When a person here’s the term “storm chaser” they automatically think of someone, in this era of cable TV, who is trying to get as close to a tornado as they can without dying. I don’t need to see a tornado to feel as though I’ve had a successful outing storm-gazing, although tornadic storms are often the most picturesque. In fact, in most cased I’d rather be miles away from the storm, looking back at the supercell in full. I want structure such as the updraft, anvil and mammatus to be clearly visible so I can sketch or photograph them and put them into clay.

I’d like to be able to chase storm-gazing opportunities, and have made very mild attempts at doing so a couple of times the past couple of years. Storm-gazing from home, from Grand Island, has been very poor so far this season. We’ve had a few storms roll by, but it’s either been at night or while it was overcast to begin with.

Yesterday evening a nice little supercell formed just south of Grand Island, and in my unfortunate hurries I somehow missed its birth until it was more or less just a gray anvil overhead. The rear flank was visible to the west, but it wasn’t photogenic with the bright, late afternoon sun still bearing down on it, aiding in the storm’s development.

A couple of hours later some of the structure was quite nice, though, as the cell slowly floated north over Grand Island. An acquaintance from high school posted this stellar capture to Facebook, and I stitched together the following panorama taken from my driveway with DoubleTake.

Cody Jean Carson Brown's Migration

One of the things that makes central Nebraska really unique is the Spring migration of the Sandhill Cranes. All sorts of events go on during the month of March in response to the roughly 500,000 cranes descending on the Platte River Valley. Earlier this week my wife and I enjoyed the opening reception of Stuhr Museum’s annual Wings Over the Platte exhibit.

It’s quite a good show, worth seeing if you’re in the area. I was glad to see acquaintance Doug Johnson getting Best of Show. His recent work is going in a creative and wonderfully unexpected direction, which is sometimes lacking in Midwestern art shows. Another fascinating piece was the mixed media (but mostly ceramic) wall sculpture by Cody Jean Carson Brown pictured to the right.

However, the most interesting thing at the exhibit was not visual. It was the bio/artist statement from featured artist Jason Jilg.

Born and raised in Broken Bow, [Nebraska], Jason could not leave the Great Plains fast enough. The world pulled with all its exotic lands and cultures, so Jason joined the Navy and traveled the world to see these locations . . .

. . . If I were given the choice of traveling Europe or some location in the American Plains, I’d probably pick the Plains . . . This part of America that is “in between.” In between the American West, American South and the very different American Midwest in terms of not only geography, but also time, place and memory.

This is interesting to me, if you haven’t figured it out yet, as yet another validation of the plains, the prairie: Lampooned by so much of America, loved by so many that have taken the time to observe it.

Jason’s photography is some of the better photography I’ve seen in recent memory. The exhibit wasn’t perfect; it lacked a focal point as a whole and some of the prints were pushed a little too far — a la Ansel Adams. But it’s obvious Jilg possesses the necessary skills to excel at the craft. He’s careful about choosing and composing his subject matter and uses the frame very well. His sense of scale shooting on the prairie as a subject is also very acute. I’m looking forward to seeing more of his images in the near future.

Composition: Snow on kiln brick

The same storm system produced a tornado in a very small town about 12 miles south of Siloam Springs, Arkansas where we lived until last July. Reports now say five people died. The community doesn’t have any civil defense sirens.

A handmade Christmas

Our tree, exponentially smaller than last year’s beautiful giantess, boasted handmade ornaments solely this year. Some we made, some our grandparents made, some from our childhood, some we purchased . . .

Some are clay, some are fiber, some are wood. Some are knitted, some are china painted and some are tied together. Two are nativity scenes, many are icicles and a few angels. One is an unglazed porcelain cloud, just for fun.

A couple are carved, a bear is felted and a proclamation is cross-stitched. The star on top is of questionable origin, but being out of cardboard we’ll call it OK.

I’ve continued with the heads now that storm season is over. (A number of my cloud forms didn’t make it through the recent bisque or pit firings. Some were a porcelain I was trying out that just didn’t work with this kind of dynamic form.) They will be my winter project, in essence. I’m happy with the four or five more I’ve carved out so far and have tentatively begun sketching the human form again in order to hone my craft and inform the series — which for the moment is being referred to as “Us.”

There are some gorgeous results here from the pit firing, very subtle variations. The lack of detail in the face is intentional, a result of using a groggy clay at a small scale (about 7″ tall). This also makes the work a little less personal and more representative of the series’ generalized title.

The wife and I started out with the ornament idea with a specific goal — combining her fiber craft with my clay craft — but it’s ballooned beyond that. The most recent Christmas tree ornaments from my ceramic corner of the house are represented by the following three images.

As I find myself doing more and more often, these were inspired by a texture created with a found object. The object was found in my backyard while playing with the puppy, and couldn’t be more plain. It’s part of a stick, or twig, a very tiny part fallen off of a rotten hackberry branch. Not even as big around as my pinky.

I rolled a slab, used the weathered stick-part to pattern the slab and then cut around the pattern as I saw fit. The resulting texture reminded me of wings so I’ve tentatively titled these “Abstract Angels.”

The red is what I had left of a Duncan underglaze purchased roughly 10 years ago. This is the sad part of this post: I’m now out of this color and I’m not sure Duncan is making it anymore. What I like about this underglaze is that it fires over greenware like a glaze. It comes out glossy and mottled (with a few bubbles from time to time). If Duncan’s quit making the color or changed the recipe, I’m going to have to see if I can formulate it myself. All I know is that it contains cadmium.

I’m very smitten with these 14 abstract angels. I don’t know how many I’ll be able to part with, but a few of them will be for sale in downtown Grand Island at The Milestone Gallery.

There is a glaze on the white plates, a fabulously delicate one with matte and crystaline qualities — from what I could tell where I stood anyway. The plates stood on a shelf over my head, out of the reach of church children racing through the hallway.

I’m not exactly sure where my interest in gilding — as well as gemstones — began (this is actually “imitation” gold leaf), though it may stem in part from an interest in the idea of an icon, a sacred object. I haven’t thought about this at length yet; I should in the near future.

This piece is for sale with a few others at The Milestone Gallery in Grand Island, Nebraska.

The last pit firing didn’t go as well as the first. Almost everything cracked. I may have to put off any more until the weather warms up again. In all likelihood the failures were on account of heat stress — some of which is to be expected in this kind of firing.

And I may just revert to electric smoking for the next five months, although the kiln is out in the garage which isn’t heated and has zero insulation as well. Only thing between the elements and the space is the siding.

I did use an old kiln shelf in this episode, in order to fit in some longer, flatter objects. I don’t think that had much to do with the cracking though.

The electric kiln is mostly loaded for a bisque, including more small storm sculptures, parts of what will be an abstract figure for a lobby space at an Oklahoma college and some Christmas tree ornaments the wife and I have been toying around with. The derelict gas kiln I salvaged a few years ago was put to use for the first time yesterday in a smoke firing. It worked great for this, which is good because I’ve had a hard time finding metal trash cans which is what folks usually use for this kind of firing.

Didn’t try anything too much fun using just newspaper, small pieces of salvaged wood (mostly lath from the kitchen wall), a little sawdust and a few leaves. Since everything worked so well I’ll be adding some flashing slips and other more interesting objects in the future. As well as roasting marshmallows over the heat.

The most interesting thing yesterday were speckles on some of the objects (see last image in following gallery), something I did not get in an electric smoke firing.