Clay Times Magazine Volume 13 • Issue 72

Clay art

trends,

tools,

and

techniques

®

TIMES

Volume 13 • Number 5 September/October 2007

John Bauman:

Picks of the Season

“Claymobile” Community Outreach Program Making Sense of Unity Formulas Texas Clayfest: BIG Fun for Potters “Botanical” at Santa Fe Clay

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When Adam Silverman went to work in Mashiko, Japan the only tool he brought was a Giffin Grip.

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CL AY

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contents

TIMES

Clay

September/October 2007 Volume 13, Number 5

features 34 John Bauman’s Picks of the Season Harvest some ideas from the bountiful studio of New England potter John Bauman.

40 Line, Color, & Life: The Works of Deb LeAir A former wilderness guide who insists on spending at least two hours daily outdoors, this University of Michigan MFA recipient etches her love of nature into the colorful pots she makes.

44 Clay on Wheels This Philadelphia Clay Studio outreach program brings ceramic art to the community via what’s known as “the Claymobile.”

Pumpkin Jar by John Bauman. 8" x 5". Thrown stoneware with pulled handle.

48 Texas Clayfest In keeping with the largest state’s reputation for doing things big, this annual event just keeps growing and growing ...

exhibits & shows 18 Botanical Santa Fe Clay showcases a fresh collection of garden wonders in the form of natureinspired clayworks.

38 Three Guys and Some Pottery

Untitled by Michael Corney. 8½" x 8" x 8". Electric-fired porcelain with glaze and underglazes. One of various works in the “Botanical” show (see page 18).

Who would have guessed that these artists— 3 guys (and 2 girls!)—would meet each other at Penland and spend their futures together?

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contents

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TIMES

Clay September/October 2007 • Volume 13, Number 5

Get in the groove of thrown and pressed textures with Bill van Gilder’s surface treatments, page 29.

departments 11 YOUR WORDS “Green” Pottery and Handmade Society

13 WHAT’S HOT Clay world news, events, and calls for entries

46 THE GALLERY A selection of unique works by CT readers

59 POTTERY CLASSES Where you can learn claywork in the United States

63 SLURRY BUCKET TIPS Save time and trouble with these studio-tested tips & techniques.

66 CLASSIFIED MARKETPLACE Goods and services offered especially for active clay artists

57 GREAT GLAZES Cover artist John Bauman shares some hot formulas.

On the cover: Carved Five-gallon Jar and Acorn Casserole by John Bauman.

Cone 10-11 stoneware fired with natural gas in reduction. Photo by Joe Hilliard.

columns

Pictured at top: Butterfly Vase by Kelly O’Briant, one of five exhibitors during “Three Guys” show (see story on page 38).

At right: Forest Surround by Deb LeAir. 10" x 10" x 2". Earthenware clay with terra sigillata and copper wash. To learn her story and view more of her work, turn to page 40.

23 AS FAR AS I KNOW “Making Sense of Unity Formulas”

by Pete Pinnell

27 BENEATH THE SURFACE “Could You Leave Your Career for a Life in Clay?”

by Lana Wilson

29 TEACHING TECHNIQUES “Serve ’em Up: A Double-wall Platter Project”

by Bill van Gilder 8

51 TOOL TIMES “More Great Tools for Throwing”

by Vince Pitelka

53 KILNS & FIRING “Under Pressure: How Do You Rate?” by Marc Ward

55 STUDIO HEALTH & SAFETY “Art Teacher’s Arm Injured in Pug Mill Accident”

by Monona Rossol

58 BOOKS & VIDEOS Soda, Clay, and Fire review by Steven Branfman

64 AROUND THE FIREBOX “Something About Tomatoes”

by Kelly Savino

’ the Clay Times Potters Conference at Sea

January 28-February 2, 2008 During our two full ‘at sea’ days, world-renowned presenters Bill van Gilder, Pete Pinnell, and Lisa Orr will share their expertise in wheelthrowing & handbuilding, glaze formulation, firing, sprig molding, and more­—plus they’ll offer evening slide shows and sales of their pots!

It’s the opportunity of a lifetime!

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Save $100 if you sign up by October 10!

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I’ve been doing it for almost 30 years using a variety of clay bodies and glazes. Presently, I single-fire porcelain in an electric kiln to cone 9 in nine hours, and have fired large pieces in as little as six hours in an Olsen fast-fire kiln.

In the Mexican pottery village of Mata Ortiz, where I live part-time, a onehour firing of greenware to approximately 700° C is the norm. Granted, this is a desert region; we know the pieces are dry when placed in the kiln.

In Mata Ortiz, a pre-heat of some kind is undertaken. Thank you, Clay Times, for fomenting this discussion.

Peter Chartrand Mata Ortiz, Mexico

The iPod® Dilemma

I enjoy all modes of clay, buying abstract, functional, and all in-between. Clay is a world of endless possibilities. It has been a part of mankind since the time of Alley

An aspect of successful pottery sales is what I call the dreaded “iPod®” enemy.

How can we turn the iPod group on to ceramic art or any other art form? How do we foster an interest in art in general?

How do we open eyes and souls? [An answer] is not easy to divine.

There may be hope ... hope based upon possible efforts to bring art and design to the public with a focus on American youth. Parents need to take their children to craft shows, museums, and the theater. Hopefully, exposure will negate the anti-art culture that is seen and promoted by participants in videos and television.

Give our American youth options. Artists of all media need to spread the proverbial word that very unique and special objects must be a part of a civil society.

We must find the funding to open the door of creativity in our schools. Art is not a useless endeavor—art is a needed light that must be always shown.

Denise and I have three granddaughters. The goal is very simple: give them chances to see and absorb. Flowers must be allowed to bloom. Will our girls live in a world empty of handmade creations, or a world saturated by sameness and banality? That question is the bottom line.

Thomas Turnquist Lakewood, Colorado [

Regular Columnists: Steve Branfman, Books & Videos David Hendley, Around the Firebox Pete Pinnell, As Far as I Know Vince Pitelka, Tool Times Monona Rossol, Health & Safety Kelly Savino, Around the Firebox Bill van Gilder, Teaching Techniques Marc Ward, Kilns & Firing Lana Wilson, Beneath the Surface Contributing Writers: K.T. Anders Karmien Bowman Mike Donohoe Christina M. Edleman Published by: CLAY TIMES INC. 15481 Second St. • PO Box 365 Waterford, Virginia 20197-0365 (540) 882-3576 • FAX (540) 882-4196 Toll-free subscription line: (800) 356-2529 Clay Times® (ISSN 1087-7614) is published bimonthly, six issues per year. Periodicals Postage Paid at Waterford, VA, and at additional mailing offices.

Annual subscriptions are available for $30 in the U.S.; $36 in Canada; $55 elsewhere (must be payable in US$). To subscribe, call toll-free 1-800-3562529, or visit www.claytimes.com.

Freelance editorial and photographic submissions are welcome: Please contact Clay Times or visit our Web site for writer’s and photographer’s guidelines.

POSTMASTER: Address service requested. Send address changes to: Clay Times, PO Box 365, Waterford, VA 20197-0365. Copyright © 2007 Clay Times, Inc. All rights reserved. The material contained herein is derived from various sources and does not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. All technical material is offered as general information only and should not be acted upon without expert supervision. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

I have been buying, selling, and writing about American studio pottery since 1978. I have observed trends and taste changes fairly closely over this interesting period. I have traveled from coast to coast meeting clay giants such as the Heinos, Harrison McIntosh, Harding Black, and Kurt Wild. Always I am sensing what collectors or clay dealers are involved in at the moment. One goal is to peruse what is selling and who is collecting. I am fascinated by the reasons something sells or is left upon a dusty shelf.

Second, what portion of the public on the street has even a modicum of knowledge of any form of art? Most Americans do not know the difference between art Deco and Art Carney!

Editor & Art Director: Polly Beach editorial@claytimes.com Circulation Manager: Rachel Brownell circulation@claytimes.com Advertising Manager: Karen Freeman advertising@claytimes.com Accounts Manager: Nanette Greene accounting@claytimes.com Proofreader: Jon Singer Office Assistant: Ingrid Phillips

Spouting Off I Your Words

I’d like to add my voice to those suggesting single-firing as a conservation measure. Contrary to popular belief, single-firing does not involve a long firing [or] high-clay glazes.

Oop. Clay has a part in every living soul on this shrinking planet. The first question for potters is simply this: What portion of John Q. Public wants handmade clay, abstract or functional?

magazine

®

Once-Firing: The Way to Go

Clay

TIMES

“Green” Pottery and Handmade Society

ceramic art trends, t oo l s & t e c h n i q u e s

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CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

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What’s Hot

ceramic art world news • events • calls for entries KARMIEN BOWMAN PHOTO

Conferences ‰ Art

of Fine Craft 2007: Original Mind/ Modern Matter, takes place October 4-5 in Lincoln, Nebraska. The event will feature demonstrations by Paulus Berensohn, Jeanne Quinn, Hiroki Morinoue, and Kathryn Finnerty. For further information, contact the Lux Center for the Arts, 2601 N. 48th St., Lincoln, Nebraska 68504; (402) 466-8692; or visit: www.luxcenter. org/afc2007.

‰ The Seventh Biennial Mid-Atlantic Clay Conference takes place in Front Royal, Virginia October 4–7 and will feature special guest Randy Brodnax and presentations by many other accomplished clay artists.

For full event details, e-mail: conference@ theclayconnection.org; call (540) 636-6016; or write to The Clay Connection/MidAtlantic Clay Conference, PO Box 3214, Merrifield, VA 22116.

‰ Sculpture in Public: Part I, Sculpture Parks and Gardens Conference takes place October 15-17 in Seattle, Washington. For full details, contact events@sculpture. org; call (609) 689-1051, ext. 302; or visit: www.sculpture.org. ‰

features Henry Glassy, folklorist and Material Culture author, as keynote speaker.

Live entertainment, throwing and firing demonstrations, pottery sales, and much more will take place throughout the weekend. Admission is free. Plan your lodging ahead of time, and bring your copy of The Potter’s Art for an autograph.

For full details on the annual event, see Karmien Bowman’s story on pages 48-49 of this Clay Times issue.

Tuscaloosa, AL. Guest artists will include Jason Briggs of Tennessee, Curtis Benzle of Alabama, and Ching-Yuen of Taiwan.

Discount registration fee is $135 ($45/ students) through December 30; $160 ($55/students) afterward. For contact information, daily schedule, accommodations, directions, and further details about the conference, visit the Web site at www.alclayconference.org.

‰ The Michigan Ceramic Art Association Conference in Detroit will feature demonstrations, lectures, exhibitions, and tours during Michigan Mud 2007, to take place Oct. 26-27. For full event details, visit www.michclay.com; e-mail: kay@ youristpottery.com; or write Kay Yourist, 1133 Broadway, Ann Arbor, MI 48105.

Calls for Entries

‰ ‰

The Texas Clay Festival takes place October 27-28, 2007. This year’s event

The 23rd Alabama Clay Conference takes place February 8-10, 2008, on the campus of the University of Alabama in

September submission deadlines

‰ En

Feu: Emerging Artists in Contemporary Fine Crafts, to take place December 7-22, is accepting digital submissions through September 18 from emerging, professional Canadian artists with no more than five years experience. For details, contact MAM Fine Crafts Collective,

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

The National Juried Ceramics Exhibition and Symposium is slated for Oct. 17–19 in Lawrence, Kansas. Presenting guests include Dan Anderson, Bob Archambeau, John Balistreri, Mark Burns, Brad Schwieger, Jane Shellenbarger, Beth Cavener Stichter, and Michaelene Walsh. For full details, visit www.lawrenceartscenter.org/ceramicsshow; e-mail: educoord@sunflower.com; or write Ben Ahlvers, Symposium Director, 940 New Hampshire St., Lawrence, KS 66044.

Founder Billy Ray Mangham sings it up with Clay Times columnist David Hendley during the ’06 Texas Clay Festival. A full story on the annual October event appears on pages 48-49.

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CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

‰ Drawing

with/in/on Clay, to take place November 5-December 7, is accepting digital submissions through September 10 from artists who live in NE, IA, KS, CO, MO, MN, ND, OK, SD, and WY. Entry Fee: $15 for three images. Juror: Anna Calluori Holcombe. For a prospectus, send your SASE to Laura Kukkee, Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Gallery, Northwest Missouri State University, 800 University Dr., Maryville, Missouri 64488; ceramic@nwmissouri.edu.

‰ Mark Richard Leach, Chief Curator for the Mint Museum of Craft & Design, will jury submissions received through September 20 for Craft Forms 2007: 13th National Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Craft, to take place November 30, 2007-February 1, 2008.

Entry fees are $30 for digital submissions and $40 for slides. To request a prospectus, please send an SASE to Wayne Art Center, 413 Maplewood Avenue, Wayne, Pennsylvania 19087, or visit www.wayneart.org or www.craftforms.com. ‰ 4th Annual Whimsical Craft Exhibit takes place December 2-January 12, 2008, and is accepting entries through September 24. To request an application, e-mail redbrick@redbrickarts.com, or contact Redbrick Gallery, Fine Craft Retail Shop and Art Center, 95 Rantoul St., Beverly, Massachusetts 01915; (978) 927-5615.

‰ Doug Jeck, Akio Takamori, and Jamie Walker will jury digital submissions of ceramic and mixed-media works received

by September 29 for the Kirkland Arts Center Ceramic Exhibition Clay II, to take place February 15-March 29, 2008. Entry fee is $25 for three entries. For details, contact Kirkland Arts Center, Clay II, 620 Market St., Kirkland, Washington 98033; www.kirklandartscenter.org/clayapp.htm.

‰ Conner Burns will jury digital submissions and slides received by October 18th for the 3rd Annual UAM National Juried Cup Show, to take place December 7-January 25, 2008. Entry fee is $20. For a prospectus, visit www.uamont.edu/ arts_and_humanities/sahcalendar.html. For additional information, contact Scott Lykens, Cup Show, PO Box 3460, Ceramics Dept., University of Arkansas Monticello, Monticello, Arkansas 71656; lykenss@ uamont.edu.

November submission deadlines

‰ Small Rays of Hope and Fragments of a Larger Idea is accepting digital entries through November 1 for its show, to take place December 6-20. Fee: $45 for three entries. To request a prospectus, e-mail hope@rhondaschallerchelsea.com, or contact Rhonda Schaller Gallery, 547 W. 27th St., Suite 529, New York, New York 10001; tel. (212) 967-1338; web: www.rhondaschallerchelsea.com.

December submission deadlines

‰ More than $5,000 will be awarded in conjunction with Big Fish Small Pot: Third International Small Teapot Competition and Show, to take place February 25-March 20, 2008. Digital and slide submissions of small teapots may be entered through December 30. Fee (for three entries) is $40.

To request a prospectus, send your SASE to Art Gallery, Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Pkwy., Mission Viejo, California 92692. Contact: thuntley@saddleback. edu; http://gallery.saddleback.edu. ‰

The Oregon College of Art and Craft is accepting exhibition proposals for 2008/2009 through December 31. Please send proposals/queries to Arthur DeBow, Oregon College of Art and Craft, Hoffman Gallery, 8254 SW Barnes Rd., Portland, Oregon 97225; or e-mail: adebow@ocac.edu.

February submission deadlines

‰ Digital entries for the 8th International Ceramics Competition, to take place August 1-September 30, 2008 in Mino, Japan, will be accepted from

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

‰ HWD 2007: A Regional Sculpture Competition is accepting digital and slide entries through September 28 from artists living in OH, IN, MI, and KY. Petra Kralickova will jury the show, to take place November 5-December 14. Entry fee is $20 for three works. Contact Amy Anderson, Rosewood Gallery, 2655 Olson Dr., Kettering, Ohio 45420; amy.anderson@ketteringoh.org; www.ketteringoh.org; (937) 296-0294.

October submission deadlines

Hot Stuff I News & Events

6977 rue de Bordeaux, Montréal, Quebec H2E 2M2; or visit www.mam-montreal.com/ expos/enfeu_call.html.

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Hot Stuff I News & Events

Foundation, 34 School St., Watkinsville, Georgia.

November 1, 2007-February 4, 2008.

Contact: International Ceramics Festival Mino, Executive Committee Office, 4-2-5 Higashi-machi, Tajimi City, Gifu Prefecture, Japan 507-0801; info@icfmino.com; www.icfmino.com; tel: 81 572 25 4111.

