Still transisting, craving clay

27 August 2009 by 1 Comment

But not like an antique radio.

We’re still in the process of unpacking and settling in. Our new living quarters are out of the ordinary and have very little storage which has hampered some of our efforts to this end, but the last two weeks progressed in the right direction. I’ve spent a lot of time painting. The previous tenant of the second floor left quite a mess.

And I’ve been craving clay.

It’s been rough being on the plains, watching the storms and not being able to act on those observations. I should have made something of the opportunity and spent some time drawing since the clay studio hasn’t been up to snuff, but I didn’t think of it. And it’s not as though there haven’t been 100 other things to do. I’m getting close though to what looks like a functional basement.

3rd Street studio in progress

This is what it looked like last month, just after moving in. I’ve come to realize that it’s difficult for me to produce work in an unorganized studio. Messy I can deal with, but when there’s no foundational organization my impetus is to unpack, put up shelving and move things around.

I need to get a new cord for the kiln before firing, if I’m going to use the existing outlet. The one on my old Knight kiln is both too short and wrong-pronged. I’d like to rewire the whole thing before firing again, including replacing the elements. Not sure that will happen though. I might also like to move the kiln into what is presently the stained glass store’s sandblasting room, but I’m not sure that will happen either. That project would be fairly simple except for the fact that the 220 is run straight from the electrical service and not from a panel. The shutoff is at the kiln, meaning I’d have to have the electrical company turn power to the building.

And I still need to find a local or relatively nearby clay supplier that suits my needs. I messaged a local ceramic artist to ask who she deals with, but I can’t tell from their website what they sell as far as wet clay. Glaser Ceramics in Lincoln is a fair option, but I know for certain they don’t stock the clay bodies I want.

Still a ways to go, but getting closer.

Filed under Art, Business of art, Central Nebraska, Ceramics, In the studio, Personal reflection

New studio

26 July 2009 by 4 Comments

Everything’s out of the truck (and kitchen) and into the basement studio.

Maudies studio at move in

Half of the stuff in the photo isn’t mine. The stained glass studio that has occupied the building (since 1995 if I recall correctly) is still in the process of clearing out. It’s made for a somewhat complicated moving situation, but the owners are very personable and we’re all fine with working around each others junk for the time being.

In the very back of the photo you can see a kiln against the wall. My electric kiln will probably sit in the same place, although I might like to put it in the sandblasting room on the left side of the photograph which has some ventilation (even though it isn’t to the outside of the building at this point). That would require moving the 220v outlet, however, and we can’t modify any part of the building in such a way that requires us — or a hired professional — to pull a permit or the city will require us to install sprinklers. I don’t think moving that outlet would require a permit, but I’m not certain. Sprinklers for this building would probably be in the neighborhood of $35,000 based on my previous research. I hope the white cabinet on the right side of the image is left with the building; it will make a nice glaze-crafting station.

My father bought the 19th century building — and will be living upstairs (where we’re temporarily dwelling as well) — for his antique shop.

Filed under Art, Central Nebraska, Grand Island, In the studio, Personal reflection

Successful firing

10 June 2009 by 2 Comments

Looks like a pretty successful firing yesterday by my terms. No explosions or severe splintering, although there are a number of what I figured to be inevitable hairline cracks in the fluffy clouds. All in all I don’t think they are as bad off as I expected though, and I’m already thinking through ways to keep this from happening in the future.

A couple of the sculptural storms actually faired very well in comparison to my expectations. I used reclaim clay that was mostly Steve’s White, a low-fire body that is basically free of anything resembling grog.

DSC_0035

Later this week, maybe even this afternoon, I plan to begin smoke-firing them. I don’t feel like I have the time to attempt this in a barrel as I’d like to this week, so for the time being the smoke will continue to be electric.

Filed under Art, Ceramics, In the studio, Sculpture

In the Studio: New tools

31 December 2008 by Leave a Comment

I already mentioned the scorp I received as a Christmas gift. Today I was given a set of chisels and push knife as well. Forgive the blurry cameraphone capture:

photo0058

Seems like I’m about set for hand tools at this point. Now if I could just get healthy again, maybe I could put them to use when I get back home.

