I fired the kiln yesterday, a very full load and a combination of functional and sculptural wares. I’m not sure how much I’ll end up liking by the time finishes are applied. I had some problems with the terra sig flaking off of a number of the pieces. I’m guessing this was on account of the very tight surface of the clay, Steve’s White, I’ve been using. This occurred on all of the 10 cups in the firing which I had high hopes for. I’ll redo them in a few weeks, after which time I hope to have built my very own kickwheel.

I’ve been thinking about building a wheel for a while now, but couldn’t figure out how to make the flywheel. For some reason I assumed these were fabricated out of stone. I finally found some instructions online, from 1970, saying to cast it out of concrete. Why I didn’t think of this earlier is beyond me; just last month I cast a small base of concrete for a future wood sculpture.

I also retain high hopes for these little guys:

They will be glazed on the bottom (not in the photo) and smoked on their sides. I don’t yet know exactly how they will be displayed, but they are intended to hang from something, somewhere. I call them funnels only because I followed them up with some tornadic forms — although neither of the forms were consciously meant to represent tornadoes when I began them, curiously enough.

Some mild frustration beset me this afternoon as I unloaded the kiln and commenced work on some line blends. This relates back to the very limited time I have to be pursuing ceramics, although I have more hours now than six months ago. When I graduated with my BFA in studio art, I figured I’d make a living as a graphic artist. Actually pursuing sculpture or pottery as a career wasn’t on my radar. Over the last couple of years I’ve warmed, perhaps I’ve been divinely wooed into considering this more.

But it’s a tricky step of faith, living off of proceeds from your artwork — when you’ve never really sold any of it up to now. My ideal life at this point in time would be to work half-time for the mission mobilizing ministry I’ve been with for almost five years now (I’m really enjoying the new project we’re working on), and be half-time in pursuing ceramics. I don’t know how this can happen financially though.

One idea that’s worth looking into a little further attempts to combine and monetize both my and my wife’s creative interests. This notion involves some kind of storefront, will probably require start-up capital we don’t have and would only work financially in the long-term if we were able to live and work out of the same space.

We’ll see where that goes, if anywhere.

I finished up a number of small works this weekend. Here’s a gallery of the works; as before, click on the thumbnails for larger images.

I’m satisfied with the way most of these turned out. I’ve been waffling on how to mount and present these small ceramic works since firing them. Part of me wants them to stand alone — and some of them will — but at the same time a number of them just don’t seem comfortable or finished to me by themselves. This may also be a subconscious desire to mix media. Contrast is a significant interest of mine and I do this in part through the mixing of media.

The one small piece, it’s about 5-6 inches tall, that I’m not sure of is the orange one mounted on a rock that I found in an alley. On the two darkest wall-hung works the thickly applied acrylic paint on the board bubbled as it dried. I usually do this with oils and have no problem. I used acrylic from my small box of paints because it dries so much more quickly and the colors were more like what I was after.

To reiterate, these forms are inspired by my years of observing storm clouds on the prairie. I’m also working with an idea of creating a modern icon, an idea that’s been simmering in my mind in some form or fashion for nearly a decade now but has yet to put down roots. Thirdly, as always, I’m aiming for what seems to me beautiful forms and surfaces. I don’t feel the need to infuse meaning, symbolism, irony — although these are all good things — into every sculpture.

I’m jonesing to actually go photographing storms. There have been a few decent ones nearby in the last week, but I was without a car and there are just so few good places in these hills and trees to observe them. I’d like to do some ink and brush drawings en plein air as well if I can catch a good thunderstorm this summer, and being able to sculpt while watching one would be even better.

We’ll see if I can make that happen.

I’m gonna mess around with the WordPress gallery feature again here. If you want to see larger images you’ll have to click on the thumbnails in the post.

These came out of a glaze firing today. I’m not all that thrilled with the the colors. Both my wife and I remember choosing ones that we thought were more transparent, such as the celadon in this group. What we ended up with are more matte, goopy acting glazes that look like they didn’t get to the right temperature.

The pieces I’ve uploaded to this post, I believe, will still be successful, although none of them are in a completely finished state. Most of them I will try and smoke, some will be framed, some will be put onto small wooden podiums. I’m most fond of the two with the pink rubies inlaid into them, although the heart-shaped piece is appealing as well. This one will actually be a hanging work, as will the bright blue one.

It seems to me this batch is the most significant step to date in my re-initiation into clay. They aren’t what I would call “there” yet, but they represent a more complex and refined part of my intent. And we’ll see where that goes!