‰ Combined

Talent’s 22nd Annual Juried Competition takes place through September 23 at FSU Museum of Fine Arts, 530 W. Call St., 250 FAB, Tallahassee, Florida.

Ceramics Exhibitions

‰

It’s A Fine Line: Contemporary Hopi Pottery takes place September 20-27 at King Galleries of Scottsdale, 7100 Main, #1, Scottsdale, Arizona.

‰

5th Annual Perspectives: Georgia Potters and Collectors continues through September 19 at Oconee Cultural Arts

‰ Red Heat: Contemporary Work in Clay takes place October 4-26 at University of Tulsa, School of Art, 600 S. Delaware Ave, Tulsa, Oklahoma. ‰

In Continuum: Current Work by Past Members takes place September 8-28 at Clay Art Center, 40 Beech St., Port Chester, New York.

‰ KleinReid: Works by James Klein and David Reid takes place through September 28 at Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, 2 Pine St., Alfred, New York.

‰ The Power of Red takes place through September 30 at Penland Gallery, Penland School of Crafts, 67 Doras Trail, Penland, North Carolina.

GLAZES INC.

Introducing our new Low-Stone 900 Series colors.

Here is the second half of our 37 brand new colors for 900 series low-fire glazes.

As always they are lead-free and dinnerware safe. Each color will work with the existing colors to create new layered effects.

‰

4th Juried Clay Annual takes place September 7-October 5 at WAD Clay Institute, 2100 Mary St., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

‰ Krystallos 2007 takes place September 15-October 14 at Stonewall Gallery, Campbell Pottery Store, 25579 Plank Rd., Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. ‰ 1000 Years of Porcelain takes place September 29-October 12 at Chester Springs Studio, 1671 Art School Rd., Chester Springs, Pennsylvania.

‰

Triple Take, to feature works by Jorie Berman, Crisha Yantis, and Cheri Wranosky, takes place through October 13 at MudFire Gallery, 175 Laredo Dr., Decatur, Georgia.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

‰ Works by Matt Repsher and Tim Rowan will be on exhibit September 14-October 13 at Santa Fe Clay, 1615 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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‰ Clay²: Southwestern Indian Pottery Tiles runs through October 14 at Arizona State Museum, 1013 E. University Blvd., Tucson, Arizona.

945 to 949 94 Fenmar Dr. Toronto, ON Canada M9L 1M5

950 to 954 P.O. Box 874 Lewiston, NY US 14092-0874

955 to 958

959 to 962

Phone:(800)970-1970 or (416)747-8310 Fax:(416)747-8320 www.spectrumglazes.com info@spectrumglazes.com

‰ What a Dish! Dinnerware and Serving Pieces from RAM’s Collection runs through October 21 at the Racine Art Museum, 441 Main St., Racine, Wisconsin. ‰ Drink It In takes place October 4-25 at the Worcester Center for Crafts, 25 Sagamore Rd., Worcester, Massachusetts.

‰ Ceramics of Jack Troy takes place October 20-December 14 at Marywood University’s Suraci Gallery, 2300 Adams Ave., Scranton, Pennsylvania.

‰ The fifth annual It’s Only Clay National Juried Functional Ceramics Competition and Exhibit takes place October 5-27 at Bemidji Community Art Center, 426 Bemidji Ave. N., Bemidji, Minnesota.

‰ Western North Carolina Pottery: The Rodney Henderson Leftwich Collection, takes place September 22-January 13, 2008 at the Folk Art Center, MP 382 Blue Ridge Parkway, Asheville, North Carolina.

‰ Fabulous Finishes runs September 12October 27 at Gloria Kennedy Gallery, 28 Cadman Plaza W. #4M, Brooklyn, New York.

‰ Breaking New Ground: The Studio Potter and Black Mountain College takes place September 21-January 19, 2008 at Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, 56 Broadway, Asheville, North Carolina. [ To list clay conferences, calls for entries, exhibitions, and ceramic news items in Clay Times, please e-mail details to: editorial@claytimes.com. To bypass spam filtering, please put “What’s Hot” in the subject line.

Hot Stuff I News & Events

‰ History in the Making II: Ceramic Traditions—Contemporary Pots takes place September 29-October 27 at Genesee Pottery, 713 Monroe Ave., Rochester, New York.

‰ Hand and Wheel: Purposeful Pots, featuring the work of Mary Bowron and Jill Hinckley plus new work by gallery members, takes place October 9-November 3 at Creative Partners Gallery, 4600 East West Highway, Bethesda, Maryland. ‰

Parades: Freer Ceramics continues through November 4 at the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, 12th St. and Jefferson Dr., Washington, DC.

‰ Fifty American Potters: From the Ceramics Collection of Bruno and Mary Moser runs through November 17 at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, 102 S. 10th St., Lafayette, Indiana. ‰ Form and Imagination: Women Ceramic Sculptors runs through November 24 at the American Museum of Ceramic Art, 340 S. Garey Ave, Pomona, California. ‰

Asheville in Atlanta 2007, to feature works by Kyle Carpenter, Emily Reason, William Baker, and Akira Satake, takes place October 20-November 17 at MudFire Gallery, 175 Laredo Dr., Decatur, Georgia.

‰ Danish Ceramics runs October 4November 24 at Works Gallery, 303 Cherry St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. to feature works

by Tony Marsh, Sun Koo Yuh, and JeanPierre Larocque, takes place October 19November 24 at Santa Fe Clay, 1615 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

‰ Johnston and Jones, to feature works by Daniel Johnston and Mark Jones, takes place through November 24 at North Carolina Pottery Center, 250 E. Ave., Seagrove, North Carolina.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

‰ Collaborative Vessels,

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CLAYTIMES··COM COM n n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 2007 CLAYTIMES

18 18

B O T A N I C A L

Water Ewer and Cup by Julia Galloway. 8" x 4" x 4". Soda-fired porcelain with gold luster and inlaid surface treatment.

S

anta Fe Clay of Santa Fe, New Mexico, recently hosted “Botanical,” a national invitational exhibition featuring work from artists who incorporate reference to flora and botany in either their form or their surface decoration.

Appearing on pages 18-21 is a sampling of works from the show. To view more, as well as a wide variety of works appearing in other Santa Fe Clay exhibitions, click on the “Gallery” link at www.santafeclay.com.

“Peach Tea Picnic” Teapot by Claudia Tarantino. 3" x 11" x 10". Earthenware with underglaze color.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Early Summer by Lucy Breslin. 8" x 14" x 10". Stoneware with glaze decoration.

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Wallflower VIII (Paula) by Cynthia Consentino. 16" x 7" x 6½". Earthenware with glaze and terra sigillata.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Flower Head by Don Kennell. 20" x 20" x 3". Stoneware with full-color decals.

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Untitled by Matt Repsher. 14" x 20" x 10". Earthenware and found wood.

Pitcher with Tray by Ursula Hargens. 8" x 11" x 11". Earthenware with over/underglaze treatment and gold luster.

Vase by Sarah Heimann. 10" x 4" x 5½".

Earthenware with relief surface decoration.

Large Birdcage Jar by Myung Jin-Kim, 18" x 12½" x 12½".

Porcelain with painted underglaze decoration. [

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

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22

Making Sense of Unity Formulas

by PETE PINNELL

I

n several recent columns, we’ve been exploring the basics of glaze chemistry, and in particular how the oxides we use can be categorized. In this column we’ll begin putting numbers with the categories, and will put the information to practical use.

First, why would an artist even want to mess around with all this chemistry and numbers stuff, anyway? The simple reason is that this information provides you with some of the most powerful tools available for understanding glazes and controlling how they act. With this information, you can get the surfaces you want, rather than settling for what the kiln gives you.

But before we look at any glazes, let’s use numbers to describe something a little more simple: fruit salad. This isn’t a very good recipe, but it allows us to look at several different ways we can describe the same thing.

We could list the recipe by weight, which would look like this: 8 ounces of apple 8 ounces of cantaloupe 8 ounces of cherries Or, we could list the recipe by volume: 1 cup apple 1 cup cantaloupe 1 cup cherries

1 apple ½ cantaloupe 8 cherries This third way of describing the salad is also a ratio. We could read it this way: “For every apple, use half a cantaloupe and 8 cherries.” Put this way, a ratio describes the relationship among its parts. In other

This is the way we look at glazes when we convert a recipe (which we usually list by weight) into its unity formula. In unity formulas, the recipe is broken down to its constituent oxides, and then listed as a ratio. If we were to write our fruit salad recipe as a unity formula, it would look like this: Apple

1.0

Cantaloupe .5

Cherries 8.0

We could make this recipe just a bit more complex by having more than one fruit in a column. Let’s say that in our perfect salad we used the same amount of apple, but split it between two different varieties.

We would then write our unity formula this way: Granny Smith apple .5 Braeburn apple .5

Cantaloupe .5

Cherries 8.0

Notice that the first column—the “apple” column—adds up to one. This is what makes it a “unity” formula: one of the columns must always add up to 1. With glazes, we virtually always use the flux column—the first one—as our point of unity. What this means is that no matter how many different fluxes we have in a glaze, the total of all the numbers will always be one. This makes it easy to understand the “amount” of alumina, for instance, since we are always looking at it in relation to the amount of flux in the glaze.

This way of looking at a glaze is known as a Unity Molecular Formula (UMF), and we now know why it’s called unity. The word molecular refers to the way in which we are looking at the glaze’s constituent parts.

We could further subdivide the chemical parts in the formula and look at individual atoms, but it’s easiest to understand the role each component plays when we look

at the glaze in the form of oxides (as we’ve talked about in previous columns).

Let’s look at a real-world example. Here’s a commonly used glaze called Leach Clear:

Leach Clear Cone 9-11 (oxidation or reduction)

Custer Feldspar Silica (quartz) Whiting (calcium carbonate) Kaolin (EPK) Total

40% 30% 20% 10% 100%

Here’s its UMF (rounded for clarity): K2O .16 Na2O .07 CaO .77

Al2O3 .39

Si02 3.9

As you can see, the first column adds up to one, so what we’re saying here is that for each molecule of flux, the formula has .39 molecules of alumina, and 3.9 molecules of silica. (OK, as a side issue we all know that it’s not possible to have less than a full molecule of something, and still have those same qualities. However, we’re talking about a ratio—the proportion of one thing to another—and not actual amounts of substance. For this reason, it doesn’t matter if we talk about a fraction of a molecule).

If you look at the flux (first) column, you can see that it’s subdivided into the different oxides that act as fluxes. In this glaze they are sodium and potassium (from the feldspar) and calcium (from the whiting). It’s always interesting to me how the recipe of a glaze can mislead us.

The recipe calls for 40% feldspar and 20% whiting, which might lead us to think that the major fluxes are the alkalis (sodium and potassium)—after all, the recipe calls for twice as much feldspar as it does whiting. In reality, the major flux in this glaze is calcium—77% of the total, or .77

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Yet another way would be to list it by units. In this form, the recipe would look like this:

words, it doesn’t just tell us what to mix—it reveals something more basic that allows us to understand how the parts relate to each other.

Perspectives I As Far As I Know

Back to Basics, Part 4

23

Perspectives I As Far As I Know CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

24

molecules. That’s not unusual for a glaze (at any pottery temperature), but it’s not what many potters assume.

What do these flux numbers signify? Very broadly, the more alkali there is in a glaze, the brighter the color response will be, but the greater the possibility that the glaze will craze. A glaze that is higher in calcium (and other alkaline earths) at the expense of the alkalis will have a smoother surface and be more durable and craze-resistant, but will not have as bright a color response. It’s kind of like life: you can’t add more of this without losing some of that, so, as in life, we try to strike a reasonable balance.

As far as the numbers go, most glazes fall between .1 and .4 alkali, with the rest being alkaline earth. A glaze with .4 alkali would be considered a high-alkali glaze, while .2 is just about the norm.

to become semi-gloss, satin, and then matte. Very generally speaking, a glaze with a ratio between 12:1 and 8:1 will be glossy; from 7:1 to 6:1 will be semi-gloss; and from 5:1 down to 3:1 will tend toward satin and matte. There are other variables, of course—application and firing rate being just two of them—but this ratio does give us a quick indicator of a glaze’s tendencies.

exactly how many cones we need to lower this glaze. In a case like this, I would mix three tests: one adding .05, one adding .1, and a third adding .15, which correspond to about one, two, and three cones worth to B2O3. One of these would be almost sure to work, and would produce a result almost identical to the original, but at the lower temperature. Neat trick, eh?

Of course you can’t just mix up a bucket of glaze based on its UMF, and I’m sure some of you have been wondering how one changes a recipe to a UMF and back again. If this were the old days (like when I went to school), we would get out our trusty slide rules (boy, does that reference make me sound old) and follow a lengthy chart to convert from one form to another.

These days, everyone uses a computer program to do it. I’ve used Hyperglaze® since the late ’80s, and have liked it as both a glaze database (a place to store recipes) as well as an excellent calculation program. I’ve also used Glazemaster® and Insight®. Both are excellent and, like Hyperglaze, are very reasonably priced. I’ve never used Matrix®, though I know others who have and have liked it. There are also free programs available if you’re willing to look around on the Internet (though they could provide a good example of “you get what you pay for”).

“This information provides you with some of the most powerful tools available for understanding glazes and controlling how they act.”

The middle column tells us how much alumina is in the glaze in proportion to the flux column (remember: this is a ratio). In this case, there is just a hair under .4, or 4/10 of a molecule. How does this compare to other glazes? There are a lot of “limit formulas” published, and they provide a quick guideline for each oxide. For instance, one limit formula says that in high-fire glazes (like this one), the alumina ranges from .25 to .6. There—does that clarify things? I didn’t think so. What I’ve found to be more enlightening is to have students gather the recipes of glazes they’ve used, and translate all of them to unity. Afterward, they can compare their experiential knowledge with the numbers, and begin to see how each oxide actually affects the performance of the glaze.

Generally speaking, the more alumina there is in a glaze, the less runny it will be. In this case, .4 alumina puts this glaze in the middle of the pack among highfire glazes.

The s:a (silica:alumina) ratio can be manipulated by altering the amount of either alumina or silica. For instance, if I wanted to make a glaze more matte, I could either lower the amount of silica, raise the amount of alumina, or a little of both. Any combination of these will lower the ratio of silica to alumina and change the surface of the glaze. Which you might choose depends on what other qualities you want. If we lower the alumina, the glaze will be more fluid when it melts, which may make it runnier, but may also allow it to produce larger crystals (matte glazes become matte because of crystal growth). If we raise the alumina instead, the glaze will tend to be stiffer and more durable, with a smoother surface.

However, it may tend to pinhole, or it may demand a higher maturing temperature.

How would you know which is better?

The only way I know is to mix some tests and try it. If we were to compare glaze calculation to a set of Mapquest® directions, glaze calculation isn’t nearly as precise. It will get us to the right city, and maybe even the right neighborhood, but if we want to find the right house we’ll have to go there and walk around (or in this case, mix some glaze tests).

The silica is pegged at 3.9 molecules. One of the things we look at is the ratio of silica to alumina. In this case, there is 10 times more silica than alumina, which we would write (or say) as a 10 to 1 (or 10:1) ratio.

This ratio—silica to alumina—provides us with a very strong indicator of the kind of surface we should expect from a glaze. A higher silica to alumina ratio will tend to produce a glossier surface.

As the ratio drops, the surface will tend

I should provide at least one real-world use for UMF. What if we want to change Leach Clear into a mid-range (or even low-fire) glaze? We would do that by adding boron oxide, which is quite simple in a unity formula. As a very rough rule, you can lower the maturing temperature of a glaze about one cone for every .05 molecules of boron oxide (B2O3) you add to the formula. Since I don’t know when Leach Clear begins to mature, I don’t know

Next time I’ll walk you through a few specific glazes and show you how you can apply this information. In the meantime, I have an assignment for you. You should acquire a glaze program, put in your favorite recipes, and take them all to the UMF format. Once you’ve done this, you should compare the different formulas, and see what patterns you can find. You may be surprised what you discover. [ Pete Pinnell teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has been a potter for many years and has numerous exhibitions and workshops to his credit.

You can reach him with comments or questions at ppinnell1@unl.edu.

Cruise to the Caribbean with Pete Pinnell, Bill van Gilder, and Lisa Orr from Jan. 28-Feb. 2, 2008 and discover their trade secrets! Full details on the inaugural Clay Times “Cruisin’ for Clay” conference appear on pages 9-10 of this issue ...