Filed under In the studio

In the Studio: New direction

4 December 2008 by 1 Comment

The cold dark days are here. I like Fall and Winter, especially if there is snow, but unheated garage studios are problematic this time of year. Clay is unpleasant to work with when it’s 40 degrees, or less.

I’ve moved some of my clay inside to keep it at a tolerable temperature. I’ve also begun a new series, working with the figure.

dsc_0002

Storms are less inspiration during the colder months, and I’ve always wanted to work with the figure. This will be my first serious attempt to incorporate it into my work.

The process at this point is pretty much the same. Starting with a block of clay, hollowing it out some, carving. The intent will be to mount it in and on a sculpted piece of wood like the storms on their prairies. In this case the wood will be more dynamic. I hope to finish these clay pieces with a combination of smoke, inlaid stones and gold leaf. The golf leaf is something I’ve wanted to try for a while now as well.

In my mind, this series will speak of how humans are related to the earth and show how beautiful natural materials can be (hopefully!).

Filed under Art, Ceramics, Gemstone, In the studio, Mixed media, Sculpture

In the Studio: The workbench

16 October 2008 by Leave a Comment

It’s been a busy week at work and a slow week in any art or architecture related news, at least via my sources, so I thought I’d share a photo of the workbench today, scrapped together with cameraphone images:

Click on the image for a little more detail.

The cloud forms are actually from a successful firing last weekend. The low swoopy form has a hairline crack in the narrow edge, but I think I can live with that at this stage in my aspiring artist game. Another cloud, not in the photo, cracked badly enough that I won’t use it for a finished product (I didn’t like that one anyway), but will probably experiment with finishes upon its surface. I didn’t apply terra sig to these, unfortunately, so I’m not sure they’ll take smoke very well.

The wood laying around on the bench — scraps from around the studio being laminated together — will turn into the prairies under the storms. I did some sketching from the plane on my recent flight to California as inspiration for these flatter surfaces. The intersections and geometry of fields and pivot irrigation with rivers and forests bears a lot of visual interest.

Oh, and if you saw some off the wall entry from TAE in your feed reader last night just ignore it. I was playing around with something and hit publish when I shouldn’t have.

Filed under Art, Ceramics, In the studio

Part I of II: Are apprenticeships realistic in 2008?

15 September 2008 by 5 Comments

Yesterday I rendered into reality a triple firing failure. I had three storms that were ready to be bisqued, and wanted to take care of that before some upcoming show deadlines and a trip to California that’s going to cut into my studio time. So I ramped up the heat in my old electric kiln very slowly — hoping to drive all of the moisture out of the larger pieces in a very humid post Tropical Storm Ike atmosphere — and hoped for the best. The kiln was at ~ 200 degrees for roughly four hours.

And still I got the worst.

All three pieces self-destructed like a mission impossible mission. That kiln full of shards represents about 30 hours of sculpting. I normally don’t cry over things like this. I’m the kind of person that fully understands that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes. However, my lament goes back to the very limited time I have to be in my studio as an artist with a day job.

After doing a little research online I realized I’ve been overlooking something. I thought, in my reentry ignorance, that as long as I warmed the kiln up slowly enough I’d be able to drive all of the water out of the work before everything hit 220 degrees. Apparently some air bubbles, however, are too deep (when clay is as thick as this was) to find an escape route without help. I hadn’t provided the necessary avenues to release the water vapor in any of these pieces.

In a flurry to add said avenues to already drying pieces, I began stabbing and drilling (if the clay was too hard to stab) into the greenware laying about the studio. I pray my morning strafing allows these other pieces to survive a firing.

I’m also wondering if my methodology needs tweaking. I start with a large block of clay from which I rough out a shape and then get into details. I do hollow them out, although apparently not well enough. Could I coil these things into being? Would slabs work? I’m not really a fan of either of these processes for this kind of sculpture though, and in fact am very much in tune with the process I’ve been using.