This is a piece I’ve been working on for more than a year now, in small spurts. The wood came from a tree felled by a city machine almost four years ago in front of our apartment. I liked the way the narrow walnut trunk split and took my little handsaw out at dusk to cut off a seven or eight foot section. I later cut this into two halves. Only a year-and-a-half ago did I start working the piece, and a couple weeks ago finally stuck it in a base of formed concrete. The base will be covered in some kind of finish material, possibly copper. The inlaid squares are Yellowheart. I need to figure out how to shape the top of the piece and what kind of finish to apply to the wood, and then start on the second half of the original length.

A new working situation, where my wife and I are splitting some hours, is allowing me roughly two hours a day four times a week in my studio. I’m uber grateful for this opportunity and plan to make the most of it.

Above is a selection of greenware waiting for the fire. The slightly different forms in the middle of the shelf, with the sapphires and rubies pressed into them, were a bit of a “happy accident.” We’ll see how they turn out. Unfortunately I have very little completely finished new work from this year. I want to smoke the terra sigs on the bisqued pieces, and instead of using foil (or, if I had one, a sagger) in my electric kiln I hope to put together a small wood burning unit in my backyard for this purpose. That probably won’t happen until the middle of May. Between now and then I will be out of town for two weeks, and in between will be building a bed for my brother.

A couple of opportunities related to my artwork are still ahead this year. First is the chance to exhibit or install an installation in a coastal Georgia church. The second is the opening of a gallery named Local Flair. The proprietor hoped to be up and running this month, but her husband — the builder — has moved the schedule back to the middle of summer. The Flair will be, ideally, located in the ever cutening downtown Siloam Springs. The aforementioned builder recently teamed up with a pair of brothers who are financially backing the renovation of some of the more decrepit buildings in the area. By the end of the year it seems we’ll have a new bookstore, restaurant (hopefully) and art gallery downtown.

There is a tension for me in combining more personal posts like this with the more in depth inquiries I often make on this blog. There are pros and cons, in my mind, to keeping them intermingled as well as separating them. For the time being, I’m sticking with the interminglement.

My wife went shopping a few weeks ago with a friend over in Fayetteville, about 30 minutes from our home in Siloam Springs. While there they visited a local potter, Kathy Thompson, who informed them of a local clay supply store. For all of my searching I’m a bit befuddled how I didn’t find this place before now, but I hadn’t. So my wife and I stopped in earlier this afternoon.

Flat Rock Clay Supplies has a nice inventory. Better than that, they have a good selection of wet clays and stock raw materials for making glaze. I bought a variety of Duncan glazes and 100 pounds of Steve’s White, a low-fire white clay I hadn’t heard of before today. It’s a very nice looking clay body I’m eager to start working with.

I didn’t purchase any raw materials for glazes on this trip. I didn’t have a list and wasn’t really prepared for that yet, so I came home and spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and organizing the garage/studio. The scale in the photo was a Christmas gift and the titanium and iron I’ve had for about five years.

Needless to say I’m thrilled to have a supplier so close.

Despite feeling somewhat sickly yesterday I worked on these tiles; I didn’t want the clay to become too dry to work (and didn’t want to try rehydrating if I didn’t have to). The central images are again inspired by the form of clouds, although the driving force between these works was an inexplicable desire to use a metallic grid in the background of a drawing or wall hanging. The grid in this case will be scored copper.

I fired my kiln over the weekend, to cone 04. I’m a bit impatient about the process, in large part because I don’t have set times to devote to my work at this point in life (Although this looks to change in a month or so, when I should be able to devote about two hours a day to my sculptures.). I didn’t allow ample time for the terra sig to dry and, even though I thought I was being very cautious with the heat — allowing time to drive the moisture out — I lost three small works. All three were in the lowest part of the kiln, underneath a shelf, heating up a bit too quickly.

Two of the best survived though. Both of these have more texture than the rest, which is probably why I like them.

I’ve been trying to achieve the smoothness of porcelain with this clay (a commercial brownstone I don’t really like) and my questionably prepared sig. The results haven’t met my specifications in that regard, but I must say I like 1) The color of the sig and 2) How the color of the clay peeks through the off-white sig along the edges.

I now need to determine how to finish these. The smooth ones of the lot — some seen as greenware in this post) — I’ll probably smoke while inserting lustrous materials and stones into the small “caves” of the cloud-inspired forms. These two with the texture I’m thinking of glazing, at least partly. I’m particularly interested in how the glaze will pool on the textured top of the form on the right.

Each piece is roughly the size of a fist, about 3.5″ at its longest point. The work on the left will probably remain freestanding, the other likely mounted (somehow) to be hung on a wall.