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by LANA Wilson

A successful psychotherapist with a Master’s degree, Jo Anna Fireman traded in her couch for a community studio space ... and she’s glad she did.

J

o Anna Fireman has transformed her life’s work focus several times.

She was significantly helped by specific institutions: The New School in Manhattan, New York; Southwest School for Art & Craft in San Antonio, Texas; Piedmont Craftsmen, Inc. in WinstonSalem, North Carolina; Penland School in Penland, NC; and Odyssey Center for Ceramic Art in Asheville, NC. Her experiences emphasize how crucial these art organizations are, and how important it is to be open to change. This is her story.

Lana Wilson: Tell us about your life leading up to your involvement in clay.

Jo Anna Fireman: In 1969, awaiting the birth of my first child, I took my first clay class in sculpture at the New School in Manhattan. I was encouraged to look closely—to see in ways I didn’t know I could. After Manhattan, my husband and I moved to San Antonio, Texas with our children, who were one and two. I took classes at the Southwest School of Arts & Crafts, recently converted from an old convent. I signed up for a throwing class and loved the raku firings.

As soon as our children entered school, I felt a need to be involved more with others. I first worked as a craft shop manager for Piedmont Craftsman Inc. (PCI), then became their director of education. After that I became the program director for a budding alternative art space where visual and performing artists came to collaborate.

Wilson: I know you have been a therapist for years. How did that come about?

Concurrently, my listening and reading made me aware that the earth was in crisis and it was affecting all of us. I began experiencing an urgency to act for the benefit of all beings, especially those without a voice.

Wilson: With such a strong interest in your therapy practice, could you picture yourself moving on to other work?

Fireman: At the time, I was so grateful to be doing the therapy work that I could not imagine anything else. In 1998 my husband and I bought property near Asheville. We wanted to live closer to the land and grow some of our food. Moving was a difficult decision for me. I adored what I was doing, but I could feel a calling to something as yet unknown. I thought I would be creating more intensive retreats on our property, but I couldn’t get motivated to do it. I spent two years in that difficult space.

At the time, my husband was working as an emergency physician, so I had the freedom to wait.

Wilson: So how did you move into clay?

Fireman: I had the vague idea of creating imaginary creatures that would inhabit

our property. A friend gave me a brochure about clay classes at Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts in Asheville. I signed up for “Art for the Garden.” Everyone was making birdbaths and feeders; I made creatures. I was hooked. I took lots of classes, but had no focus. I was doing counseling part-time. About four years ago, I took a class from Becky Gray, a clay artist I knew from [my] Piedmont Craftsmen days. She started the class with inspirational readings about earthrelated topics, asking us to bring what was important in our lives into the clay.

At the time, I was reading about the extinction of species. My pain was huge, verging on depression. I began combining some of the feelings into the functional work I was making. Another teacher asked me to think about whether I wanted to make functional or sculptural work. I realized I wanted to bring my work in line with my concern about our planet. This decision freed some creative juices.

Wilson: Then you found the right teacher for you?

Fireman: Yes, I took a class with Cristina Cordova at Odyssey because I heard she was a wonderful teacher, even though I had no desire to work with the human form. Wow! I felt my kindergarten-self had been put into a graduate environment, where for the first time, someone expected me to look deeply and ask questions about composition and statement. She required us to stay very focused and work, work, work. I was very excited.

Wilson: Then you made a big commitment to a long class at Penland?

Fireman: The following fall (2005, as I was about to turn 62), I set off for Cristina’s concentration at Penland. This felt like a huge commitment of two solid months for my work in clay—away from family, friends, obligations, and distrac-

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

A few years later our family moved to Winston-Salem, converted our garage into a studio, and my husband and I built a raku kiln from an old oil drum.

Frustrated with breakage and lack of color knowledge, I began making wearable art that I sold at fairs and local boutiques.

Fireman: My friends at that time fell into two categories: artists and psychotherapists. I took some time off to discover what [I should do] next, and I was surprised to have one of those major dreams where a voice said I would go to graduate school to become a therapist and work in creative ways to tap the creative spirit. This took me totally by surprise, yet everyone around me thought it seemed perfect. I received a Master’s in Education in Counseling from Wake Forest University, a fairly traditional program; however, I began to explore alternative forms of therapy and self-exploration. I began to see how threads of self-absorption prevented people from opening to their passion and inhibited them from engaging fully in life.

Perspectives I Beneath the Surface

Could You Leave Your Career for a Life in Clay?

27

Perspectives I Beneath the Surface

tions. At the end of our session I was confronted with Cristina’s question, “How serious are you?” Cristina forced me to value my own unique, creative artistic expression.

I returned to Asheville, quit my therapy practice, took a studio space at Odyssey, and said yes to my clay work full-time!

Wilson: What is your schedule like now?

Fireman: I go to my studio five days a week.

However, I still find time to be with my twoyear-old granddaughter, my dogs, and my spiritual learning community.

Wilson: How does it work for you, making your work in a group environment?

Fireman: I am in the process of evaluating this for myself. I like being part of a community of artists. I enjoy the stimulation of others experimenting around me. The challenge is to listen to my own inner rhythms and know when to [tune out] outside stimulation. This is usually most difficult when I am just beginning something new. My iPod only does so much to remove noise when my mind and spirit are wandering and not yet settled. When I walk out from my personal space, there are conversations to enter or avoid, moods to maneuver, or fun to get swept away in. On the plus side is the sharing of resources—physical, mental and spiritual. I enjoy people and especially value when someone drops by who is moved by the art and wants to dialogue about it.

A distinct advantage of the group studio is that four of us are beginning to meet to support each other in our professional lives.

Planning exhibitions with the right group of people spreads the tasks around and has been truly enjoyable. Another advantage of working in a group setting is that if I get discouraged or frustrated, sharing those feelings allows me to move through them.

Sometimes a friend helps me laugh at myself when I get too attached to results.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Wilson: What are your experiences in selling your sculptural work?

28

Fireman: After two years, my studio was overflowing with forms. So with one foot stuck in the mud and the other itchy to move on, I began a dedicated process of reaching out. I sent work to juried shows and discovered the enormous cost of shipping large sculpture across the country.

There was also a small voice questioning my self-worth as I spent more money than I received. Mostly, I viewed these costs as start-up business expenses, and allowed the sweetness of knowing my work was being seen and valued by others to soften the economic impact a bit.

Wilson: I imagine the artist’s path is somewhat different in financial and emotional rewards [from] being a psychotherapist.

Fireman: As a psychotherapist I knew I was being successful in several ways. Firstly, clients paid for my services and I saw them become fulfilled and creative beings. The clients who couldn’t pay for help showed up with eggs freshly gathered from the nest and corn only hours off the stalk.

As an artist, I have received wonderful “fresh eggs” as friends and strangers share their feelings of being both touched and awakened by my work. I hope as I continue to put work out there, a balance will happen between those who offer verbal appreciation and those who buy pieces.

Wilson: Do you have people who are sources of critique you can trust?

Fireman: Yes! It is really important to know that there are people around whose artistic opinion I value. I rely on a few trusted individuals who offer honest appraisals, without bull____. I can also count on them for encouragement on the frustrating days when nothing is going the way I think it should.

Wilson: Would you describe the hard parts of working in clay?

Fireman: The difficult part of working in clay on a regular basis is trusting the process, even when nothing seems to be present. Clearly giving myself an instruction to make nothing of value—to stay focused on playing with the clay, putting things away, and later returning to see if anything wants more exploration—is useful. Showing up and doing something is important, even if it is cleaning my studio. The waiting—on questions without answers revealing themselves through the clay—takes patience and persistence. When I feel particularly frustrated with my process, I find the natural world helps. I go for walks with my dogs, listen to the birds, and allow nature to nourish me.

Fundamentally, my art allows me to articulate my deepest relationship to being alive on this glorious and endangered planet.

I love Paulus Berensohn’s statement that “the purpose of art is to praise, thank, and express our gratitude and wonder. We make art to sing up the earth.”

Lana Wilson is a passionate handbuilder.

See her Web site at www.lanawilson.com.

If you have a comment or critique on her work, she welcomes your e-mail at: lana@ lanawilson.com. If you are a parent and a clay person, see the bulletin board and articles at The ClayParent Web site: www.mud mamasandpapas.com. [

In Form I Teaching Techniques

A Double-wall Platter Project

Serve ’em Up column by BILL van GILDER • photos by rex looney

Necessary Supplies • (1) 4 lb- 8 oz. lump of clay • (1) 12” diameter bat • a throwing sponge and some water • a small rubber or wooden rib • a cut-off wire • a wire knife or needle tool • a tall trimming chuck • a trimming tool Optional: • an erasable board and marker • a lump of handle-making clay

C

1 issue’s project is all about variations: making a wheel-thrown relish-serving platter. It’s a two-step project involving some skill-stretching throwing, with minimal trimming to follow—no lids, spouts, or fancy trimmed feet.

Set up your wheel with the tools and supplies listed on this page, and gather the class. Because this project provides a host of handle or knob variations, I try to get students immediately thinking of, or designing, their own versions of the piece.

Throughout each semester, I repeatedly mention that there are three basic thrown forms from which all our pots spring: the bowl shape, which I teach to students first; the cylinder, which I teach second; and the platter or plate form, which I teach last.

To start that process, I diagram several ideas on an erasable board as I sit down at the wheel and before I touch any clay (Fig. 1). I generally insist that students have some idea of what they intend to make as they sit down at their wheel—otherwise, they’ll get what’s in mind: nothing!

To that end, and keeping in mind the limited time a student will have at a classroom wheel, I try to pick a demoproject that quickly leads them forward skill-wise, and which provides multiple variations on a theme. This

“Make the centered handle tall and narrow —or short and wide. Or, make it very short —about an inch tall—and add a stiffened ‘loopy’ pulled handle on top. Or, add a coiled and textured looped handle, rather than a pulled one. You can leave the top of your

Diagramming the Project

Throwing the Platter Attach a bat and your ball of clay to the wheelhead. At this point I mention, “Use soft clay … the softest throwing clay you can find. It makes the centering and opening so much easier! This is the case with all the plates and platters I make. Using soft clay saves you physical energy, so remember this point as you prep your clay for this or similar projects.

“For this demo platter, I’m using a 4½-lb. ball of clay. The platter will be large enough for you to easily see how I make it, including the little details. However, smaller versions– say, half this size and weight–are really useful serving pieces, too. Your choice.”

With your lump of clay centered low and wide, open it with a fingertip or two all the way down to the bat. This opening will be 1" to 2" in diameter. Next, reposition your fingertips at the top of the opened clay

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

reating skill confidence in a student can go a long way toward building his or her “this-feelsgood” outlook while in the classroom.

I strive to contribute to that feeling. If successful, it often brings students back for another semester or session, and often gets them hooked on this marvelous material.

thrown handle open and thick-rimmed or attach a small, shallow bowl for serving dip, at the top. There are lots of options. Here … let me show you the simplest version and you take it from there.”

29

In Form I Teaching Techniques

2

3

4

5

6

7

and about an inch outward of your opening hole-edge. Press downward and open the clay a second time until your fingertips are about 3/8" from the bat. This 3/8" establishes the platter’s floor thickness (Fig. 2).

and wide (Fig. 6) or tall and narrow (Fig. 7).

Make it very short—but still hollow—and later, add a strap-like, pulled handle (Fig. 8) or attach a textured coil as a lifting device (Fig. 9).” Get ’em thinking…

Now, beginning with your fingertips at the bottom of your second opening and using lots of water, spread the platter open in a 5 o’clock direction. Push the spreading ‘doughnut’ of clay down firmly as it expands. Pressing from the top with your left-hand palm and using your right-hand fingertips to pull the clay outward prevents the clay from rolling over and trapping air below the floor—not a good thing. The goal here is to expand the clay from the inside outward, using lots of top-hand pressure (Fig. 3).

Wire-cut your platter from the bat and set it aside to stiffen.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

“Leave a 1"-thick fat rim of clay at the outside edge area which, when pulled upward —like this—becomes the short outer wall of your platter. Using your small rib, smooth and flatten the floor, back and forth from the center handle to the outside wall.”

30

Next, create the handle. Move your fingertips to the short, fat cylinder at the center of the form. Pull it up and slightly inward and then outward as you near the rim (Fig. 4). Trim away any lopsided unevenness that may appear at the rim using a wire knife or a needle tool, then finalize the handle type and shape.

At this point, mention the diagrams you drew at the beginning of the demo. “Here you’ll make some decisions. You can make the handle open and thick-rimmed at its top (Fig. 5). Or close it off and make it short

8

Drying and Trimming If you’re going to attach a pulled or coiled handle at the center of your platter, make the attachment as the platter nears the soft leather-hard stage and prior to trimming.

Otherwise, I recommend that the platter air dry uncovered for as long as possible, to the point of being almost bone-dry. As your platter stiffens and dries and begins shrinking, it will release itself from the bat. I tell students, “Trimming a really stiff platter allows one to pick it up and flip it over for finishing without distorting its shape.”

Because of the protruding knob or handle, you’ll need to use a ‘chuck’ (or a ‘Charles’ as they call them in England) to elevate the platter as you trim the inner and outer base edges. One chuck option: throw a thickwalled cylinder, 5" or 6" diameter and 5" tall—or a bit taller than the platter’s knob, using stiff clay. Or, use a pre-made, bisquefired cylinder that may be hanging around in your classroom shared-tools bin, as I’ve done here.

Invert your platter onto the chuck, center it, and trim or ‘skim’ the outer base edge round, or softly beveled. Then move your trimming tool to the base area of the handle

9

10 and cut away the sharp edges boarding the hole (Fig. 10). I explain, “Your intention here is to create an even wall thickness throughout the platter, from the top of the knob to the outer rim. Lift your platter from the chuck, and test the overall thickness and the weight with your fingertips. Continue

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In Form I Teaching Techniques

11 John C. Campbell Folk School

trimming if the piece feels heavy. Do this with all the pots you make! Weight really does matter.”

Brasstown, North Carolina

Simple Glazing

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

After bisque-firing the platter, I take an additional five minutes to demo these easy glazing steps:

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With the platter again inverted over the bisque-fired chuck, wax all the base surface and at least ¼" upward on the wall.

While the wax dries, pour an ample amount of glaze into a 5" deep, wide plastic tub. Hold the platter by its knob or handle and submerge the wide plate section completely into the glaze. Drain the glaze from the platter and set it aside to dry. Then clean, or ‘fettle’ away, any attached glaze from the waxed surface.

Register online. Request a catalog.

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“You can stop the glazing process here and leave the handle unglazed. An unglazed handle provides for a really good grip

when the platter is filled and weighted down with food. Or, you can glaze it—and that’s easily done. Watch this.”

Fill a small 2- or 3-qt. bucket to the rim with a second glaze color. Invert the platter and dip just the handle part of the piece into the glaze (Fig. 11).

Finished!

“Low, wide forms can be a challenge. But if you use really soft clay and work slowly, you’ll find the process fairly easy. Let’s go to work!” [

Bill van Gilder has been a fulltime potter and ceramics teacher since the 1960s. He is creator/ host of the Throwing Clay DIY Network TV series and teaches functional pottery-making workshops. He may be reached by e-mail at vangilderpottery@ earthlink.net. His potters’ tool line, van Gilder Tools, is available via the Clay Times online store at www.claytimes.com, or by calling toll-free 1-800356-2529.

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Clockwise from left: Balanced. 14" tall, handbuilt porcelain and steel. • Octopus Plate. 12" tall, thrown plate, porcelain. • Change Coming. 10" tall, thrown egg, porcelain.

Pumpkin Teapot. Standard 153 stoneware fired with natural gas to cone 9-10 in reduction.

Picks of the Season: The Functional Ware of John Bauman

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

STORY By K.t. anders • PHOTOS BY JOE HILLIARD

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J

ohn Bauman understood production pottery from his very first introduction to clay. He was a junior in college when he saw his first pot being thrown and he was captivated by what he calls the ex nihilo process—“where there once was nothing, now stands a pot.”

Upon graduation, Bauman plunged into full-time potting. He began with street fairs, working with one of his instructors. “I built an 8' x 16' shed beside the trailer I was living in, and produced 3,200 pieces a year out of it,” he remembers. “That’s how I survived. It was one of those sink-or-swim things.”

But the school’s brand-new art department had not yet hired a permanent academically-trained faculty, and for the next two years, Bauman’s instructors were grad students who were making and selling their own pots. Thus was Bauman’s future set.

“It left me with holes in my education,” he confesses. “But they taught me the practical aspect of making and selling pottery. In the traditional university setting, you see an aesthetic model rather than a production model.”

So that old “is-it-functional-or-is-it-art” question never really came up. Bauman just kept making his beautiful functional ware. “I can appreciate the way a good handmade pot can elevate the simplest activities, and make them so much more enjoyable,” he says. “Whether it’s the joy of coffee in a favorite mug, or seeing a table set for company with a variety of handmade pots decorating the table, the handmade pot transforms the mundane into an event. I’m fond of calling myself a craftsman. The art part of it will be up to the future to decide.”

But somehow, over the years, art has crept into Bauman’s functional pots. You need only look at their proportion, grace, and the vibrant sense of volume they exude. “Because I was kind of an island unto myself for a good 10-15 years doing my pottery, I didn’t really understand what I was doing,” he says. “Then I went to a David Leach workshop. He talked about volume—a pot should look as if it’s blown up, filled with air. I thought, yes, that’s why I like a curve that comes around further than it needs to when a bowl has ended. I like that sense of the vessel being full when there’s nothing in it. I even like to enhance that [feature] by glazing the inside differently from the outside.”

Surface decoration and glazes are tools Bauman uses to achieve movement and animation in the pots. “I want to make a pot that doesn’t just sit there,” he explains. “Glazes should move your eye around the piece so that you don’t take in the pot all at one time. They also set the emotional impact of the piece. What interests me about glazes is the way they can mimic natural surfaces—a glossy glaze mimicking water, a matte glaze mimicking stone, or an ash glaze mimicking bark. It’s not literal, but it’s familiar. I hope my glazes are part of the piece rather than looking like an application done as a second thought.”

Bauman fires to cone 10 on two schedules, depending upon the glazes he is using. “I’m of the old school where a cone firing is a per-hour unit,” he explains. “One schedule is to fire until cone 10 drops halfway, then let it take an hour to drop the rest of the way. The other is to raise the temperature rapidly once cone 10 drops halfway, and let cone 11 go flat in 15 minutes. That chases a lot more gold along the surface of the red glaze.”

Although Bauman has never done anything else but pottery for a living, he cautions others to run the numbers before deciding on that life course. “You can make a lot of mistakes as a

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Two-quart Acorn-topped Casserole.

Cone 10-11 reduction.

Pattern is equally important to Bauman. “I like pattern that is so much a part of the piece that it actually recedes into it,” he says. His basket-weave and herringbone patterns are drawn freehand with a Williams Sonoma citrus zester. “We potters are fond of raiding kitchen shops for tools,” he quips. But heavy patterning creates a timing problem. “Handles have to go on before the optimum time for carving, so I have to carve in clay I’d rather not be carving,” he says. “After I stick the handles on, I can finish the carving the next day. Timing is the fun part of being a potter.”

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Acorn teapots, just trimmed and waiting to be fired.

Two-quart Red Pitcher. Cone 10-11 reduction.

One-quart teapots with acorn knobs, handles just attached, yet to be trimmed.

Two-quart Red Pitcher, opposite side, featuring gold hare’s fur effect achieved with rutile spray.

Pumpkin teapots in progress; lids still not yet cut.

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20-year-old living in a trailer,” he jokes. “But pretty soon you realize you can’t go into this half-heartedly.” He cites the downside to constant high-volume production: a slow learning curve. “You find yourself so caught up in producing enough just to make a living that you can’t let go of that production in order to learn something that might be better. You don’t have time to explore what might make production easier or more gratifying.”

“... my goal is to capture interest for the long term. Maybe I won’t float on the highs of the hottest trend, but maybe that will lead to longevity. I want to give people the ultimate joy of using the piece for the rest of their lives.”

— John Bauman

The trends that come and go in ceramics faze Bauman not at all. “I’ve seen the pastels of the ’80s, the jewel tones of the ’90s, and whatever else captured the marketplace that were exciting initially, but they didn’t last,” he says. “I ask myself, ‘Would that pot be on the front of my shelf, or would I put it behind something else?’

So my goal is to capture interest for the long term. Maybe I won’t float on the highs of the hottest trend, but maybe that will lead to longevity. I want to give people the ultimate joy of using the piece for the rest of their lives.”

Repetition, of course, is the bane of the production pot-

ter’s life. But Bauman says he doesn’t find it a problem, “When I was into sports, it was nothing for me to go out and shoot 500 free throws a day,” he remembers. But in his pottery, repetition takes on an individual slant for each pot.

He does a lot of work by hand on each piece, often taking up to an hour to decorate a large piece. “My wife rolls her eyes,” he says, “but the issue is, the pieces are made by hand. As a production potter, I could use technology to make every piece the same. A friend once said to me, ‘If you came up with a really nice pot, wouldn’t you love to have 100,000 of them at your disposal?’ That misses the point. Even in repeating forms, my ‘identical’ is never intentionally that identical. It’s inherent to the work made by hand that it’s going to move— it’s going to change and evolve.

That’s a wonderful thing ...”

John Bauman can be reached at: johnanddar@earthlink.com.

See more of his work on the Web: baumanstoneware.com. [

K.T. Anders is a potter and professional writer who resides in Upperville, Virginia. She is a regular contributor to Clay Times.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Tea Set by John Bauman. Turn to page 57 for the green glaze recipe used on this set, plus the red glaze recipe used on the pitcher, opposite page.

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Three * Guys and Some Pottery

Pictured on this page: Soda-glazed stoneware teapots by Doug Dotson. Opposite page, left column: Porcelain vases by Kelly O’Briant.

Right column: Earthenware forms by Ronan Kyle Peterson.

A few chance meetings at Penland School form the basis for future friendships, relationships, offspring, and this joint show & sale...

All of the artists in the show have a connection to Penland School of Crafts. They met there at different times, and two of the exhibiting couples wed after their Penland experience. Shortly after Doug Dotson returned from a two-month class at Penland in 2000, he built his studio and kiln while working for SAS in the Research Triangle Park. His pots are in numerous cabinets and cupboards of the Triangle area, and have been featured in numerous Strictly Functional Pottery National exhibitions in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

D

Doug Dotson’s stoneware is known for its functionality and earthy palette. Doug’s soda-fired pots are casual, comfortable, considered, and well de-

signed. He uses the soda kiln just outside his studio’s back door—a process that accentuates trimming lines and Dotson’s quick finger swipes through wet slip and glaze.

Kelly O’Briant’s pots are made from pure white porcelain, and are embellished with colorful floral decorations and narrative domestic scenes. Elegant yet playful, her pots offer a mood of lightness and coziness.

Ronan Kyle Peterson uses red earthenware clay to make vessels inspired by the natural world, yet rendered in a comic and graphic style. Colorful and animated, his pots are for use in the home, but also tell a story of lichens and lightning bugs whirring through the dark night.

Ronan Peterson wed Kara Ikenberry shortly after they completed their terms as core students at the Penland School.

They then moved to Chapel Hill, NC, where Ronan set up Nine Toes Pottery and Kara established Ikensmith Ironworks.

Both Ronan and Kara have exhibited their work locally and nationally, and recently were blessed with a baby boy, Nolan LaRue Ikenberry Peterson.

For more information and a map to the 5th annual “Three Guys* and Some Pottery” sale, log onto www.dougdotsonpottery. com, or call (919) 542-6439. [

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

oug Dotson Pottery, located near Pittsboro and Chapel Hill, NC, will host the 5th annual “Three Guys* and Some Pottery” sale on September 28-29, 2007.

The sale will include functional pottery by *Doug Dotson, Kelly O’Briant, and *Ronan Kyle Peterson, as well as prints, photos, and books by related guest artists Kara Ikenberry and *Matthew Thomason. The sale begins on Friday with a preview party from 6-9 pm, complete with refreshments and the first chance to purchase work. On Saturday from 10am-5pm, the sale continues with a chance to chat and enjoy refreshments in a more leisurely fashion.

Kelly O’Briant wed Matthew Thomason shortly after their stay at Penland. After completing a residency at the Energy Exchange, Kelly moved with Matthew to Julian, NC to set up a ceramics studio at her father’s horse farm. She has exhibited in numerous national exhibitions and retail shows, while Matthew recently finished teaching a two-week workshop on printmaking at Penland School of Crafts.

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Line, Color & Life Deb LeAir’s Work Has it All STORY BY K.T. ANDERS PHOTOS BY LARRY SANDERS

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

O

40

ne look at Deb LeAir’s work and you know this is a woman whose life is connected to the outdoors. Whether she’s creating botanical images or fanciful forests, whether a piece is representational or more abstract, LeAir’s work is suffused with an organic vitality. It’s part of who she is. “I try to touch the earth a couple of times a day—and not just through clay,” she confesses.

“I have to be outside at some point every day for an hour or two. It gives me a calmness and peacefulness.”

Although she fell in love with clay in high school, even giving up graduating a year early to devote her entire senior year to making pots, once out of school she chucked clay to become a wilderness guide for several years.

It wasn’t until entering college later, thinking to pursue geology, that her love for clay was rekindled. Although she became a full-time potter after

receiving her MFA in ceramics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, she still found time to build a little house in the woods of Wisconsin—all by herself, by the way.

All those wilderness images and adventures are captured right there in her work. “It doesn’t feel like the work and the experience of living in my house in the woods are separate,” she says. When others view her pieces, she wants them to reflect on their own outdoor experience. “I hope people see a relationship between humans and nature that somehow translates to their own lives.”

But LeAir’s surface treatment goes beyond images, real or imagined, of the natural world. Strong color and line create movement that leads the eye down and around, and over and under. Carving adds yet another dimension. LeAir likes thick walls

Pictured on this page, counter-clockwise from top: Going to the Cave. 5" x 5" x 3". Earthenware clay with terra sigillata and copper wash.

Red Spiral and Leaf. 14" x 5" x 5". Earthenware clay with terra sigillata and copper wash.

Centered. 16" x 10" x 4". Earthenware clay with terra sigillata and copper wash.

Opposite page, top to bottom: Honolulu Dreams. 19" x 10" x 10". Earthenware clay with terra sigillata and black glaze.

Variations Box. 6" x 4" x 4". Earthenware clay with terra sigillata.

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Hills and River Platter.

16" x 16" x 4".

Earthenware clay with terra sigillata and copper wash.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

that she can really dig into. Slabs for tiles and boxes are rolled between ½" and 5/8" thick. “I want to have enough depth to make the forms really threedimensional,” she says. “The deepest lines leave maybe only 1/8" thickness of clay in the wall.”

42 42

What’s behind all this decoration? “It’s about activating the surface of the clay,” she says. “I strive to make these surfaces dance. I want to create movement that causes the eye to follow the images. Some of these pieces suggest the beginning of a narrative.”

Boxes, wall sculptures, and tiles comprise the majority of LeAir’s work, although she still throws vases. She carefully plans each piece before wedging clay for the wheel or rolling slabs for tiles. “When I’m throwing, I’m thinking about surface

because I want it to flow around the form,” she explains. “I always carve the bottom so the design flows continually.

And for tiles, I’m doing sketches for the first time in my life. It gives me a map.”

place of glaze. “The terra sig doesn’t melt as much as a glaze,” she says. “I like it better than an underglaze because it’s a soft matte. It doesn’t have that grit—that dryness. It’s a nice, soft surface.”

Carving has always been central to LeAir’s work. “In grad school it was hard-edged and mechanical,” she notes.

Now she goes for a softer, more organic look. “I have pots of tools, but I tend to use those little Kemper ribbon tools,” she says. “They get better and better as they get older because they get thinner and thinner. They are the very best right before they die totally.” She sands the greenware to remove hard edges.

Although LeAir uses terra cotta clay, she mixes terra sig using porcelain, ball clay, and tri-sodium phosphate as a deflocculant to create a white base. After ball milling the mixture for 24 hours, she lets it sit for a week, then takes off the water on top and the sludge from the bottom. “After that much ball milling, there’s very little separation,” she notes.

“Mostly it’s all usable.”

Coloring with Terra Sig To achieve her highly colored matte surfaces, LeAir uses terra sigillata in

She then adds Mason and Drakenfeld stains with Frit 3134 as a flux. “I can mix the colors as if they were oils or acrylics,” she says. “I mix 1/3 cup liquid terra sig and two tablespoons of stain.

That’s a very high percentage of colorant,” she notes.

She’s particularly fond of the iron red she uses. It’s crocus martis, but recently she ran into a snag. “They told me the mine had run out, so I don’t know if it will be available. I ordered 10 lbs.—that will last me a while!”

can’t ever take the woods out of the girl. She still goes to the woods for a periodic fix. “I can pack up and take my work down there for a week or two,” she says. “What I try to get to in my work are visual anecdotes of my own personal feelings and experiences—and nature is very much a part of that.”

LeAir’s life narrative is told on her pieces.But if you can’t see her story, that’s OK. She’s just as happy if you can see your own narrative there instead. [ Deb LeAir can be reached via e-mail at: debleair@yahoo.com.

The terra sig goes on the greenware, then pieces are bisque-fired to cone 04. Over the bisque, she uses either a black glaze or a black copper wash (or a combination of the two) and wipes it off. “The black lies in the recessed areas. Since I’ve moved away from functional ware, I’m using more of the black copper wash. The copper is an even softer look than the hard, shiny glaze in the crevasses. I’ve found that if I thin out the terra sig and put it on in a couple of fine layers, I get a little fine crackle, and then the copper picks all that up.” The final firing is to a soft cone 5.

Large tile pieces and triptychs are fired flat in the kiln. “I can go up to 7" x 21", she says.

“I make railroad-track slices of clay so the pieces can move when they shrink. That also gives them circulation underneath, so that solves warping and cracking.”

Although LeAir still has her house in the woods, she has been living in the city for three years. She finds her work is changing a bit with the new experience. “I think being in the city and having to get what I need from inside myself instead of having it at my fingertips has changed my work,” she says. “I’m becoming more abstract.” But you

My Burma Road. 24" x 24" x 2". Earthenware clay with terra sigillata and copper wash. Mounted on plywood. Pictured below: Abstract Landscape with Frames. 10" x 30" x 1". Earthenware clay with terra sigillata and copper wash.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

43

Clay on Wheels:

The Philadelphia Claymobile

By Christina M. Edleman and Mike Donohoe own neighborhoods?” With start-up funds provided by the William Penn Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Clay Studio purchased the first Claymobile van in 1994, and the program was born.

The concept is simple. The Claymobile works with schools, community organizations, and social service programs from across the region. Pairing them with teaching artists from The Clay Studio, it promotes a unique learning environment where participants can engage in hands-on ceramic arts education.

Claymobile teaching artists are hired from The Clay Studio’s in-house artist programs, while local artists and high-school students with an interest in ceramics also provide additional help.

Often, artists from around the world who participate in The Clay Studio’s Guest-Artist-in-Residence program also participate in Claymobile classes, providing students with a global perspective on arts and culture.

The Claymobile van contains all of the equipment and materials needed for a ceramics class, and is also outfitted to transport the finished pieces back to the Claymobile Support Center for firing.

Laundry baskets and various totes transport the materials, while greenware, bisqueware, and finished pieces are carried in foamlined bread trays. The trays are low and wide, providing ample room for the pieces to be transported without breakage.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Claymobile Teacher Lorraine Charowsky prepares for class.

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A

t a time when educational arts programs in our nation’s schools and neighborhoods can be minimal and inaccessible, one Philadelphia-area non-profit manages to bridge the gap between program availability and community participation. The Clay Studio, a non-profit, Old City-based arts organization, offers hands-on ceramic arts experiences to underserved residents in the Philadelphia region through an award-winning program called the Claymobile®.

The Claymobile grew out of The Clay Studio’s previous attempts to reach young audiences. In the early ’90s the Studio held classes for children, but audiences were limited by the small number of families living in the Old City area at that time. Then a program was designed to bring schoolchildren to The Clay Studio for one day to learn the ceramic art process, but time and transportation issues made it difficult for schools to participate. This is when Kathryn Narrow, The Clay Studio’s educational director, had a vision: “Why not take ceramics classes to the kids in their

By sparing host institutions the cost of obtaining the expensive equipment needed to produce ceramics, the Claymobile program provides an inexpensive way of adding ceramic arts to educational and cultural programs. Classes are not held in the van, but rather in spaces provided by the host. The host site is responsible for providing a space for the class, an invested teacher or staff person to participate, water for clean up and, of course, enthusiastic participants.

Before the start of a residency, Claymobile teaching artists meet with host site staff to discuss project ideas. Projects are designed to address Pennsylvania arts and humanities standards, while helping to reinforce classroom curricula and host-wide themes. The Claymobile program teaches students the basic fundamentals of making handbuilt forms in clay using the pinch, coil, and slab methods. Related vocabulary and the historical and contemporary context in which ceramics has been influential are also introduced, through handouts with word games and multiple-choice questionnaires.

Students build their artwork using terra cotta or white stoneware and simple tools, such as plastic forks and knives for cutting and scoring, and wooden tools for modeling. The work is bisque-fired to cone 06 and glaze-fired to cone 04. Work is decorated using underglazes, and is finished using a low-fire clear glaze. When time limits do not allow for the final glazing process, projects

are sometimes finished using acrylic paint, oil pastels, shoe polish, or clear gloss spray.

Most class sessions fit into four terms—summer, fall, winter, and spring—while several sites run yearround. Classes meet once a week for 90 minutes, for a minimum of six-week residencies, providing a rich experience, exposing students to varied techniques, and giving them a chance to master skills. The program fosters the ability to create, manipulate, and communicate ideas; to work as a team; and to exercise self-discipline.

It addresses one’s need for creative expression, while providing invaluable experience in focusing attention and solving complex problems. As one Claymobile student states, “You can make anything out of a ball of clay, and it always comes out looking nice.”

A subsidized fee based on a sliding scale is charged to the host site per class. Broad-based funding provided by foundations, corporations, government, and individuals helps to keep the cost of the Claymobile affordable, as many potential host sites are only able to provide minimal, if any, financial support toward the program. The Clay Studio believes that the populations served by these organizations benefit most from expanded arts educational opportunities, since they are often the least served.

While clearly establishing itself as one of the defining institutions in the field of ceramics, The Clay Studio remains an integral member of the Philadelphia cultural community by influencing the minds and spirits of its diverse students. Using clay as a means of artistic and personal expression, through its innovative Claymobile program, The Clay Studio is truly “shaping the future of ceramics,” one student at a time. [ For more information about the Claymobile or to pledge your support, visit www. theclaystudio.org, or e-mail: harriet@theclaystudio.org.

Above: Claymobile Teacher Debbie Williams helps a student.

Top of page: Outreach Assistant Mandy Gerth and Claymobile Teacher Harmony Thompson load the Claymobile for a class.

About the authors: Christina M. Edleman is Development Director, and Mike Donohoe is Marketing & PR Coordinator, for The Clay Studio, the Philadelphia region’s only non-profit organization dedicated solely to the education, promotion, and advancement of the ceramic arts.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Since the program began, The Clay Studio has worked in partnership with more than 200 institutions, serving in excess of 12,500 students, and has become a model for similar mobile outreach programs across the country. To meet the overwhelming demand for the program, in 2005 The Clay Studio raised funds to expand the program. A second van was purchased, and all Claymobile operations moved off-site to a new Support Center with shelves and equipment totally dedicated to the program. The Claymobile now visits up to 19 host sites per week and reaches students ranging in age from 3 to 102, each from a variety of socioeconomic and physical circumstances, including deaf and hard-of-hearing children, formerly homeless families, youths in juvenile detention centers, senior citizens, and physically and mentally challenged adults and children.

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Readers Share I Art Works

The Gallery

Post-industrial Landscape. 37" x 35" x 15". Foamed whiteware and cone 08 oxidized earthenware. Gregory Byard, 203 Waterford St., Apt. 3B, Edinboro, PA 16412. E-mail: hydrogen12@mail.com.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Zenfish. 4" x 4 x 12½". Celadon-glazed porcelain fired to cone 10 in reduction.

Susan Ting, Zenclay Studio and Gallery, 2682 University Ave., Morgantown, WV 26505.

E-mail: zenclay@hotmail.com. Web site: www.zenclay.com.

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Untitled. 37 x 30 x 7 cm. Earthenware with red iron oxide and crackle glazes, high-fired to cone 10 in reduction. Cone 015 decal firing. Lee P. Johnson, 230½ N. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA 52245.

E-mail: lee@LPJart.com; Web site: www.LPJart.com.

Untitled. 6" x 8" x 13". Wheel-thrown and textured porcelain with pulled lugs and woven handle. Celadon-glazed and fired to cone 10 in reduction.

Karen Haralson-Galvez, 535 Martin Valley Rd., Walland, TN 37886.

To have your work considered for publication in The Gallery, please send a high-quality color print, slide, or 1050- x 1500-pixel digital image to: The Gallery, Clay Times, P.O. Box 365, Waterford, VA 20197. Please include your name, address, telephone number, Web or e-mail address, type of clay, glaze, firing method, and dimensions of the work. (Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope for photo/slide return.)

Readers Share I Art Works

The Gallery

Blue Kookee Jar. 8" x 8" x 5". Soda-glazed porcelain with copper and blue glazes, fired to cone 10 in light reduction. Julia Terr, Bobcat Studio, PO Box 575, Cloverdale, CA 95425. E-mail: julia@juliaterr.com. Web site: www.juliaterr.com.

Living Teapot. 13" x 13". Hand-carved stoneware with oxide washes, fired to cone 6 in oxidation.

Eric E. Serritella, 528 Sebring Rd., Newfield, NY 14867.

E-mail: eric@muddypawspottery.com; Web site: www.ericserritella.com.

Together. 10" x 6" x 3". Coil-built earthenware with oxides, terra sig, underglaze, and glaze, electric-fired to cone 04. Cassie Ryalls, 917 NW 9th Ave., Gainesville, FL 32601.

E-mail: cassieryallsceramics@yahoo.com. Web site: www.cassieryallsceramics.com.

CLAYTIMES¡COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

A Step Ahead 2. 32" x 6" x 8". Earthenware with stains, electric-fired to cone 04.

Michael A. Prather, 23567 Flick Rd., Saegertown, PA 16433.

E-mail: mprather@hotmail.com. Web site: www.mikeprather.com.

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Texas Clayfest: 15 years & still growing...

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KARMIEN BOWMAN

A

s I made the three-hour drive home after attending the Texas Clay Festival, I simply couldn’t get the chorus of Billy Ray Mangham’s “Texas Clay, Spin, Spin, Spin,” song out of my head. “Stoneware, Porcelain, Raku, and Terra cotta,” a song about getting up and doing it all over again, is on the Trinity Ceramic Supply Catalog CD. It embraces the spirit of this annual two-day event, about to

take place again this year on October 27-28, 2007 in the Gruene Historical District of New Braunfels, Texas.

Sponsored by Trinity Ceramic Supply, Armadillo Clay, and Clay World, the 15th annual Texas Clay Festival will feature invited guest, folklorist, and Material Culture author, Henry Glassy. This annual affair, hosted by

Buck Pottery, is now in its 15th year. It has grown from a small group of eight potters and a few patrons in 1992, to more than 55 clay artists and over 2000 visitors who now attend. In addition to an incredible display of the ceramic arts, attendees are also serenaded by a host of talented potter-musicians.

Last year, for example, Max Butler played the National Anthem on a handsaw. Bringing a hats-off ovation from the crowd, his music was followed by more bluesy ballads, and jazzy tunes for clapping, stomping, and singing along.

A comical presentation later followed as Billy Ray Mangham and Rimas VisGirda explained how potters have to keep a balance of flow between boredom and anxiety, using a flow chart that depicted a scale of “skills vs. challenges.” On the serious side, Mangham explained that the “flow” for him is defined as “a raku zone which equals that state of being happy. It is, when challenged, the concentration on the task with feedback (from the work itself) and deep involvement when concern for self disappears and self emerges.”

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Randy Brodnax leads multiple raku demonstrations, and V Chin demonstrates carving.

More music followed by potter musicians Carl Block, of the Baithouse Stompers and the Extrudinaires, a musical ensemble made up of Karen and David Hendley, John & Dirje Smith, and assisted by Max Butler and Don Gallia. Their easy listening ballad about selling pottery at crafts shows was well received by the audience through tears of laughter.

Roger Allen in his booth.

Billy Ray Mangham’s Sleeping Dog, pictured alongside his live inspiration.

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0907CTFinal.indd 48

Jon Breiger, also a founder, said 9/5/07 4:11:19 PM in the ceramic arts has been on

“Educating the public in the ceramic arts has been one of the goals of the organizers of the festival since its inception.”

During continuous demonstrations, five or six artists simultaneously performed their expertise for the curious crowds. Under five different tents, observers could see just how a sculpture was constructed, how a vase was thrown, or what goes into decorating a charger. Nearly all of the 55 participants demonstrated their craft over the course of the two days.

In a big, open area where kilns were set up, renowned educator and clay sculptor Randy Brodnax shared swamp tales, glaze application techniques, raku -firing and post-fire surface treatments.

Ed Taylor revealed his precise timing for post-fire reduction and the “burping” of a matte metallic copper glaze which seemed virtually fluorescent. The crowd seemingly oohed and aahed collectively on cue.

Having conceived the idea of the Texas Clay Festival in 1992, Billy Ray Mangham remains the group’s spiritual leader. Billy says “We’ll do it (the festival) until it’s not fun anymore.”

o a founder,0907CTFinal.indd said “Educating 49 the public arts has been one of the goals of the

Colorful raku works by conference founder Billy Ray Mangham.

“One of the reasons we do this is because we love clay and our clay community in central Texas,” says Jan Brieger. “It’s our calling. We have so much good energy when we get together to plan the festival ... It’s not just about the work or selling; it’s dedication to educate and keep the show fresh.”

Admission is free, but be sure to plan

your lodging ahead of time. Full details on this year’s festival can be found at: www. texasclayfestival.com. [ Karmien Bowman is an Associate Professor of Art at Tarrant County College, Northeast Campus in Fort Worth, Texas where she teaches ceramics and art metals. She may be reached via e-mail at: karmien.bowman@ tccd.edu.

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CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Demo techniques too numerous to fully describe were presented by artists including Vorakit Chinookoswong (V Chin) from Houston, David Hendley, and the Chicken Farm Art Center’s own Roger Allen from San Angelo. Working among yellow blossoms, Linda Gossett told stories while demonstrating slab-construction forms. Mark Epstein and Lisa Orr demonstrated various ways to alter forms thrown on the wheel while Gary Hatcher, Daphne Hatcher, and Dee Buck demonstrated as well. Beverly Mangham, Gaye Lynn Hodgson, Jan Brieger, and Terry Buck entertained as a chorus with their various handbuilding techniques.

So much variety was so inspiring!

Conference host Buck Pottery offers wood-fired/tenmoku-glazed pots for sale.

49

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Insider tips on selecting tools for wheel use

A

drum sanders to make this a practical possibility, but if you do have that access, you can make exactly the tools you want.

Modeling Tools There is a tremendous range of personal style and preference in the use of modeling tools in throwing, but a number of them apply to fairly common and universal needs.

In our first ceramics experience, most of us purchased the standard Kemper tool kit, which includes a modeling tool normally called a wooden knife. It’s a useful tool for cutting away the large amounts of waste clay that novice throwers often have at the bottom of their pots. As a potter’s skills develop, I find the Kemper WT1 modeling tool (or the slightly longer WT2) more useful. It has a gentlycurved knife edge on one end, and a rounded modeling surface on the opposite end— ideal for making ¼" rounded grooves in the clay surface.

With a little experimentation, you will find that the WT1 is ideal for cleanly removing smaller amounts of excess clay from the lower edges of thrown forms before cutting them from the wheelhead.

Some people prefer a simple 45˚ undercut at the bottom, and for that, the Kemper WT3 or WT4 modeling tool is ideal. The same task can be accomplished with a squarecornered rib held at the appropriate angle, but it seems that many potters prefer the angle built into the tool. The WE27 has the 45˚ cutting blade on one end, but with a rounded modeling surface similar to the WT1 on the other end. Go to www.kempertools.com and click “online catalog” to see images of all the wooden modeling tools and ribs, then compare prices at other sites.

Standard calipers can be used for measurement in both closed and open positions.

As an interesting variation on wooden modeling tools, the buffalo-horn sculpting tools available from www. chineseclayart.com are excellent for throwing. They are not available in nearly as wide a range of shapes as the Kemper wooden modeling tools, but they have a nice feel and hold up well in studio use.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

s mentioned in my previous column, this subject could provide enough material for a book, or a series of books. There is an abundance of good throwing tools available today, including specialized ones designed and made by potters, now available through many suppliers. These tools include those made by Sherrill MudTools, Bill van Gilder’s hand tools, and Rick McKinney’s MKM Pottery Tools. In previous columns I have spoken of the dangers of TAD (tool acquisition disease), but this is one place where you don’t really know how a tool is going to work until you try it. In the case of Kemper wooden modeling tools and ribs, they are such a bargain that you can’t really go wrong. Experiment away. The specialized tools produced by the smaller makers mentioned above fill niches not covered by the more common brands, and are generally designed with careful consideration of the potter’s needs.

Don’t overlook the option of making your own wooden ribs and modeling tools. One small block of hardwood resawn into thin strips is raw material for a lot of tools. Of course, you must have access to a band-saw and disk and

by VINCE PITELKA

Shop Talk I Tool Times

More Tools for Throwing

51

Ribs I’ve written whole columns on the subject of ribs, so I’ll just focus on a few variations that are especially appropriate for throwing. In our early throwing experiences, most of us first become accustomed to the standard ribs that come in the basic Kemper kit. Those include either the RB1 or RB2 wooden ribs, and the S4 kidney-shaped stainless steel rib. The stainless version held at a low angle is useful for very smooth shaping. Held at a steeper angle, it will scrape slurry from the surface, increasing structural integrity of the form. The standard wooden ribs are appropriate for eliminating throwing lines and general shaping, with the choice of straight, concave, or convex surfaces.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

The few variations of ribs that come in that familiar partitioned plastic package serve us well, but I am amazed how many potters just keep on using those without considering or trying others. Both the RB1 and the RB2 have a square corner, but with use it gets rounded and the marks made lose their crispness. If you want to create very crisp, stepped edges or lines in the surface, you need the halfround MudTools SSH010, MKM S4, or Kemper S1, or the rectangular MKM S11 or Kemper S6.

52

A key consideration with all ribs is the degree of flexibility. A wooden rib or a rigid plastic rib imposes its profile onto the clay form. That’s fine as long as we anticipate and use it to our advantage, and of course we can fashion all sorts of “profile ribs” with that in mind. In contrast, when using a flexible stainless steel, plastic, or rubber

rib we control the degree of deflection, and thus the effect on the form is variable. In my May/June ’07 column on “New Products, New Ideas” I talked about the MudTools colored plastic ribs available in many shapes and all in various degrees of stiffness. These offer wonderful possibilities for the potter, and if you like the effect produced by a flexible rubber or plastic rib, I think you will appreciate these ribs.

The featured image on the MudTools home page shows a very soft rib being used like a chamois to smooth the rim of a thrown form.

In that same column, I also mentioned MKM Pottery Tools. Both MudTools and MKM offer an amazing range of ribs: the MudTools in flexible plastic or stainless steel, and the MKM in wood or stainless. Beyond a few specialized applications, it would do no good for me to recommend particular shapes. Go to www.mudtools.com and www.mkmpotterytools.com and peruse what’s available. You can’t go wrong with either of these lines, because every variation looks useful. I want all of them.

Some potters throw with ribs as a means of lifting and stretching the clay with minimal water. In my own limited experience with this approach, small, rounded ribs without any sharp corners work best. These would include the MudTools SSO stainless steel or small “firmflex” plastic rib, the MKM W2a or W7a wooden ribs, or ST3a, S5, or S7a stainless steel, as well as the Kemper RB4 wooden rib available from any supplier, or the Shimpo STD277 wooden “throwing disk,” which I discovered at www.sheffield-pottery.com.

Cut-off Wires I expect that 95% of potters still use the ubiquitous multi-strand stainless steel cut-off wire with ½" dowel handles that comes in that basic Kemper kit. It works okay, but for larger work, consider the Doo Woo heavyduty model available from many suppliers. It has large, comfortable handles and an extra-strong wire. A similar model is available from www. chineseclayart.com. van Gilder Tools offers several interesting cut-off wires that are available from many suppliers, including the Clay Times online store at www. claytimes.com. His “Wiggle Wire” gives a very nice corrugated cut surface. Also, as far as I know, van Gilder’s “Hump Cut-off Tool,” for use when throwing off-the-hump, is the only Japanese-style cutoff string marketed in the U.S. today. You can make your own from the instructions in my book, but Bill’s looks like a good one, complete with the proper shape at the end of the handle for creating the initial groove before making the cut.