At this point, I’m going to stick with my carving method and be much more careful about hollowing the pieces out and stabbing them to give the steam a way out during firing. I think I can make this work. Further, I’m becoming faster at the process and even if I lose one or two (a year?) in the future it won’t be quite as much of a time investment lost.

Filed under Art, Ceramics, Craft, In the studio, Sculpture

In the Studio: More improvisational realism

14 August 2008 by 4 Comments

I little more on the improvisational realism I referred to a couple weeks ago. That post talked about imagining the parts of a storm not visible in the process of making a three-dimensional sculpture.

With this next work — really only the third in this particular vein — I’ve realized that I must make other imaginative decisions even with parts of the thunderstorm depicted in a photograph. In the example above, for instance, the picture shows a bank of wispy clouds trailing off the right side of the anvil, out of the frame. Visually, this isn’t part of the storm structure, so I chose to leave it off.

Similar decisions are being made as a carve along, decisions which at first I regret having to make; the storm is so incredible that I want to render it with equal glory. However, once I get into the piece a little further I’m comfortable with the adjustments that my static medium requires. The dynamic nature of the real-life storm is also reassuring; changes that I make possess the possibility to at least partially reflect what might actually go on in that particular squall.

I’ve thought that other media might serve to better represent clouds, sculpted or cast paper, for instance. Some day I hope to get to those other ideas, but I’m a long way from accomplishing what I hope to in clay right now. Further, the colors and variations of atmospheric firings, such as those in a soda kiln, seem to beautifully mimic the color play on a thunderstorm at dusk.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a soda kiln right now. Anyone have one they want to give away?

Filed under Art, Ceramics, In the studio, Sculpture

Playing around with lead

11 August 2008 by 4 Comments

Glazes that are more or less useless in functional ceramics can do wonderful things for sculptural clay pieces. With this in mind, I’m game for trying some pretty strange things. This isn’t uncommon in the clay world anyway, where my college professors encouraged us with stories of their own experimentation. The one I remember in particular was a pizza being used to glaze a work. Of course, they warned us not to try these things in the university’s kilns.

I fired some glazed works this weekend with a few odds and ends as tests. One of these tests was simply a fishing sinker on a bisqued tile. Such sinkers, as I recall from my fishing days, are made of lead.

The one I used wasn’t as new as the picture above. It had been used and was slightly corroded.

The red in the lower left is iron oxide, as a label on the tile. Some of it leached into the lead on that edge, but I don’t think it changed the color or consistency of the glaze — though I could be wrong. It ran like crazy, which makes sense for a flux material. What was more surprising is how much of it there is on the tile, and subsequently the kiln shelf. The length of the sinker was about 5/8 of an inch long. The tile is roughly 3 1/2 inches square.

I don’t know if or how this would ever make it into my work, but it’s good to know anyway.

Filed under Art, Ceramics, In the studio

A store is reborn

12 July 2008 by 1 Comment

The banner needs some work, but The Aesthetic Elevator Etsy store has reopened, again. Visit it via this link, or click on the screenshot below.

Pricing, as Tim Jones pointed out a week ago, isn’t much fun. I noted in the comments of that post my ceramics professor’s own philosophy. He said he’d rather price one of his platters at $10,000 and have nine to give away as opposed to selling all ten for $1,000. I like that philosophy, but it might not flush itself out in every circumstance. I haven’t used it in my Etsy shop at this point in time, to be sure. However, marking things too low shows a lack of confidence and personal valuation. Pricing too high comes across as pretentious. All things considered, the small sculptures I listed today are probably a good deal, in my opinion anyway, for starting out in earnest.

Tell your friends, or purchase a piece or to as a small meditative addition to your desk or bookshelf. You can find a few different works of mine at MissionaryArts as well, via this link.

Here’s a piece I started this afternoon from the sketch in the background. The banding wheel is new, a very nice tool.

This approach is something I’ve been wanting to attempt for a while now, larger in scale and with more realism than a lot of my recent works. I’m eager to see where it goes. I recently came across a glaze I’d like to try out for this work, after a cloud formation I observed and photographed a month or so ago.

Filed under Art, Business of art, Ceramics, Etsy, In the studio

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