money to move to a place I love on the Oregon coast. Anyway I'm cramming as much of what I want, that I can afford on next to nothing, into what's left. Not everyone gets the news they better get their affairs in order and have such and such time left to do it. Most of the time, I'm grateful, not always. 

Many of you already know I have Multiple Sclerosis,  my first relapse was when I was throwing a vegetable bowl.   I had just finished a set of tableware and decided I didn't like way the glaze came out.   My right arm wouldn't work right and I was in a lot of pain,  I was sent to a neurologist because my GP thought I had pinch a nerve in my elbow.  The rest is history.  I wasn't going to let this disease take away everything I had worked for so I started making tile murals.  I made those for about 7 years and I got to the point where I needed more and more help from my husband in moving them and installation.  It wasn't fair to keep him away from his car restoration projects.  I decided to go back to my love of ancient pottery and do some coiling,  I have been coiling now for three years.   Recently Mark C found a Brent wheel on E-Bay in my area so he sent me a message about it.   I bought it and sold my kick wheel that I could no longer use.    I have been throwing small bowls and mugs trying to retrain the neural pathways in my brain the way they do with stroke patients.    My arms are pretty weak,  I hope practicing builds my throwing muscles.   I have a back up plan in case I get to the point I can't work in clay anymore.   I have been growing gourds and drying them,  they look like pots and you can carve, paint, cut and stain them.   Don't let aches, pains or a serious disease take away the work you love.   A woman in my neighborhood was hit by  a car, her daughter was on the other bicycle and was killed.   The only part of her body she could move was her head.   A helper would set up her paints and put a brush in her mouth and she would paint beautiful still life's.  She never let her disability get her down and was inspiring to everyone she met.    Denice

I walked right into that, didn't I. 

One typically bruised hand holding 530 pages of detailed notes, research, testing, and references on clay formulation: better known as " The Clay Codes." 

Pres:
would you please start a new thread titled: " pictures of people taking selfies of their hands."  I have to see Callie taking pictures with her nose. 

Callie:
articulated with such clarity!! If I have a weakness, cleaning would be it. However, my creative solution includes pouring a 10 x 10 concrete pad on the side of my detached studio. I have already built a stand for my pugger on 600lb wheels for easy moving. Install an exterior plug, and the big dust bomb will be outside when I dry mix. Also plan on throwing out there when the weather is pleasant. I find the wooded view and the natural hymnals being sung rather inspiring. Now all I need is the time to actually work with clay: which has been in short supply since last October.

Yes.
Being disciplined doesn’t mean stifling creativity. If you simply wait around for some mysterious inspiriation fairy to hit you upside the head with a magic “I will now make awesome art” stick, you’re not going to make a lot of art. You must be disciplined to create reliably, but how you go about that discipline is important.
If you’re applying discipline to produce creativity, it means doing all that you can to create the headspace in which idea generation occurs, and doing those things diligently. It means protecting that space once you have it, too. Some of this discipline  is self care, and looks like messing around to the outside observer. It’s not. A burnt out mind can’t generate good ideas. 
Most of it is showing up and doing the mundane tasks, even if you don’t feel like it. Practicing skills is also critical. Musicians play scales, painters and drawers sketch and do colour studies, potters throw cylinders. Discipline in this instance  does not mean being harsh with yourself. It means showing up and being receptive. It helps to also be in motion, and not thinking too hard about it. Hence all the cleaning or pugging.

What are the rituals you follow when the creative juices dry up, or the joys of making pottery becomes tedious  because of deadline demands?
T

assembled and ready for a gallery show.

Good question (for any/every thing).
Forty-three years ago, starting post-secondary at the local Junior Collage, hand building was a pre-req for Wheel I - I wanted to try throwing, finally got a round tuit (my Mom had one; now it's in a drawer here somewhere...) ...and, fate, at the same local Junior Collage.
Last day of the semester is next week. We found me a lightly used wheel; it's in the garage, and being used more now. We also found a heavily used kiln, which may be ready to fire about the time there's enough stuff to fill't'up.
The woman selling the kiln was planning to go to something smaller, as the back acts up on account o' the heavy shelves, etc. (methink she also deserves a nice new one with electronic contortion). She said she was introduced to clay thirty-eight years ago, "...and it changed my life."
lol, yeah.
I'm really enjoying it!
Why? 
It's more than finding something to be absorbed in and passionate about. It's more than replacing work (sshh, don't tell'm I fquit sometime between tomorrow and this time next year, shush!). It's more than the peace and joy of doing, more than producing functional and beautiful (err, less ugly?) things. 
...don't know what exactly the "more" is; perhaps it doesn't matter.
 

Last pot on the bench today, carved vase.

Why? Because I find it strangely curious that glaze had exacting standards and defined chemistry. In my early searches for information about clay chemistry, none existed. Yes, some boundaries had been defined, but  formula limits, plasticity parameters, and particle distribution was a loosely defined concept. If I would have not seen a crystalline vase in Williamsburg, Va. In 2007 I would have bought a lathe and made furniture. But alas, I now have my rabbit hole decorated, and there is plenty of brain candy to munch on down here. I did talk to Alice yesterday, she has not aged a bit.
Nerd

Pres:
i threw my new formulated porcelain for the first time today. Incorporating the advice here and elsewhere: actually made a piece I was happy with. Uniform wall thickness, went much smoother.   TY all

Pres:
i threw my new formulated porcelain for the first time today. Incorporating the advice here and elsewhere: actually made a piece I was happy with. Uniform wall thickness, went much smoother.   TY all

Pres:
i threw my new formulated porcelain for the first time today. Incorporating the advice here and elsewhere: actually made a piece I was happy with. Uniform wall thickness, went much smoother.   TY all

Tom, 
The biggest advice I would give my students came with a hand on hand assistance to the first pull and the second. (Assuming you are RT handed )Create the donut after opening up. That is a donut attached to the wheel head, centered. Then using your left hand with the thumb down at the base of the wheel head on the outside, and the fingers bent to the floor on the inside with the rt hand with a sponge on the roll of the donut. . . . begin squeezing firmly with the thumb and fingers of the lft as you push inward on the roll with the sponge in the rt hand.  As you feel the roll going up, ease slightly on the pressure and continue to rise with the roll just above your fingers and thumb. Continue until to the point that you have gone off of the clay. Never stop the pull motion at the top of the pot, always imagining the clay to be 1-2" higher.
Second pull, begin with lft on inside, rt with thumb or pointer or whatever edge you use to pull with. Elbows braced against the body leaning to the rt. Firmly squeeze the clay between inside and outside fingers of lft and rt hand. As the roll moves up, ease slightly on pressure again and continue up with the pull as before. 
The firmly here is important, as that is where thinning the base comes in on a pull. Without firmly squeezing at the base level of the pull, the pull actually starts above the base of the pot leaving a heavier area in the base. You must firmly squeeze that roll on every pull to get it to move out of the base.
best advice I have, now practice. . . 
 
Pres

Pres:
 
I always go for those humorous questions that forces potters to question what they are doing. Like when a potter says they do not have a favorite glaze color, and a question reveals they actually do. (everyone does).
 
:Like this one:
 
The power grid has gone down in your area and will not be back up for one year: so what alternative firing method will you choose?
 
Nerd

I second Chris's idea.
Nerd