Bodies – Clay That Is…
A small sampling of clay stacked in the damp room of the Colorado Potters Guild
Last Monday, I had a decision to make and let’s just say that decisions are not made lightly by me and I had to call in back up. I had no clay – well, actually I have a lot of clay, but most of it needs to be reconstituted/reconditioned/recycled/whatever after over wintering in my garagio. What’s a girl to to do? I called in a life line…only she wasn’t in when I made the desperate call. So I marched back to the damp room of the Colorado Potters Guild, pulled up my big girl panties and confidently pulled out a 25# bag of P60 (^10 porcelain) determined that I was going to throw me some porcelain just like old times.
Handbuilt Platter by Kathleen Laurie
Luckily while I was dinking around the guild, looking for my shelves and gathering tools, my girlfriend, Kathleen called me back and talked me off the ledge. I hadn’t yet opened the P60 and calmly returned the bag to the damp room and replaced it with a bag of Dover (^10 white stoneware) after Kathleen kindly relayed how forgiving Dover clay is in contrast to the P60 – clearly she was trying to spare me from failure & a hurt ego after tenderly reaching out to the medium again. BTW, both the P60 and Dover clays are manufactured by Mile Hi Ceramics in Denver and Dover’s price tag is a bit friendlier too which is always a happy thing.
I should back track and explain my clay conundrum by telling you that I have mostly worked with ^6 clays and historically have fired my work in my own studio in previous years. So, choosing a new clay body with a different firing temperature is a bit daunting. I have to say that I really like Dover – it’s smooth, but not quite like porcelain. There’s still a bit of grog, but barely noticeable and the clay seems to hold up against abuse very well. I’m still practicing throwing and when I head into the guild tomorrow I’m going to try hand building again – my favorite pastime.
If choosing a clay body is difficult, wait till I get around to glazing…the choices at the guild are fantastic and I’ll be like a kid in a candy shop, paralyzed by the endless combinations of available delicacies.
Rabbit Box and Anniversaries
Rabbit Box
I really like this covered stoneware box, unfortunately, this is the only photo I have of it and I didn’t get photographs of the other side. I like to put different images on each side to keep it fresh. Why rabbits? It reminds me – especially this vintage image – of one of my favorite childhood stories…The Velveteen Rabbit published in 1922 by Margery Williams.
Meanwhile, my husband and I are headed downtown tonight to celebrate our 20th anniversary (has it really been 20 years already?) – which isn’t official until May 19th. Since the 19th is a school night, we’re celebrating early by spending the night at the Hyatt in downtown Denver. We kicked around several ideas – the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park where Stephen King stayed and was inspired to write The Shining, The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs (another historic hotel) and even some other historic hotels in downtown Denver. The Hyatt won out because I love their roof top bar that has a view of the mountains and the city – but also because the designers of the hotel decorated each room with individual artist’s work vs. cheesy giclee prints typical of most hotels.
Don’t worry, my sister in law is staying with my daughter and the dogs and they have quite an evening planned from what I understand.
Have a great weekend,
Cynthia
From slab to lidded box
Stoneware lidded boxes
Better late than never, I have begun production mode (well for me at least) in an effort to have a decent amount of work at the Colorado Potters Guild show opening April 30th here in Denver. I keep forgetting to ask whether or not we are allowed to bring ceramic jewelry for sale, because then I would have no trouble producing 105 pieces in time for the show. Some members do bring buttons and in my mind the leap from buttons to jewelry isn’t a big one, though as a newer member I don’t want to raise the ire of any of the long time members. While I haven’t made any buttons in awhile, I might bring some to this show because they aren’t terribly hard to make and I could crank some out pretty fast.
Meanwhile, my covered boxes are my best sellers – though this time around, I’m breaking the mold a bit. Instead of hand painting the designs in under-glaze like this one that I made last year:
Hand painted lizard box before glazing
I will be adding laser toner decals for the graphic decorations like I did for this one recently:
Seashore themed porcelain box with decals
On the one hand, it loses part of the hand made touch by not painting the boxes, but it does speed up production significantly. Speaking of speeding things up, I was perusing the Essential Guide to Mold Making & Slip Casting Ceramics by Andrew Martin again yesterday while I had some time to kill and think the boxes are the perfect candidates for slip casting! No time to make any right now with a deadline looming. I’ll wait until after the show is over. Until then, I make these boxes 3 – 5 at a time small batch style like artisanal wine or cheese depending on how large of a slab I roll the night before and the size of the boxes I decide to make from each slab. 
I roll a slab from about 4-5 pounds of clay (not sure because I don’t weigh it) and then after smoothing each side with a Sherrill rib, I place the slab between 2 pieces of dry wall to allow it to become leather hard overnight. I suppose these fall into the category of “stiff slab construction” as opposed to soft – which I also dabble in occasionally.
I’m getting better at prying myself away from the computer in the morning – so with no further adieu…
Signing off for the day,
~Cynthia
P.S. I know my theme looks rather boring right now, but several people using IE were having difficulties with my site. I need to personalize this one, but in the meantime, I’m pretending to be a minimalist [as if such a thing were possible].
Back to the studio
I ain't rolling no pie crust – excuse my poor grammar
We’re back home from our mini ski vacation and I am back in the studio in a last minute attempt to crank out work for the Colorado Potters Guild show opening April 30th. I’m starting with the more labor intensive, but popular hand-built items like mugs and boxes and will follow up with wheel thrown work next week – this should allow me enough time to bisque and glaze fire everything in time for the opening. Last fall, visitors were very sad that I didn’t bring more covered boxes. I guess that’s a good thing.
Hand-building square bottomed mugs
I haven’t made any hand-built mugs in awhile, and decided to ease into production by making two mugs yesterday afternoon. I’m using lino-cuts that I fashioned in the shape of my paper templates to make these mugs. I have some ideas for more lino-cuts to expand the line a bit, but I’m not sure that I’ll have time this go around. That activity might have to wait till after the show. I do have 4 lino-cuts though and several soft textures to work with – what do you think – should I make 4-6 of each?
I worked on two at a time to get back into the swing of things
One of the tricky things (for me) in regards to hand-building mugs is to get nice almost seamless interiors and a smooth rim. I used a bit of plastic from a dry cleaning bag and some water to smooth the rim like I do when I throw in an attempt to compress and round the edges of the mugs so that they will be unobtrusive to the user. I also weight the mugs down with some wood boards to keep them from warping while they dry.
Mugs are finished
Voilá, handles are attached and the mugs are ready to begin the drying process. I used the exact same texture for the handles, just with different orientations – I’m not sure which one I like better. There are infinite possibilities just using the same template and textures depending on orientation for a mug or anything else for that matter.
View from the condo where we stayed in Steamboat
After an incredibly mild and fairly warm winter, Colorado has fortunately been graced with snow and lots of it these past 7 days which should help ease the impending summer drought fears just a little bit. While we were in Steamboat Springs for vacation last week, we experienced snowy gray days for all but our last day. Imagine our surprise when we woke up our final day and actually saw the view outside the condo we were staying at – gorgeous! Up until then, we hadn’t been able to see much past the cabin in the foreground. If you click on the enlarged photo,you can even get a peak of a hot air balloon in the distance that was making its way across the valley. We had a great time and the snow was terrific for skiing, but alas, there’s no place like home.
I’ve been on the computer way too long this morning after waking to snow again – but the sky is blue which means that it’s time for me to head to the garagio for the day.
Glad to be back,
~Cynthia
