Summer Vacation means......

What it means is that it is time to start making. Making functional work that just might bring in a few bucks. It also means finishing a commission that got put on the back burner(sorry Luke). Pictures are on the way................

Soooooooo, here are some more pictures of the monoliths, or as I am starting to think of them mounds. I used the cement mixer to mix 120lbs of soil and manure with about 50lbs of clay and 10 lbs of wildflower seeds. Now I just need it to rain really hard for a couple of days and hopefully see some erosion start to happen.

These little puppies are some of the pieces for my porcelain final,

I reformulated some of my clay body to melt at cone 8 and cone 7. The grayish colored clay will hopefully slump, bloat and get nice and shiny when fired to cone 10

The brown clay is a commercial cone 6 clay that turns jet black in reduction. That should melt a little bit too.

More pictures once they are fired!!!!

The monolith reseeding process has begun. After two days they are already beginning to split apart, hopefully the seeds start to sprout soon.

Found some of my ritual project cups hanging around the studio............

NCECA

The conference was a lot of fun. Got to meet some awesome people, see great work and even got mentioned in The ArtBlog.

http://theartblog.org/2010/04/fired-up-about-clay-we-take-a-tour/

Closer to finished

A few more shots of the work that I unloaded today. I am going to shine these little guys up with some Butcher's wax, and then I'll be finished.

1st Tyler Kiln Opening

I opened the kiln this morning not really knowing what to expect. I have fired gas kilns before but not a Bailey so wasn't sure what I was doing the whole time. The results were about 50/50. I obtained a lot of information about my work and the saggar firing process. Going back later today to clean up the all of the pieces and get some better pictures.




Amy also had a lot of work in the kiln, some with new glazes. Since I know what her main glaze should look like I used at as reference as to how I fired the kiln. I think in one or two firings I'll have it figured out.

Sometimes I feel as though my work is always on the back burner. I spend a lot of time loading and firing other people's work at The Clay Studio. It is great when everything comes out the way they expect, I am their best friend. When it doesn't, I have to explain why. It gets stressful and I feel disconnected from the process.

This week I am finally getting to fire a kiln with mostly my own work in it. I'm doing a once firing to Cone 10 and all of the work will be placed in salt saggers, to simulate an atmospheric firing. I haven't gotten to fire a body of my work since the summer, and have to say regardless of the results I will be happy. It's nice only having to answer to your self.

So....I am trying to figure out what ritual is to me. I feel like anything that could remotely indicate a ritual is more a habit, routine or compulsion. Everything from making coffee in the morning, to how i get from place to place, what I eat and brushing my teeth seem like conditioned activities not ritual.

Ritual seems like something that indicates a mystery, or a fear of not being able to fulfill an action without another action. Maybe it is my doubt in a higher being that takes away my need or belief in ritual. Ritual always seems to be associated with ceremony and rites of passage. For me it reminds me of being an alter boy, and seeing the Catholic mass from right beside the alter, that is ritual. It seems to have been lost in our world.

I don't know what it is to me, maybe it is what is missing. Maybe it is time to create my own rituals that allow me to enter a different state of being or fulfill an unknown need within me? Some times I think it might just begin with believing in something inside of yourself.

The process begins with food.........mushroom cheddar omelets for breakfast and slow cooked yankee pot roast for dinner...mmmmmmmmm.....then work

Dreams about Kilns, large and small, gas and electric...............oh how I love thee!

Process? Pretty much sums up every portion of our daily lives if you think about it. For everyone of us it is different, leads to different outcomes, fulfilling or not. In art it is inherent, the object can not come to exist without it. Regardless of the medium, if it is "craft" or "fine art", the process is individual and unique.

I have been thinking about where it begins for me. It is hard to be sure because the beginnings of new things always seem to come from the endings of the old. I think maybe it comes from my interactions and observations throughout the day. They seem to trigger these things that I only feel briefly before falling asleep at night. Which translate into images and objects, lines and curves, shapes and volume.

For me the process itself is still about the creation of an object. The endpoint. That is regardless of the success or failure of the object its self. Usually by the time I am finished the object means very little, it is the work, the steps taken to achieve it, the conversation with peers and the experience of creating that matter the most.



"The true profession of man is to find his way to himself" -Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse