Progress

My first twelve or so pieces are out of the bisque kiln. Here they are.

Look how good the honu stamp looks on the bottom.

All went pretty near flawlessly; nobody broke, nobody exploded. One or two of the littlest eggs have micro-cracks on the bottom, which comes from allowing water to sit in them after they are made, a mistake I have now corrected. The cracks don't seem dangerous, though, and since they won't be fired to a very high temperature I don't think I need to worry. The main weird thing is that they have changed color:

On the left is the only piece I didn't burnish. All the others look like the one on the right. I must assume it has something to do with the back of the spoon I used for the burnishing. But I think I will just call it serendipity and leave it as it is. Today I made three pieces and yesterday one, which brings my total to seventeen - I'm more than halfway done with this stage. Eeep.

In other news, I have been reading other people's blogs, and their entries are short. I am therefore making this a short entry to see how it feels. It feels fine so far. 

In other other news, I have recently spent a large chunk of my personal fortune on a Sony DSLR, because I woke up with a voice in my ear telling me to do so. (This is actually relevant because it means you should expect a significant increase in the quality of the photography on this blog.)

Next time I shall show you my artist's inspiration.

Earning My Keep

The school ceramics program (read: Jocelyn) is very generous to me. I don't pay for clay, which at Cornell, where I go in the summers, is like $40 for 25 lb, which will only make six or seven pieces, depending on size. Anyway, today it was time for me to do work to repay the studio for letting me use the clay, and that work is making clay, or reclaiming it really - pugging, to be precise. Everybody chuckles at that word. I don't know why. But go ahead and chuckle and now be done. 

Below you see the pug mill. Normally five or six people pug at once, loading the mill, catching the clay, and ferrying it to the bats. But because I am a boss, I can do the whole thing.

The belly of the beast is below. It has a rotating blade which will not maim you for life but will hurt like hell if you get your fingers in it, which I have done. I fill it with clay from the slop bucket, which is already full of clay which has become too hard to use (but has never been fired) submerged in water to un-harden it, which really turns it into a sloppy ugly mess.

I fill that up, plug the thing in and turn it on, which is not easy, because one must first locate the "on" switch, and I never remember where it is, and have difficulty finding it, as the whole contraption is coated with centimeters of dried clay. Once it is on, you push the clay into the blades, which churn it up and smooth it out and force it through the machine's opening, which is below. 

The clay is very wet at this point and must be caught before it falls and carried in lumps out of that room into the main room, where you slap it down onto the plaster bat and then run back to the pug mill to catch the next lump of clay before it falls on the floor.

When finished, I spread the clay over the bat (actually over all four plaster bats; the 8th period class wasn't happy with me) so that the greatest possible area of clay is touching the plaster, which, if you remember, saps water out of it and makes it manageable. If you put just-pugged clay on the canvas bat it would be a disaster.

Then I wedge and bag the clay. Tomorrow I should be able to throw. This week I am going to try and make larger forms, and just take the risk of them cracking in the pit. Lidded jars are also on my list of what to make, but they don't exactly go with my egg theme. But Jocelyn suggested them.

Mentor Meeting 3/28

I met with Jocelyn today 7th and all was as normal. I don't require that much help from her; my project is well laid-out and I know what I'm doing. So we mainly say hello and she asks if everything is going well and I respond in the affirmative. She said something about how Ms. Gergely said something about me not getting enough peer feedback. /Engage bitch mode/. None of my peers have remotely enough expertise in my area of interest to provide any feedback for me above the level of "that's pretty." (Or "that's ugly", I guess.) Nor does Ms. Gergely herself. So I don't know what kind of feedback we're talking about here but I am doing just fine without it. /disengage bitch mode/.

It's been one hell of a Monday, is all I have to say.

Right, so. I am also in the process of developing my idea about this art show. I am thinking of having it in the black box theater in Kulp (that's the school auditorium, for my rapt international audience who doesn't know what I'm talking about). And I am thinking of getting my cherished boyfriend James to play his cello, which he does marvelously, which is a double whammy of a good idea because he isn't having a formal senior recital (even though he should, imho) but this would still provide him a venue to mess around and do some improv or something and be heard doing it. And it would attract a whole other cohort of people. And also Jocelyn said she would make hors d'oeuvres. And I am thinking of, well, not charging admission per se, but having a "suggested donation" at the door, so that even if the attendees don't purchase our pieces (which they should) we will still soak them for some $ to save Japan. That's the most important part of this whole thing. We are donating all of our proceeds, that is 100%, to the Japanese tsunami/earthquake relief effort.

Still have to contact whoever's in charge of Kulp and see how much they are going to charge us to have the black box for an evening. And the deadline for the first WISE grant is passed and knowing Ms. Gergely she won't believe that I just had this idea today and will only believe that I am pulling my usual bullshit and desiring special treatment which I don't deserve. So if we need a grant and we missed the window, I will just have to get my partner in art, Jenny, who is a darling puffball of sweetness and light and can be resisted not even by the most powerful lords of the Sith, to talk her 'round.

Like I said, Mondays. 

Bangin' new idea

If you read Jenny Lee's blog (or if you are Jenny, reading this), you already know that we have hit upon a ripe juicy pippin of an idea for the end of our WISE projects. You remember I was going to do a show and sell my stuff and send the $ to Japan, and Jocelyn suggested that I double up, and she suggested Chelsea, and I was apprehensive. Well, I didn't talk to Chelsea (whose stuff, by the way, is exquisite and you should check it out) but I did talk to my dear friend Jenny, who is taking some sick photographs of horses for her project. How it actually went down is this. She wanted to know if she could sell her pieces as a Japan benefit, because she liked that idea, and I said of course, and what if we actually had a joint art show and did it together, thereby attracting twice the clientele? And she said it sounded like a plan and now it is a plan. We are going to figure it out more on Monday when we have class. Just a heads-up here.