Almost anyone can make good cut-off wires with wooden or fired clay handles and stainless steel multistrand bead-stringing wire or fishing leader. To produce a fairly aggressive corrugated cut surface, use a smalldiameter coil spring that has been stretched out. For a more subtle corrugated effect, twist together several strands of string or wire.

Some people like the smooth surface left by plastic fishing line, but I find it problematic.

I prefer the slightly corrugated surface left by a “bumpy” twisted or multi-strand wire that incorporates small air

channels, easing removal of the piece from the bat or wheelhead.

If you want to modify the rim of a thrown form, van Gilder Tools offer a nice wire cutting tool called the “Aluminum Wire Knife” that features a curved metal frame with a stretched wire between the ends. It has a deeper throat than your standard cheese cutter, and doesn’t drag in the clay surface like a knife, thus appropriate for use on freshly-thrown clay. I have seen a similar tool with a bamboo frame available from importers of East Asian clay tools.

Calipers This last tool category doesn’t require much discussion. I like wooden or stainless calipers, and find that the cheap aluminum ones bend easily and corrode quickly. I have no use at all for those doubleended plastic lid calipers that convert between inside and outside measurement.

Trust your eyes and you will quickly learn to accurately measure both lid and gallery diameter with the same set of calipers.

There are all sorts of other specialized throwing tools, but I’ll save them for other discussions. If you throw, you will enjoy trying some of the tools I have mentioned. Don’t succumb to TAD whole-hog, but do get the tools that seem applicable to your ways of throwing. [ Vince Pitelka is professor of clay at TennesseeTechnological University’s Appalachian Center for Craft, an active participant on the Clayart Internet discussion group, and author of Clay: A Studio Handbook. You can contact Vince through his Web site at http:// iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka.

BY marc ward

O

ver the years, my daily amazement with this one issue has not subsided: the issue is gas pressure. The concern is not what gas pressure people use or why, but their inability to find out what that pressure truly is. It is the single biggest hurdle many folks face in order to select the right size burners for their kiln.

Seven months—that’s how long it took one professor to find out this vital piece of information. Seven months of pleading with physical plant services, seven months of calling the gas company, seven months of asking for burners that I couldn’t provide without this information. Why the hell is this so hard?

Now, I’m not faulting this teacher. He was powerfully frustrated. He figured he would just call someone and they would tell him. I wish it were that simple.

OK, we’re still standing at the propane tank … let’s move on. Follow the gas line to the (house, studio, kiln, etc.).

If the line from the tank comes into a brown, green, or gray regulator, the high pressure has been reduced down to 9"-12" water column (low pressure).

Notice if your line has a “T” before going into the brown, green, or gray regulator (this could be anywhere between the red guy on the tank and boring-colored guys elsewhere). If this “T” has a line going to the kiln, you’re on high pressure from the red regulator and can find out your pressure as mentioned above.

Now we move on to the hard stuff: natural gas. Believe it or not, the natural gas pressure at your house is easier to determine than the pressure at a school or in a commercial situation. Almost all homes have low-pressure natural gas (7" water column pressure or ¼ psi).

Some of the confusion arises when

you call the gas company and they say you have a 2-pound (psi) meter. In their world, that means a 2-psi feed into the meter that lowers it to ¼ psi. When you call the natural gas company, you are calling a large corporation/utility with many departments. The folks that are used to getting screamed at because someone didn’t pay their bill on time and they have to pay a reconnect fee, well … they aren’t the people you need to talk to. Do not ask pressure questions of customer service (OK, you can ask, but just don’t believe). When you call, ask to speak to someone in engineering.

Explain to them that you need to know the delivery pressure to the appliance.

The term “appliance” is a standard term and won’t elevate their concern like the term “burner” will. A burner is an appliance, in their language.

If you’re at a large institution and are trapped by the whims of a physical plant employee who views your profession as so much silliness, your progress may be rough. They will be hard-pressed to admit that they really don’t know what pressure you have. If they have spent years looking down their nose at you, they may not be much help …

A little sidebar here: I’ve been dealing with teachers and physical plant folks for decades. The more disrespect the two groups have for each other, the more problems there are. I know, I speak with both of them. I don’t write a column that physical plant workers read. So, you know to whom I’m talking here. Be nice. Make friends. Respect those employees lower than your pay-grade. Most of their reluctance to do what you want or to answer your questions is based on fear. Please recognize that. They’re afraid they will tell you the wrong thing, someone will get continued on page 67

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

There is only one thing that determines gas pressure in any gas system (except an actual natural gas well). That thing is the regulator(s). Propane systems can be easier to determine because you can see the regulators and read their specs or get the model number and call someone with that information. Natural gas systems can be pretty arcane because the regulator is hidden inside the meter. The meter is two things: a regulator and a totalizer (telling the gas company how much to charge you).

Twenty years ago, Jim Bob Gas guy set the meter in place and he installed a certain diaphragm spring that set the pressure. Did he write that down? Does he still work at the gas company? Does it seem to you that no one really cares?

When you find yourself in need of this information, what can you do?

When dealing with propane systems, just looking around can really help.

Start at the propane tank. There should be a regulator there, and its color will be an indicator of its output pressure.

If the tank has a brown, gray, or green regulator, it is an integral 2-stage regulator that reduces tank pressure down to low pressure. (11" of water column pressure or about 2/5 of 1 psi). If the regulator is red, it is a high-pressure, first-stage regulator. This regulator could be a 5-, 10-, or 20-psi regulator.

The model number will give you the information you need to provide to your propane company so they can tell you the pressure. If the red regulator has a big knob or a brass “T” handle, it is a high-pressure, adjustable regulator.

If you have one of these and it doesn’t have a gauge, get one. It will tell you the adjusted regulator pressure.

Shop Talk I Firing

Under Pressure: How Do You Rate?

53

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A few simple measures could have prevented it ...

by MONONA ROSSOL

P

ug mills are used for processing clay. They consist of a screw-like auger that blends the clay and extrudes it. This year, a pug mill accident occurred involving a public school art teacher.* Back in 1999, a similar clay mixing accident caused a worker’s arm to be amputated above the right elbow (see Clay Times March/April 2000 issue).

THE NEW ACCIDENT A Yonkers, New York, art teacher was flown by helicopter from Roosevelt High School to Westchester Medical Center on May 18, 2007 after she caught her arm in a pug mill used for clay mixing.

Police, firefighters, and ambulance workers raced to the school about 12:30 pm.

A STAT flight helicopter was dispatched and landed on the school’s football field while rescue workers spent about an hour dismantling the machine. The school went into lockdown mode to allow emergency services free access throughout the building during the emergency.

No students were in the classroom with the teacher as she was preparing for an art class and making clay in a pug mill, according to school spokeswoman Jerilynne Fierstein. The school was not releasing any additional information about the teacher because Fierstein did not think it was “appropriate” at this time. Lieutenant Hessler said the cause of the accident remains under investiga-

OSHA RULINGS The Yonkers police may notify OSHA, but this federal agency does not have jurisdiction. In New York state, public employees come under a state occupational safety agency called “PESH,” which stands for Public Employees Safety & Health. While OSHA would clearly fine the school’s administrators for having an unguarded machine on their premises, PESH is not likely to penalize the school.

It has been my experience that state agencies are loathe to enforce on other state agencies.

The 1999 accident came under the federal OSHA. They gave the clay company a “serious” citation for 29 CFR 1910.212(a) (3)(ii) and 29 CFR 1910.147(c)(1) which said: Point(s) of operations of machinery were not guarded to prevent employee(s) from having any part of their body in the danger zone(s) during operating cycle(s) and the employer did not establish a program consisting of an energy control procedure and employee training to ensure that before any employee performed any servicing of maintenance on the machine or equipment where the unexpected energizing, start up or release of stored energy could occur and cause injury, the machine or equipment would be isolated, and rendered inoperative in accordance with 29 CFR 1910.147(c)(4).

The penalty OSHA set was $750. Even though the loss of a man’s arm was involved, OSHA considered the “credits” in the case, which were: 1) the clay com-

pany was a small employer, 2) there was no history of OSHA violations, and 3) the employer had immediately corrected the violations.

LEGALITIES The woman from Yonkers, then, can assume that her school will either be fined very little or not at all for her accident.

And workers’ compensation usually pays only a very small amount in such cases. She may try a lawsuit.

Teachers cannot sue their schools.

Workers do not have the right to sue their employers for workplace accidents unless the action causing the injury was deliberate. Some might try suing the manufacturer of the machine.

A lawsuit against the manufacturer didn’t work for the injured worker back in 1999. He sued the manufacturer of the pug mill and lost his case both in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota and in the federal appeals court.** The courts held that the manufacturer of a clay-working machine is not liable under negligence or strict liability theories to an experienced worker who cleaned the machine.

A teacher would probably be considered similarly experienced. In other words, regardless of the severity of this accident or the serious OSHA violation involved, the Yonkers teacher probably has no recourse.

GUARDS OSHA requires that all machines, including pug mills, have guards that make it impossible to put your hand into harm’s way when the machine is engaged.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Police Lieutenant Diane Hessler said the 41-year-old woman’s right arm became lodged in the shaft and that emergency service officers had to cut the shaft from the machine and transport the woman to the hospital with her arm still tangled around the shaft.

tion and that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would be notified.

Studio I Health & Safety

Art Teacher Injured in Pug Mill Accident

55

Studio I Health & Safety

Signs, instruction, warnings will not suffice—the guard must be fail-safe. Yet, I see unguarded pug mills every year in schools and studios. Most are unguarded for one of three reasons: 1) they are so old they were purchased before manufacturers put guards on them, 2) the guard has broken, or 3) the guard was deliberately disabled by workers, teachers, or students.

pug mill accidents. Do not work in any location where an unguarded pug mill is located. If the people in charge do not want to fix the pug mill, this is one case in which calling OSHA or a similar state agency might be a good solution. OSHA can withhold your name.

Each of us, then, must take responsibility for protecting ourselves and others from

Pug mills are wonderful pieces of machinery. My clay mixing/reclaiming rec-

PUG MILL RECOMMENDATIONS

Clay brings us together.

ommendations for schools and studios are as follows: 1. Do not mix your own clay. Working from dry, powdered clay will expose you and everyone around you to silica and other highly toxic minerals. The additional cost of having your clay mixed and shipped to you is negligible compared to the cost of ventilation and OSHA protective programs required for control of silica dusts.

2. If your school or studio wants to reclaim used clay, buy a really good pug mill. These can rework even leather-hard clay and will require only the addition of some water rather than dry clay powder. This means that there should be no significant dust exposure if clay is reclaimed regularly, such as at the end of each work day. Further, no large barrels of soaking chunks of clay will be needed (these often clutter up the studio and breed bacteria and other smelly microorganisms).

3. Be certain the guard on your pug mill is essentially fool-proof and cannot be overridden or easily disabled.

Check the mill periodically to make sure it is in good repair. Arrange for repairs immediately when problems occur.

4. Keep a copy of the operator’s manual handy and follow their recommendations and safety procedures.

5. As OSHA requires, safety-train all workers who will be using the pug mill, especially in lock-out procedures during repair and servicing of the mill.

6. If there are children about, provide a barrier or put the pug mill in a separate room. [

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

* The Journal News, Will David, www. thejournalnews.com, May 19, 2007.

56

** Walk v. Starkey Machinery Inc., 8th Cir., No. 98-2554, 6/8/99.

Trinity Ceramic Supply, Inc. 9016 Diplomacy Row Dallas, TX 75247 214 631-0540 www.trinityceramic.com

Monona Rossol is an industrial hygienist/ chemist with an M.F.A. in ceramics/glass. She may be reached at ACTS, 181 Thompson St., #23, New York, NY 10012-2586; telephone (212) 777-0062; e-mail ACTSNYC@cs.com.

Great Glazes

Share your glaze with us! If it’s published, you’ll earn a FREE Clay Times T-shirt! Send glaze recipes, photo of glaze (if you have one), and your T-shirt size to: Great Glazes, c/o Clay Times, PO Box 365, Waterford, VA 20197.

furnished by JOHN BAUMAN (this issue’s cover artist—sEE article, pages 34-37)

Larry Sanders PHOTO

Millring Red cone 10 reduction/ cone 9 oxidation (pictured on pitcher, p. 35) éé

Custer Feldspar Nepheline Syenite EPK Silica Dolomite Bone Ash Tin Oxide Red Iron Oxide TOTAL

11.0 % 16.0 19.0 14.0 19.0 10.0 6.0 5.0 100.0 %

For gold highlights, spray with a stain of 50/50 Gerstley Borate/ Rutile.

Millring Green* cone 10 reduction (pictured at right)

éé

Whiting Wollastonite Custer Feldspar EPK Silica Bentonite Copper Carbonate Rutile

Five-gallon Carved Jar with Millring Green glaze. Standard 153 stoneware fired with natural gas to cone 10-11 in a reduction atmosphere.

100.0 %

*a modification of Laura’s Turquoise

All recipes are given in percentages (by weight). Results vary with clay bodies and firing conditions; always test first to be sure you’re happy with the results. To mix a glaze batch to store in a 5-gallon bucket, multiply each percentage ingredient by 50 grams (for a half-bucket with room for dipping) or 100 grams (for a very full bucket).

éé Should be suitable for functional and decorative/sculptural pottery. è Questionable for use on functional pottery. Test thoroughly before using. ê Limit to use on decorative/ sculptural work.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

TOTAL

31.0 % 4.0 22.0 28.0 8.0 2.0 3.0 2.0

57

Resources I Books & Videos

Soda, Clay and Fire review by steven branfman

M

y first reaction to a book is always visual. Soda, Clay, and Fire is very handsome. The style is that of a working handbook, with a smooth, water-resistant, and heavy soft cover; bright pages with lots of white space for taking notes; and clean, easy-toread text. There are lots of photos, illustrations, drawings, and charts. The book has a very comfortable feel. Next comes the table of contents. A quick glance, and my interest is peaked, with five chapters: 1) Soda; 2) Clay; 3) Fire; 4) Painting with Fire; and 5) Beyond Materials and Process.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Soda, Clay and Fire is well-conceived, logically organized, well-written, and full of carefully researched information. In fact, Jeff Zamek, Brad Schweiger, and Fred Sweet—all recognized professionals—were consulted as reviewers and contributors. If you are new to soda firing, the book will introduce you to the subject and carefully guide you through what can be a confusing maze of details and elements of a complicated process. If you have soda firing experience, the book will serve to expand your knowledge and awareness of the various approaches to soda firing practiced around the world.

58

The book opens with an inspiring forward

by Jeff Shapiro. Shapiro is not a soda or salt potter, which serves as a testimony to the excellence of this book. In his forward, Jeff notes, “I am not a soda firing ceramicist, but Gail’s writing is seductively attractive and it is easy to be drawn to the process.” Indeed it is!

In her preface, Nichols begins, “Soda glazing was once hailed as an alternative to salt glazing, but has proven to be much more than that.” Indeed, soda firing has gone from a way to “salt-fire” when salt glazing isn’t an option, to a vital glazing and firing method that stands on its own.

In Chapter 1, Nichols introduces the pro-

Soda, Clay, and Fire

by Gail Nichols Paperback • $35.00

cess. She discusses soda as a material, and how it differs from salt. Methods of introducing soda into the kiln are explained, environmental issues are discussed, and personal views on the aesthetics of soda firing are presented by potters including Val Cushing, Jeff Oestreich, Ruthanne Tudball, and Victoria Christen. Though various artists are included in sections of the book, make no mistake: this is not a book of fluffy artist profiles. This is a book of instruction.

In Chapter 2, Nichols offers a detailed presentation of clay bodies and slips. She talks about the necessary characteristics of each, how to choose a clay body, developing clay bodies, and the roles of clay body components in color development.

Chapter 3 covers the basic soda firing process including kiln design, refractories, liner glazes, firing strategies, monitoring the firing, and more. The mention of wadding again illustrates Nichols’s attention to creativity, individual expression, and singularity of the soda process: “Seashells are not the only alternative to alumina wads ... Shell marks on pots have become a bit of a cliché in wood-fired work, and soda glazers are well advised to consider other options ...” I like her approach. Although kiln design is an important part of this chapter, if you are new to kiln building it will not be enough. You will need other books to supplement the kiln building process.

