Posts Tagged “mishima”

Gratuitous photograph
Yes, and yes, this is my mishima weed vase from a few weeks ago, albeit glaze fired. It turned out pretty well, in my humble opinion and is a technique worth further exploration. Since I’m a visual person, I don’t like visiting blogs without photographs, so I threw this one in so that you have something to look at until new work arrives.

Some of you may know that I live in a quasi turn of the century vintage home in Denver, Colorado. I say quasi, because my husband and I basically bastardized the poor cottage a couple of years ago in order to carve out additional square footage for our small family. It blends well into the neighborhood and it does retain it’s vintage charm inside and outside, but it’s been changed way too much to achieve historical status protection. What you may not know about me is that secretly, I would like to live in a modern prefab minimalist home like something you find in between the covers of Dwell magazine. I’m always inspired by the clean lines, funky furniture/accessories and the re-use and purposing of common materials that I find featured in Dwell.

Footstool constructed of cardboard

On Saturday, I was thumbing through the July/August issue of Dwell and came across a little blurb about some cardboard furniture. It piqued my interest enough to actually visit the website that was listed in the magazine. How often does that ever happen? Turns out Swiss architect, Nicola Enrico Stäubli, designed a line of child size furniture using regular old cardboard. He is offering the patterns free of charge from his website, Foldschool. The former landscape architecture student is me is excited to make some for my daughter. One of my favorite things to do while in school was making models and this reminds me somewhat of that activity. I wonder if these patterns could be translated into adult sized models? It’s a project for the future, because I have a lot on my plate right now - but I’ve been eyeing some mattress sized cardboard boxes currently sitting in the alley behind my house that I just might have to save!

Meanwhile, Diana - aka The Lone Beader bestowed me with the “Rockin’ Girl Blogger” award. Thank you and much obliged! I won’t bore you with a long acceptance speech. I am to pass this on to 5 other rockin’ girls out there in blogger land that have never received the award.

Drumroll please…

• Chi aka Peppa’s Studio
• Janet over at A Planet Named Janet
• Even though she’s been absent awhile, I love W.J.’s fractal digital images at Art 166
• Heather at Bad Kitty Art Studio the inspiration she provides
• Paula at Manning-Lewis Studios

I could add many more terrific bloggers to the list, but in the interest of time, stopped at 5. Recipients, please bask in the glory and pass it on if you feel moved to do so.

~Cynthia

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Tags: dwell magazine, foldschool, mishima, rockin girl blogger

Porcelain wheel thrown weed vase with inlaid honeysuckle design - unfired
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.

Celadon Blues by Robert Tichane is currently sitting on my night stand
If you’re interested, a very basic Mishima tutorial follows below:

Step 1) I started with a leather hard vase that I had thrown and trimmed on the wheel
Step 2) Assemble your materials - in this case, porcelain slip colored with French Green mason stain, a ball point pen and the leather hard clay piece
Step 3) Draw your design directly on the clay using a ball point pen (I used a Bic, since it has a medium tip). You can also use carving tools, or whatever implement you prefer.
Step 4) Generously paint on the colored slip onto your leather hard piece. Tip: walk away from the piece and allow the slip to dry.
Step 5) Use a metal rib to gently scrape the colored slip off of the pot. If you allow the slip to dry first, it will be much easier to scrape the slip off of your pot - I say this from experience!

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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Tags: celadon glaze, colored slip inlay, etsy, judas priest, mary cay, mishima