Posts Tagged “porcelain”

I finished painting the last porcelain box yesterday and left all 20 uncovered last night so that I can bisque fire them today. They are all more than leather hard by this stage and with our semi arid climate - they’ll be dry by the time I check on them later this morning. I’ll be glaze firing the lot of them on Thursday just in time for the Summer Art Market on Saturday and Sunday. I’ve been oddly calm the last couple of weeks - which is a sharp departure from the panic mode I normally find myself in right before a show. This happens mainly because I try to make too much too late and then end up having a lot of oops pieces because I didn’t allow sufficient time to dry etc.

As a departure from panic mode which is really rather unpleasant for my mental state as well as my family’s well being, I decided that I would make x amount of items by x date and that is all. It may mean that I won’t sell as much, but that’s okay. It’s better than putting schlock out into the world.

I used to compare my productivity levels to other peoples, and then had a sharp realization that I’m in a different place right now. I’m basically a stay at home mom who happens to have a ceramic studio at home. I’ve always fancied myself a “full time” artist, but the truth is I really work at it part time when I can steal a few moments. I haven’t kept a work log, but I know that when my daughter is in school (it’s summer break right now), I work about 5 hours a day - which translates into roughly 25 hours a week. Now that she’s home, I probably work just as much but at really odd times.

I know there will come a time (and it’s racing up to me fast) when my 10 year old will be a teen and will be less interested in my companionship. So, I’ve reminded myself to relax - enjoy the time I have with her because soon she’ll be out of the house. She’ll be 18 before I know it and I’ll be able to spend uninterrupted hours in the studio when that happens. I don’t want to miss anything right now! It’s a good exercise in being “present” and not wishing my life away too fast.

Meanwhile, I sent this porcelain hand-painted butterfly box to Anderson Ranch Arts Center for the annual auction taking place on August 9 this year. It wasn’t my first choice, but it does represent current work that I hope to continue exploring. I realized that I missed a few deadlines and needed to get something in the mail.

Have a great day everyone,

~Cynthia

I’ve finished embellishing 9 out of 20 boxes

I’ve been slowly plugging away, finishing the 20 boxes that I decided to make for the Summer Art Market taking place on June 14th and 15th here in Denver. I’m happy to report that all 20 have been assembled and that I’ve added all the feet and special themed knobs. After making these, the possibilities seem endless - I have quite a long list in the works. I hope to finish the other 11 in the next 2 days so that I can dry these, bisque fire them and then of course glaze them before Friday, the 13th. Oh me-o-my, Friday the 13th! With that in mind, I definitely plan to have the glaze firing finished on Thursday, the 12th. So far, I’m on track.

A few of the most recent

Rabbit porcelain box

Goldfish

Poppy Box

The knob generally dictates the painted elements that I ultimately add to the box. In this case, I was inspired by the poppies that just finished blooming in my garden. As a departure from my earlier boxes, I added some pink underglaze to the cherry blossom box (see the top photo). I’m not sure what will happen to the color at cone 6 - even so I’m toying with the idea of adding a bit of red underglaze to the poppy box. I realize that I need to make some test tiles for all the underglazes I’ve collected over the past year while teaching my kid’s clay classes.

What’s next on the horizon? I’m making some new lino-cuts so that I can expand my printed boxes and other forms. I have found that I really enjoy hand building with clay. When I was first learning to throw, hand building afforded me some success when the frustration of working on the wheel got to be too great.

I’m almost finished listening to Oprah and Eckhart discuss A New Earth and have had varying degrees of responsiveness from their discussions from “Oh my God - this stuff is terrific” to “this is a bunch of hooey!” Ultimately he does not offer an easy fix to our woes - it takes work on our part and a willingness and awareness to make small changes in our own personal lives. I really get that the premise of the book is to be aware of our own actions, thoughts etc. - to be present in every part of our life. We can’t change anyone but ourselves, but if enough people came to realize this, the world will slowly begin to evolve to a higher consciousness. Food for thought.

Meanwhile, I was deluged by some really heinous splog recently. But funny thing is that it was only on one particular and apparently vulnerable post. I finally had to close comments to that post and the splog has stopped. Some of it even squeaked by Akisment, my spam blocker. Overall, I’m very glad I switched my blog on over to Wordpress and can’t say enough good things about it.

Happy Wednesday,

~Cynthia

Mary Cay and I at the opening standing in front of 2 of her pieces

I drove up to Evergreen by myself yesterday evening for the opening of the “Fine Art of Craft” at the Center for the Arts Evergreen where some of my work was on display. Unfortunately, my husband and daughter did not attend because my daughter came down with strep this past week and wasn’t feeling 100%. It was a fun evening, and while I had peeked at some of the other items on display when I dropped off my work last Monday, it truly was a feast for the eyes to see a variety of different crafts on display together ranging from glass blowing, fiber art, beading, ceramics, to wood working.

The gallery is fairly small, but at its busiest, there were about 150 people crammed in there (that’s my guesstimate). My ceramics mentor and good friend, Mary Cay, had some of her wonderful work on display, including groupings of her bone china canvases. Some former Art Student’s League classmates of mine also came up for the opening and afterwards we all enjoyed sitting down and catching up at The Wine Bar nestled in the pines by the Evergreen Lake.

On my drive up to Evergreen I snapped this photograph of a local landmark - the Spaceship House in Genessee, CO. I would love to tour it someday, but, it’s privately owned. Built in the 1960’s by architect Charles Deaton, its futuristic design is so unusual that it was used in the filming of Woody Allen’s movie, Sleeper in 1973.

Cone 10 porcelain platter freshly thrown

Meanwhile, last week in my studio I threw quite a bit of work to add to the gas firing at the guild taking place this weekend. Out of necessity, I threw bigger than I normally do in an attempt to take up real estate in the kiln since one of our firing partners dropped out at the last minute. I used the tutorial on Emily Murphy’s blog that she calls the “quarter trick” to throw this platter. I normally have a hard time centering more than 5 lbs of clay at a time, so I used 4 lbs as the base, and since I couldn’t find a quarter, I used a 1970’s nickel in the center. Then I centered another 5 lbs on top of the nickel. Once I opened it up, I removed the nickel and was pretty pleased with my 12″ platter. While that’s not as big as the 24″ raku platter I saw on display last night by Bob Smith, I was pleased with my efforts. After the guild sale next weekend, I’m going to practice throwing larger.

I just unloaded the bisque kiln this morning and was so happy to see the platter in one piece, with a nice deep foot. As expected, I lost 4 mugs that went into the kiln damp. I should have made them tumblers instead of trying to add handles at the last minute. Live and learn!

With that said, I have some glazing to do!

Happy weekend,

~Cynthia

PS.  By the time I got up to Evergreen, 2 of my pieces had already sold!