Chapter 4, “Painting with Fire,” interested me the most, as I am a raku potter involved in the creative possibilities of atmosphere, fuel, temperature, and post-firing treatments. Nichols offers all sorts of interesting ways to manipulate the firing, including stacking strategies, atmospheres, firing length, cooling, and post-firing treatment. Particularly intriguing is her discussion of using water vapor in the kiln atmosphere. The final chapter,

“Beyond Materials and Process,” is where the author’s personal aesthetics, technical prowess, and strength as a motivating force come through loud and clear. It is a fitting summary of her approach to clay, pots, art, experimentation, creativity, and artistic freedom. Nichols’s passion for our craft is conspicuous. Rounding out the book are a short-but-effective appendix on health and safety, an extensive bibliography, and an index.

Throughout the book, the author’s writing is clear and to-the-point. Nichols writes in a friendly, supportive style that encourages the reader toward experimentation and discovery. She uses technical terms when necessary, but the text is not bogged down in unnecessary jargon. Color photos of pots, samples of clay bodies, and details of surfaces fill the pages. This is a book for all, regardless of your materials or clay science background.

At the very least, this book will give you knowledge and insight into yet another exciting pottery process. But this is also a book that will expand your creative thoughts and get you to look beyond the obvious. There are practices, methods, and approaches here that can be adapted and applied to other pottery processes.

Soda, Clay and Fire is an interesting read for any potter from a technical aspect, for sure. But most attractive is an underlying philosophy of experimentation, creativity, and personal expression that transcends any one pottery making or firing technique. Go ahead, give this book a try. You’ll be glad that you did. [ Steven Branfman is an accomplished potter, author, and teacher of pottery and ceramics at Thayer Academy in Braintree, Massachusetts.

He is the proprietor of The Potters Shop and School and may be reached at (781) 449-7687 or via e-mail at sbranfpots@aol.com.

Check out these listings to find local programs for wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculptural techniques, & more …

Listings appear alphabetically and include various classes across the United States.

ARKANSAS

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, cont.

KENTUCKY

Flat Rock Clay Supplies — 2002 South School Ave. (Hwy. 71), Fayetteville, AR 72701; (479) 521-3181; www.flatrockclay.com; info@flatrockclay. com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, tile, special topic classes and workshops.

Hinckley Pottery — 1707 Kalorama Road, NW, Washington, DC 20009; (202) 745-7055; www.hinckleypottery.com; info@hinckleypottery.com; wheel-throwing.

Kentucky Mudworks LLC — 238 Jefferson Street, Lexington, KY 40508; (859) 389-9681; www. kentuckymudworks.com; mudworks@insightbb.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture.

FLORIDA

LOUISIANA

CALIFORNIA Xiem Clay Center — 1563 N. Lake Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91104; (626) 794-5833; www. xiemclaycenter.com; information @xiemclay.com; wheelthrowing, handbuilding, sculpture, tile.

COLORADO Northern Colorado Potters’ Guild — 209 Christman Drive, Fort Collins, CO 80524; (970) 416-5979; www.coloradopottery.org; ncpg@comcast.net; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, glazing, fused-glass jewelry.

Trails Recreation Center — 16799 East Lake Avenue, Centennial, CO 80015; (303) 269-8400; www.aprd.org; arts@the-trails.org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, glazing.

CONNECTICUT

The Lake Eustis Arts Accord — 205 & 211 North Grove Street, PO Box 1619, Eustis, FL 32727; (352) 589-4ART (4278); info@lakeeustisartsaccord. org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, raku, firing, sculpture.

Workshops and classes.

The St. Petersburg Clay Company — 420 22nd Street South, St. Petersburg, FL 33712; (727) 896-2529; www.stpeteclay.com; stpeteclay@ stpeteclay.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding.

GEORGIA Callanwolde Fine Arts Center — 980 Briarcliff Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30306; (404) 872-5338; www.callanwolde.org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, reduction, salt, soda, raku, and oxidation firing.

The Ocee Arts Center — 6290 Abbotts Bridge Road, Building #700, Duluth, GA 30097; (770)623-8448; www.oceearts.org; dcocee@bellsouth. net; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, tile, mosaic, firing, glazing/decoration, apprentice programs, workshops.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

ILLINOIS

Eastern Market Pottery — New location on Capitol Hill. 320 3rd Street NE, Washington, DC 22002; (202)544-6669; cbrome@earthlink.net; stoneware, wheel-throwing, glazing, decorating.

Clay Space —28W210 Warrenville Road, Warrenville, IL 60555; (630)393-2529; www. clayspace.net; adult & children’s classes, wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, firing, glazing/decoration.

Louisiana Pottery — 6470 Highway 22, Cajun Village, Sorrento, LA 70778; (225) 675-5572; www.louisianapottery.com; lapottery@eatel.net; handbuilding, special focus classes.

MARYLAND Baltimore Clayworks — 5707 Smith Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21209; (410) 578-1919; www.baltimoreclayworks.org; matt.hyleck@baltimore clayworks.org; workshop contact: forrest.snyder@ baltimoreclayworks.org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, tile, mosaic, decorating, printmaking, slipcasting, wood firing, salt firing.

Shiloh Pottery, Inc. — 1027 Brodbeck Road, Hampstead, MD 21074; (410) 239-8888; www.shilohpottery.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding.

The Frederick Pottery School, Inc.— 5305 Jefferson Pike, Suite C-2, Frederick, MD 21703; (301) 473-8833; www.frederickpotteryschool.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, wood firing.

Montpelier Arts Center— 9652 Muirkirk Road, Laurel, MD 20708; (301) 953-1993; www. pgparks.com/places/artsfac/mac.html; montpelier.arts@ pgparks.com; classes for children and adults include handbuilding, wheel-throwing, raku; special parent/child workshops offered.

Glen Echo Pottery — 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo, MD 20812; (301) 229-5585; www. glenechopottery.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, raku and soda firing.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Tracy Art Center, Elaine’s Pottery Studio — 56 College Street, Old Saybrook, CT 06475; (860) 388-3599; www.exfpottery.com; exfpottery@yahoo.com; adult & children’s classes in wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, decorating, glazing, raku.

Carla’s Clay — 1733 Northgate Blvd, Sarasota, FL 34234; (941) 359-2773; www.Carlasclay.com; cobrien@carlasclay.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, gallery, tools and supplies.

Resources I Classes

Community Pottery Classes

59

APRIL 18 – 20, 2008

Resources I Classes

www.artisphere.us

THE FOURTH ANNUAL

MARYLAND, continued

NEVADA

Chesapeake Arts Center — 194 Hammonds Lane, Brooklyn Park, MD 21225; (410) 636-6597; www.chesapeakearts.org; davidj@chesapeakearts.org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, fully-equipped, open studio hours.

Pottery West — 5026 North Pioneer Way, Las Vegas, NV 89149; (702) 987-3023; potterywest@ cox.net; wheel-throwing.

Jayne Shatz Pottery — 452 Laurel Valley Court, Arnold, MD 21012; (410) 757-6351; www. jayneshatzpottery.com; jesclay@aol.com; wheelthrowing, handbuilding, sculpture, glazing, firing, wall relief and tile, workshops, critiques, marketing strategy, group and private sessions.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Jeff Brown Pottery — 950 1st NH Turnpike, Northwood, NH 03261; (603) 942-8829; www.jeffbrownpottery.com; jeff@jeffbrownpottery.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding.

MASSACHUSETTS

NEW JERSEY

Mudflat Pottery School, Inc. — 149 Broadway, Somerville, MA 02145; (617) 628-0589; www.mudflat.org; info@mudflat.org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, tile.

The Art School at Old Church — 561 Piermont Road, Demarest, NJ 07627; (201) 767-7160; www.tasoc.org; info@tasoc.org; wheelthrowing, handbuilding, sculpture, tile, glazing, raku.

Juliet Rose Gallery & Studio — 191 Reimers Road, Monson, MA 01057; (413) 5969741; www.julietrosegallery.net; julietrosearts@aol. com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, surface design.

Thompson Park Creative Arts Center — Monmouth County Park System, 805 Newman Springs Road, Lincroft, NJ 07738; (732) 8424000, ext. 4343; www.monmouthcountyparks.com; sliu@monmouthcountyparks.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, workshops, raku & electric kilns, beginners-advanced for adults, children, parent/child.

2 Rivers Ceramic Studio — 77 Elm Street, Amesbury, MA 01913-2503; (978) 3882212; www.2riversceramic.com; hamovit@gmail. com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, classes and workshops for adults and children, 24/7 studio access for independent artists.

MINNESOTA Edina Art Center — 4710 West 64th Street, Edina, MN 55435; (612) 915-6604; www.edinaartcenter.com; artcenter@ci.edina.mn.us; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, tile.

Northern Clay Center — 2424 Franklin Avenue East, Minneapolis, MN 55406; (612) 339-8007; www.northernclaycenter.org; nccinfo@northernclaycenter.org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, tile.

www.flatrockclay.com CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

479-521-3181

60

FLAT Mon-Fri 9-6 Sat 9-1

Quality at Great Prices Clay, Glazes Tools, Books Raw Materials Equipment Workshops

LAY C K C O R

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Think Global Buy Local

MISSISSIPPI Bodine Pottery & Art Studio — Rebuilding: New location: 212 Southampton Road, Hattiesburg, MS 39401; (228) 806-3153; www. bodinepottery.com; hukmut@bodinepottery.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, PMC (precious metal clay).

MONTANA Clay Arts Guild of Helena — 3025 Bozeman Avenue, Helena, MT 59601; (406) 449-6080; www.helenaclayartsguild.com; wheelthrowing, handbuilding, raku, studios.

Visual Art Center of New Jersey — 68 Elm Street, Summit, NJ 07901; (908) 273-9121; www.artcenternj.org; Deemick@artcenternj.org; All things clay.

Kissimmee River Pottery — One 8th Street #11, Frenchtown, NJ 08825; (908) 996-3555; www.kissimmeeriverpottery.com; riverpots@earthlink. net; beginner to advanced classes, wheel-throwing, handbuilding, workshops, cone 10 reduction firing, single firing, raku, adult day and evening classes.

NEW YORK Clay Art Center — 40 Beech Street, Port Chester, NY 10562; 914-937-2047; www. clayartcenter.org; mail@ clayartcenter.org; wheelthrowing, handbuilding, sculpture, special topics, kids and adults.

The Painted Pot — 339 Smith Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231; (718) 222-0334; www.paintedpot.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture.

The Potter’s Wheel—120-33 83rd Avenue, Kew Gardens, NY 11415; (718) 441-6614; www. potterswheelny.com; potterswheelny@earthlink.net; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, raku, saggar firing, kids and adult classes.

92nd Street Y Art Center — 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128; (212) 4155562; www.92Y.org/artclasses; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture; intensives in plaster, glazing, and complex serving pieces; open studio available.

Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts — 236 Clingman Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801; (828) 285-0210; www.highwaterclays.com; odyssey@highwaterclays.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, tile.

Sawtooth School for Visual Arts — 226 N. Marshall Street, Winston Salem, NC 27171; (336) 723-7395; www.sawtooth.org; ceramics@sawtooth. org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, tile, classes and workshops in other fine arts and media.

Finch Pottery — 5526 Finch Nursery Lane, Bailey, NC 27807-9492; (252) 235-4664; www.danfinch.com; dan.finch@earthlink.net; wheel-throwing.

OHIO Yost Pottery Studio — 1643 Massillon Road, Akron, OH 44312; (330) 734-0763; www.yostpottery. com; Wheel-throwing, handbuilding, tile, firing.

PENNSYLVANIA Allen Stoneware Gallery & Pottery Studio Classroom — Colony Plaza, 2602 West 8th Street, Erie, PA 16505; (814) 836-0345; www.allenstoneware.com; pottery@allenstoneware.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture.

The Clay Studio — 139 North Second Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106; (215) 925-3453; www.theclaystudio.org; info@theclaystudio.org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture.

SOUTH CAROLINA Adele’s Pottery Studio & Gallery — 1659 Middle Street, Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482; (843) 883-9545; wheel-throwing, handbuilding for children and teens.

TENNESSEE Mud Puddle Pottery and Supply — 538 Highway 70, Pegram, TN 37143 (20 minutes outside Nashville); (615) 646-6644; www.mudpuddlepottery.com; mudpuddle@bellsouth. net; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture.

Southwest School of Art & Craft — 300 Augusta, San Antonio, TX 78205; (210) 224-1848; www.swschool.org; information@swschool.org; wheelthrowing, handbuilding, sculpture.

VIRGINIA Creative Clay Studios — 5704 E General Washington Drive, Alexandria, VA 22312; (703) 7509480; www.creativeclaypottery.com; daisy_gail@msn. com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, classes, workshops, studios, retail supplies, tools, clay.

Jacksonville Center for the Arts — 220 Parkway Lane, Floyd, VA 24091; (866) 787-8806; (540) 745-2784; www.jacksonvillecenter.org; info@ jacksonvillecenter.org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, mosaic, raku and pit firing, glazing and decoration.

LibertyTown Arts Center — 916 Liberty Street, Fredericksburg, VA 22401; (540) 371-7255; www.libertytownarts.com; libertytownarts@verizon.net; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, glazing, decorating, tile, raku.

Nan Rothwell Studio Pottery — 221 Pottery Lane, Faber, VA 22938 (near Wintergreen); (434) 263-4023; www.nanrothwellpottery.com; wheelthrowing, handbuilding, glazing, firing.

ANDERSON dan

ARCHAMBEAU bob

BALISTRERI john

BURNS mark

MARS WUNDERLICH janis

SCHWIEGER bradjane SHELLENBARGER

WALSH mikey

CERAMICS SYMPOSIUM OCTOBER Lawrence Arts Center 17,18,19 Lawrence Kansas

www.lawrenceartscenter.org/ceramicsshow

Manassas Clay & Tin Barn Pottery Supply — 9122 Center Street, Manassas, VA 20110; (703) 330-1040; www.manassasclay.com; manassasclay@aol.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, glazing, raku.

WASHINGTON Northwest Ceramic Art Institute (The Clay Zone) — 2727 Westmoor Court, Olympia, WA 98502; (360) 943-7765; www.theclayzone.com; ddurso@theclayzone.com; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture. [

A year-round listing of your community pottery class in CT and on our Web site is available for just $99—a real bargain!

To feature your classes, call Karen Freeman at (540) 882-3576 or e-mail: advertising@claytimes.com.

Ron Meyers Workshop at Cub Creek Foundation October 27-28 • Appomatox, Virginia (first workshop following devastating Dec. 2007 fire) See all the kilns, studios, and new construction: John’s new house, new kiln shed/glaze kitchen, and brand new resident housing.

Featuring two full days of workshop activities, plus: Slide presentation of Ron’s work • Gourmet dinner cooked by John • Opportunity for participants to share their own work • Great food and music, great work, and great people!

Exhibitions will coincide, featuring works by former and current residents, and Cub Creek friends.

Fee of $175 includes lunch and dinner.

Camping is permitted; registration is limited.

To register, e-mail jessiman@ceva.net.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

TEXAS

The Art League School — Located near the Torpedo Factory at 105 North Union Street, Alexandria, VA 22314; (703) 683-2323; www.theartleague.org/ school; school@theartleague.org; wheel-throwing, handbuilding, sculpture, tile, mosaic.

Resources I Classes

NORTH CAROLINA

61

Introducing the Paragon Iguana cone 10 easy-to-load digital kiln

ClayArtCenter0704ad.pdf

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The new Iguana is a smaller, less expensive version of our popular Dragon kiln. The Iguana’s 18” wide, 18” deep, 22 ½” high interior fires rapidly to cone 10.

The front-loading Iguana is easy on the back muscles.

With the optional 22” high stand, the interior floor is a comfortable 34 ½” high.

• Saves electricity with 3” firebricks.

• Proportional power elements for more even heating • Heavy-gauge steel completely covers the bottom under the firebricks.

• 1 ½” air gap between the The Paragon Iguana plugs into a standard switch box and kiln.

6-50R outlet, so you can fire it on the outlet Electrical components stay most studio kilns already use. cool and last longer.

• Sentry 2.0 digital controller with controlled cooling 2011 South Town East Blvd., • Available in 200, 208, 220, Mesquite, Texas 75149-1122 240, 480 volts, 800-876-4328 / 972-288-7557 1 and 3 phase Toll Free Fax 888-222-6450 Call or email for a free www.paragonweb.com catalog. See your local Paraparagonind@att.net gon dealer.

10:00:54 AM

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62

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Cobalt Carbonate $20/lb.

Cobalt Oxide $30/lb.

Cobalt Sulfate $14/lb.

