Mishima or the Art of Inlaid Colored Slip Decoration
One of the cool things with keeping a blog is that it serves as a journal for me for trying new techniques and also a way for me to share the results with whomever is interested. I have been meaning to try the technique of inlaying colored slip into a piece, otherwise known as Mishima for awhile now. I just happened to have a leather hard pot available and decided to try it out yesterday afternoon.
Mishima originated in Korea during the Koryo Period (935-1392) where floral and animal motifs were incised and filled in with a contrasting colored slip on tea bowls. Contemporary ceramic artists borrow techniques from the past and make them more current – though often straying from and breaking some rules along the way. Now, isn’t that fun? I certainly like breaking the rules. For example the celadons and blues that I favor are normally fired to cone 10 in reduction (gas firing), however, I use a cone 6 glaze that resembles a traditional celadon in oxidation (electric kiln) that Mary Cay shared with me. Is it cheating? Nah, I don’t think so – I’m just making it work for me.
If you’re interested, a very basic Mishima tutorial follows below:
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Meanwhile, I received a very exciting email and phone call last week. I hope to be able to share the good news with you soon!
In other news, Mary Cay and I visited Denver artist, Mark Brasuell on Friday afternoon. Mark trained as a metalsmith, but has since turned to drawing and painting where he excels! After visiting a bit, touring his studio and getting a sneak peak at some new work in progress for an upcoming show, we purchased a huge lot of jewelry findings, beads, stringing supplies and tools from Mark now that he is no longer interested in jewelry making. We haven’t gone through the lot yet – it’s a bit mind bending with how much inventory we have. This coming week, we’ll be culling the supplies that we want to keep for our own work, and then expect a sister Etsy shop to open in the near future, where we will be liquidating the remaining stock.
Have a creative week,
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& Poll Question">Kiln Opening & Poll Question
I fired both of my kilns yesterday and need to re-load then again today! I could hardly wait to open up the glaze kiln because I had tested a new glaze and texture on some of my pieces. I used a celadon and an aqua libre glaze that’s very runny and so this was a test for me to see how thickly I can apply it without worrying about whether or not the glaze would run all over the kiln shelves. What did I learn?? I can apply the glaze on thickly without worry. Aqua libre is a gorgeous aqua blue crackly glaze that reminds me a bit of the the color of the ocean in the Carribean or something.
Sales have been a little slow on Etsy for the past week and I wonder if I should change my strategy a little bit. I need to gauge other people’s opinions on whether or not I should try a different way to sell ceramic jewelry online. I have 3 different cords/chains in the works; black satin cord with sterling findings, sleek stainless steel cable and crocheted silver wire chain. Obviously each costs me different amounts of money and time to make. So I was thinking, I could sell the pendants and chains separately and if someone just wants the pendant, they could purchase the ceramic piece alone at a lower cost than the whole necklace. If they want a chain or cord to go along with it, they could purchase it separately. Anyway, let me know what you think – I would really appreciate it!
To get around selling jewelry at the Summer Art Market this coming weekend, I am going to be offering free shipping again on all the jewelry in my Etsy Shop on June 9th and 10th.. I’ve also crafted some buttons and magnets that I can sell at the market so that I have some items in an affordable price range.
Thanks again everyone,
Note: My apologies, I had to reconfigure the poll vote counter because it was acting up….
Chuffed!
Last week, I reached a minor milestone…. When I signed into blogger to write a new post, I realized that it was my 200th post since the birth of my blog. I wondered how I would celebrate this feat because as many of you know blog beginnings are shaky at best. I thought an art give-away would be in order and offered a special fabric ACEO to the first person to comment. As fate would have it, Jafabrit was the first to comment. I have been reading her blog for awhile now and have been charmed by both her art work and the “Geordie Lass” phrases she sprinkles about on occassion. One in particular stands out: “I’m chuffed” is frequently used by Jafabrit when she’s really excited and/or pleased about something. I just knew I had to incorporate this word into my gift to her.
She asked me why I had chosen this particular image for her. To tell you the truth, my daughter just did a unit in school on chameleons and I thought this would be perfect for an ACEO. Chuff the Chameleon just seemed to be the right fit!
In other news, I had a little bit of a medical scare the past year. I haven’t shared it and really debated whether or not to do so at all. But, here it goes. Last summer my doctor suggested that I have my first mammogram since I had turned 40 in 2006. 40 seems to be a magic number in the medical community. I went last August and then got a call a day later saying, “Well, we found something, we’d like to do another mammogram and in addition, an ultrasound.” Nervous, I scheduled the appointment and wouldn’t you know, the sonographer and radiologist were speaking quietly to each other looking at the screen, asking me to submit to another mammogram. Then the radiologist gave me some options…he didn’t think that the spot they were seeing looked like cancer but if I wanted to, I could have a biopsy or I could wait 6 months and do it all over again. I asked him, if it was his daughter, wife, mother, etc. what would he recommend? He felt confident that I could wait. I decided to do so after reading the literature on biopsies and also the fact that it was small enough that my treatment options wouldn’t change in 6 months time.
Yesterday, I had my follow up mammogram and ultrasound. I had sort of blocked the whole thing until about 2 weeks ago, when I started to get nervous and played out all the possibilities in my head. The results: There is still something there, but it hasn’t changed/grown etc. and the doctor thinks it’s just a fatty cyst lodged deep in the muscle tissue of my breast. So, relief washed over me and we’ll do another follow up in 6 months time. Why am I sharing? I think it behooves every woman to go in for her annual mammogram. What if it had been something? I never would have known until it had progressed and required more invasive treatment. Needless to say, I’m chuffed!
The photos below are my ceramic ufo from last summer with a coat of celadon glaze on top. It should be out of the kiln by now and I’ll post a photo when I go to the league early next week.