CMC & V-Gum T $8/lb.

Erbium Oxide $35/lb.

High Purity Red Iron Ox. $3/lb.

Nickel Ox. & Carb. $22/lb.

Silver Nitrate $350/lb. Or 25g for $25 Selenium $45/lb.

Stannous Chloride $22/lb.

Tin Oxide $12/lb.

Vanadium Pentoxide $25/lb.

Looking for helpful studio tips? Got some to share?

This is the place...

Recycled Masks When I am applying underglaze to a sprigged decoration, it can be difficult to avoid getting underglaze on the base pot as well. I have collected the plastic sample credit cards that arrive with credit offers, and have cut a curve or angle into each of the sides. The thin plastic can be eased up to the edge of the sprigged decoration, or sometimes even underneath the edge of it, to act as a mask for the underglaze.

Readers Share I Tips & Techniques

The Slurry Bucket

Mary Saintjohn Yellville, AR These pillow pots by Alisa Holen are protected from interior glaze absorption (and potential explosion) by her Dad’s handy glazing tip below.

Apples & Potatoes It’s the right time of year for these inexpensive household gadgets, in both the kitchen and the studio (buy a set for each location): An apple corer can be used to cut a heavy bevel and broad lines on large forms.

To keep bubble wrap in great shape so it can be used over and over to wrap your pots for travel, secure it with rubber bands (rather than tape, which chews it up during unpacking).

Bill van Gilder Gapland, MD

Achieving Closure If you are making ceramic forms that are enclosed and require very small, inconspicuous venting holes, you need to prevent liquid from

seeping in during the glazing process. If it does, the glaze is difficult to remove and, if it remains, it can blow up your piece when the water turns to steam during the firing.

The solution is to plug the holes with petroleum wax or beeswax, which quickly burns out during the firing process.

My daughter, Alisa, had the pillow pots (pictured above) and I had the solution.

Norman Holen Minneapolis, MN [

FREE CLAY TIMES T-SHIRT! Send us your useful clay tip or technique to share with our readers. If it’s published, we’ll send you a Clay Times T-shirt. Mail your tips (and T-shirt size) to: The Slurry Bucket, c/o Clay Times, PO Box 365, Waterford, VA 20197.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

A potato peeler works for beveling fine edges on slabware, and can also be used for faceting and broad trimming (such as on the underside of a large bowl). Both tools are most effective when used at the leatherhard stage.

Bill van Gilder Gapland, MD

Pots to Go

63

Opinion I Around the Firebox

Something About Tomatoes

by KELLY SAVINO

T

he harvest season is here, with cicadas in the trees and fruit hanging heavy on the branch.

My hands are busy with picking fruit, throwing pots, canning tomatoes, firing pots, making jam and mixing glazes, until the chores all run together in my dreams.

I’ve decided that potters are like tomato plants. I have a different relationship with each of the odd plants in my garden, like with my potter friends, in real life and online. They all have a niche and a purpose, and though they don’t always appreciate each other, they all have a place in the potter’s garden.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Some tomatoes are productive as hell.

They don’t bother much with height and fancy foliage, but get right to work cranking out tomatoes. They start early, and finish late. These hardy, hard workers make the most popular tomatoes for the market: red, round, and predictably uniform. They look the way the public expects a tomato to look. Large or small, they are modern, popular, and can be found in every garden catalog and supermarket.

64

Some of these prolific varieties are tasty.

Some are just easy to ship and sell, or reliably on-schedule enough to make canning season easy. Purists might consider “production tomatoes” artless or unimaginative, just as some potters raise an eyebrow about the sea of colanders and coffee cups in rutile blues and greens at the art fairs. Still, you can be sure they’ll sell, and keep us all fed. And they’ll never quit!

I like to grow heirloom tomatoes, which are unique and unpredictable, and a bit fussy. For all their rare qualities, after a season or two it’s easy to see why they don’t make the top ten that fill the market shelves. Maybe they aren’t so “functional,” being too thin-skinned to survive a trip to market. Maybe they are too “out there” for the non-connoisseur’s taste.

Maybe they have an international influence that doesn’t translate well to the American buying public, like the priceless, wonky Japanese tea bowl that can leave non-potters scratching their heads in bewilderment.

Now that Eastern Europe has opened up, some interesting tomatoes whose seeds were saved for generations have become available here in the U.S. Their shapes and colors are unique. Some even have brown, purple, or orange skin. The flavor is intense, but only the “initiated”

tomato maven would take one home. Black tomatoes look, to the uninformed eye ... well, dark. The heirloom grower, fielding comments at the farmer’s market, would likely have sympathy for the potter whose ash-crusted, earth-toned anagama wares are met with, “Do you have anything in blue?”

A few tomatoes have been modified by modern technology to be unnaturally sweet, or sustain an absurd level of production that leaves the plant a ragged skeleton by August. (What kind of potter is this? I’m not going there; you figure it out!) For whatever reason—pressure, chemicals, or lack of foresight for the long haul—this tomato skipped the step of “having a life” or “taking care of itself first.” Some of these tomatoes (and potters) can even find themselves in the limelight before they crash.

Some tomatoes—like “Silvery Fir Tree”— put a lot of their effort into how they look while being tomato plants. They are amazing to see, with curly ferns of foliage, showy blossoms, big promises, and all the right gear. They scream to the world, “Behold my creativity! See how unique I am! I am the ‘artiste’ of tomato plants!” They don’t actually yield many impressive tomatoes, but boy, do they look good doing it!

A few rare potters I classify as Marizol Golds. The Marizol is a plant that spends a lot of time getting it just right: first growing a stem that will support future efforts, and then branching out with strong arms to get a grip on the supports. In early Spring, while those cheap and easy Early Girls are tossing us their better-than-nothing, any-port-in-astorm tomatoes, the Marizol Gold is taking its time. It may put out a few test blossoms,

not trying to impress the bees, just biding its time and working on a plan.

When the tomato art fair is in full swing, with Striped Zebras in this tomato cage booth and Persimmon-orange ones next door, berry-sized Currant tomatoes and pink Brandywines ... then the Marizol will start working on its first tomato, a one-of-akind. Maybe there will be a tiny second one beginning, on the back burner. No more.

The first one will take an interminable amount of time to grow. First it’s a green acorn, then a plum, and day-by-day a little bigger. And the colors! It starts lime green, then ripens bottom-to-top with a sunny gold, and finally a touch of red at the top.

In the end, when it is ready to take into the house with you, it is the size of your head ... well, almost. Hang-off-the-edge-of-the-

bun size. It’s bright gold, with green streaks running down from the top, and red ones coming up from the bottom. Each slice is tri-color all the way through, as captivating as an awesome glaze.

Opinion I Around the Firebox

“I’ve decided that potters are like tomato plants.

They all have a niche and a purpose ...”

And the flavor is incomparable. These are gallery-quality, too good (and too rare) to give away or sell for cheap. When we’re up to our elbows in tomatoes in the kitchen, the Marizol is the filet mignon, for the eyes, for the mouth, for the soul ... and you will have to wait a long time for the next one.

Maybe the Marizol potter is a sculptor, or a carver. Marizol spends hours laminating colored clay in loaves, or burnishing each “fruit” by hand, testing formulas for just the right specific gravity.

Marizol puts in the background time, the growing time, would never (like I did) put up a Web site and trumpet about dorky beginner pots (a testimony to impatience and ill-advised self-confidence). Marizol thinks each one matters, and gives it all its time and attention, and then moves on.

Kelly Averill Savino is a studio potter and homeschooling mother of three in Toledo, Ohio.

She can be reached at primalpotter@yahoo. com.

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Ancient and modern, trendy and timeless, artsy and crafty, humble and pretentious, tomatoes and potters offer up our best to the public in a diverse, beautiful banquet of choices. Maybe potters should set up to sell at the farmer’s markets instead of the art fairs! At any rate, every potter has a season and a style, a loyal following, and a place in the sun. [

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Resources I Classified Marketplace

Classified Marketplace Classes & Workshops

Opportunities, cont.

• Celebrate CERAMICS in SPAIN with SETH CARDEW at the wheel. Weekly residential courses or daily private tuition.

Also, cottage to rent at the pottery. www.cardew-spain.com.

• Sell your work to GALLERIES and SHOPS. For 25 years we’ve helped thousands of artists grow their careers. You’ll discover more studio time, less travel time, and more profit than ever before. Average sales: $25,000. www.AmericanCraft.com or (410) 889-2933.

Employment

• Glaze Technician F/T, benefits. Historic

Pewabic Pottery in Detroit, Michigan seeks experienced glaze technician to join our fabrication team. A degree in ceramics with 2 years glaze mixing, application and testing experience preferred. Send resume and salary requirements to mloridon@pewabic. org or fax 313-822-6266.

•

Visit the potters of Nicaragua with Potters for Peace, January 15-29, 2008.

Fee of $1100 covers all expenses except RT airfare. Nicaragua is warm and beautiful in January and you will visit a variety of pottery communities using local materials to create distinctive, wood-fired terra cotta. See what PFP does first-hand.

Visit www.pottersforpeace.org, or e-mail pchartrand@bsn1.net.

• For Sale

• Craft Show Canopy, “Show-Off.” Heavy vinyl, fire retardent, 10' x 10', four zippered side walls with ties; also stakes and weights.

Ex. cond. $450. Contact Pat Jordan, (828) 757-9741, e-mail: Jclaypotpat@charter.net.

Opportunities

•

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

CERF helps professional craft artists strengthen and sustain their careers through business and career-strengthening programs, emergency relief support, advocacy, and research. For more information, visit The Craft Emergency Relief Fund at www.craftemergency.org or call (803) 229-2306.

66

• ClayParent — A new Internet forum for

potters who are parents, and their issues.

After many requests for this type of interaction, the Clayworkers’ Guild of Illinois is donating Web space to open up this forum to members and non-members alike. Registration is free. The forum is located at: www.mudmamasandpapas.com.

• JOIN AMERICANPOTTERS.COM TODAY! Be part of a national, searchable database for FREE. Or have an “online gallery” and sell your work ($99.00 a year).

Check out: www.americanpotters.com.

To all K-12 Ceramic Arts Teachers — The 11th Annual National K-12 Ceramics Exhibition opens at the March 2008 NCECA Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. For more information, visit the Web site at www.k12clay.org.

Tools for Potters, cont.

•

AWESOME! Bill van Gilder’s Professional Hand Tools. 13 very functional tools for handbuilding and wheel work: classroom and studio-tested! Visit store at www. claytimes.com to view and order tools.

Studio Tours

• The Prescott Area Arts and Humanities Council of Prescott Arizona is hosting Open Studios, a rolling tour of demonstrations/cultural events on November 23 and 24, 2007. Call (928) 443-9723.

Travel

•

Potter’s Workshops and Tours in an Undiscovered Mexico. Explore the immense, but little known, ceramic diversity of deep Mexico. Hands-on learning and uncommon, small-group travel among the ancestral masters. Visit www.traditions mexico.com, or e-mail: traditionsmexico@ yahoo.com.

Kiln Repair

Videos & Books

• Kiln and Studio Repair Service — Mike Swauger, The Kiln Doctor; licensed and insured; (877) 545-6362; mike@thekilndoctor. com. Equipment sales, delivery & set-up, installations. Most parts and accessories are in stock on my full-service vehicle. Serving VA, MD, WV, DC. Rely on more than 17 years of experience.

DVD: Advanced Pottery Projects with Doug Oian — Enhance your skills to include Large Bowls, Pitchers, Handles, Lids, and Carved Candle-lanterns. $50 includes shipping. www.SunrisePottery. com; tel. (210) 494-8633.

•

Kiln Repair. All makes — Washington, DC metro & Northern Virginia. $45/hour (one-hour minimum) plus parts. Larry Safford, The Studio Resource: (703) 283-7458; larrysafford@comcast.net.

Tools for Potters

•

GlazeMaster™ glaze database and calculation software for Windows and Macs. $50.00 + $4.50 shipping in North America. Visit www.masteringglazes.com for a free trial download and more information. Or send your check or VISA/MC information to Frog Pond Pottery, PO Box 88, Pocopson, PA 19366.

• Order Great Glazes II for just $15 at the Clay Times online store at www. claytimes.com. This second hands-on studio glaze book features dozens of favorite glaze recipes for all firing temperatures and atmospheres.

• TOM TURNER’S POTTERY SCHOOL AND HIS TWO-DAY WORKSHOP 4-DISC DVD SET available at: www.tom turnerporcelain.com, or telephone (828) 689-9430. [ Place your ad in the Clay Times classifieds for as little as $50!

For complete details, visit the Web site at www.claytimes.com or call ad manager Karen Freeman at 540-882-3576.

Resources I Ad Index

Kilns & Firing: Under Pressure continued from page 51

hurt, they’ll get fired … Remember, physical plant people don’t get tenure. Listen to their concerns, and speak with them, not at them. OK, lecture over.

Now you’re buddies with the plant people.

But, alas, no one has a clue as to what gas pressure you have. Those of you who have not been through this bizarre Easter egg hunt may not believe it can be that hard.

Those of you that have, well ... you have the healed emotional scars and the detachment of a Zen monk. When in doubt or in the dark, you can always find out for certain what gas pressure you have. Find a place on a closed system (not a gauge on the burner … see past CT issues or read about gauge and deferential pressure) where you can attach a pressure gauge. This is a trialand-error thing. Too high a range of gauge and you might not be able to accurately

tell the real pressure. Use a gauge with a range that’s too low, and you might “blow the gauge.”

Here’s your challenge: Find out your delivery pressure. You may not need that information right now, but there is a very good chance you will need it later. You know how much cobalt goes in that favorite blue glaze; you know when your next show deadline is.

You know how many pounds of clay it takes to make two dozen mugs. You should know your kiln’s gas pressure, too. [ $-": 500-4 3&'&3&/$& ."5&3*"-4

Marc Ward is owner and operator of Ward Burner Systems PO Box 1086, Dandridge, Tennessee 37725. He invites you to sign up for his free newsletter, and can be reached by phone at (865) 397-2914 or through the online catalog and Web site at this address: www.wardburner.com.

Index to Advertisers Hood College Japan Pottery Tools The Kiln Doctor L & L Kilns Laguna Clay Co. Larkin Refractory Solutions Lawrence Art Center Master Kiln Builders MKM Pottery Tools Muddy Elbow Mfg./Soldner Wheels Olympic Kilns Paragon Industries PCF Studios Peter Pugger Potteryvideos.com School Arts Magazine Scott Creek/Clay Art Center Sheffield Pottery Skutt Ceramic Products Spectrum Glazes The Steve Tool Strictly Functional Pottery National Trinity Ceramic Supply Tucker’s Cone Art Kilns U.S. Pigment Corp.

Ward Burner Systems Wise Screenprint

$69.95 + $4 S/H

PO Box 722 Honeoye, NY 14471 585-229-2976

26 61 60 2 6 33 61 61 60 12 26 62 67 22 33 25 62 26 68 16 67 50 56 33 62 67 54

www.pcfstudios.com

CHARLOTTE NC Setting up a studio?

Your full-service pottery supplier featuring clays by Standard, Highwater and Laguna; kilns, glazes, chemicals and equipment.

School orders welcome!

CAROLINA CLAY CONNECTION

704/376-7221

e-mail: carolinaclay@aol.com www.carolinaclay.com

power burners • venturi burners raku burners • baso valves • brick fiber • controllers • and more sign up for our free newsletter @

www.wardburner.com

865.397-2914

CLAYTIMES·COM n SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007

Aftosa 17 AMACO 4 Armory Art Center 50 Artisphere 60 Axner Pottery Supply 33 Bailey Pottery Equipment 14 Beryl’s Cake Decorating Supplies 54 BigCeramicStore.com 28 Bracker’s Good Earth Clays 15 Buyers Market of American Craft 22 John C. Campbell Folk School 32 Carolina Clay Connection 67 Ceramic Supply Chicago 54 Clayworks Supplies 60 Clay Times Products 9,10,22,31,54 Continental Clay Co. 62 The Cookie Cutter Shop 54 Cub Creek Foundation 61 Del Val Potter’s Supply 54 Dolan Tools 54 Euclid’s Elements 5 Flat Rock Clay Supplies 60 Georgie’s Ceramic & Clay Center 25 Giffin Tec 3 Great Lakes Clay & Supply Co. 54 Guild Sourcebooks 25 Herring Designs 26 Highwater Clays 50

New Instructional DVD

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CERAMIC PRODUCTS