What I Learned in Washington

Our nation's fair capital boasts a rich collection of museums and some of those museums have pottery and some of that pottery is Relevant To My Interests. I've already shown you the pictures I took in the Freer and Sackler galleries in one of my very first entries. Here I am going to follow up on all that and tell you what I actually learned from those pieces and the captions of the pieces in the Sackler exhibit "Taking Shape: Ceramics in Southeast Asia."

On making clay vessels:

 Potters in Southeast Asia are to this day primarily women and as far as I can tell by looking at the captions of this exhibit, didn't use potter's wheels. The tool kit is minimal, and the hands are the best tools. (I like this, I agree with it.) The actual tools vary among cultures.

The potter first makes the vessel mouth and rim on a preliminary form and then shapes and finishes the body. (At first I thought this meant the pots are made in two pieces and then joined, but I decided I think it just means that the piece is made and the rim is shaped first and then the potter moves on to finishing the body.) Most potters use wooden paddles and anvils of stone or fired clay for shaping. They strike the paddle against the soft wall of the pot, which is supported by the anvil held inside, to produce the final form. Some potters use bamboo or metal rings to scrape the clay to its desired thickness and shape.

On the uses of clay vessels: 

Stoneware vessels served universally as containers until the introduction of glass, metal, and plastic. Small jars (with stoppers of wood, paper or leaves) held tea, salt, or cooking sauces. Some jars, such as the thick-walled bottles made at the Sankamphaeng kilns, probably transported specific, though unknown, commercial products. Larger jars contained a fermented mixture of cooked ricce and yeast, which were used to make beer.

Containers for lime paste, a substance made from burnt shells which was stimulant and a symbol of hospitality, were prevalent in east Asian culture, especially Cambodia, where the pot is named for the ak, a bird which cries for its mate when it is absent. The pots were sometimes shaped like the bird as well.

Stoneware was also used to make ritual vessels, which often involved the pouring of water or oil. ourd-shaped bottles with human features were for pouring water. Other common containers have lids with lotus leaf designs, and were probably used for holding cremated human remains. A lot of stoneware sculpture has also been discovered, mostly animals, which may have been offered to gods or may simply have been children's toys, nobody knows. 

Killing me slowly?

Here is a micrograph of the lung tissue of a 61-year-old potter suffering from silicosis.

http://www.silicosis-net.org/images/pmf-medium.jpg

Gross, no? If you can't tell, all the little black specks are "silicotic nodules", which are bad. Also the dark portion in the upper right is "diffuse plural fibrosis", which also is bad. And this is why I can't be an art major and become a potter and live in a shack in my happy place where the honu are making pots all day the way I would dearly love to. That and the fact that I would make exactly 0 money. But this entry is specifically about the health risks of being a potter, because part of this project is to learn things about working with clay that I didn't know before, and this fits like a whatsit into that category.

Silicosis is also called potter's rot and is what you get from inhaling dry silica (silicon dioxide/SiO2) dust, the main component of clay, if the particles are less than 10 micrometers in diameter. The particles are then too fine to be filtered out or caught in the mucus and nice fluids that the body makes for the express purpose of filtering out such particles. The disease can occur from contact with crystalline silica in any form. (Apparently the stuff has multiple forms).

There are four different kinds of silicosis: chronic, accelerated, simple, and acute. The symptoms are all about the same for each type, and the symptoms are nasty, from chronic cough to increased risk of TB to  right ventricle heart disease and oh yeah, death. Huh. I always get sinus infections from working in the studio too long but I never knew it could actually kill me. And before you say it won't kill me because I've only been at it a few years, the acute kind of silicosis can take you out in five weeks. So. 

Just putting that out there. I sacrifice for my art, is what I'm saying.

Before I leave you to ponder the tragedy of my slow death by silicosis, here is a fact which you may not know. The condition is also called pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is officially the longest word ever to appear in an English dictionary. 

Source: http://www.silicosis-net.org/silicosis-symtoms-diagnosis.htm?GAWS&type=search&keyword=silicosis&adid=2168260035&placement=&gclid=CLrz39yK7acCFcW5Kgod0Viobw 

Happiness Revisited

Here you find my responses to the questions which go with the article with the above name.

1. When do you feel most happy?
This is very easy to answer. Contrary to popular belief, I am a happy person. Some people who know me think I am a frigid bitch who doesn't know the meaning of the word happiness, but this is because I am really only happy when I am by myself, and no one else is around (with a very few exceptions according to mood). Within that, my best place is, hands down, at the rink, on the ice. That endorphin high is like the nectar of the gods. I'm also pretty happy when I'm creating things, e.g. ceramic eggs. I am addicted to closure and I love finished products. In baking, drawing, pottery, origami, gardening - all the down-home crafts that I enjoy, being a crafty person - my favorite time is when all the ingredients have been put away and the work space cleaned and all that's left is the final product, the cake or vase or drawing or crane or flower bed or whatever, looking as though it sprang spontaneously into being. Seeing that makes me truly content.

Also, lying on beaches or tramping through rainforests works pretty well. Probably the happiest I ever was in my life was when I was in the place I showed you in my first-ever entry.

2. React/respond to the article.
I believe that it is true that, as the author says, "optimal experience" is something that we cause to happen. We do things because we believe that they will make us happy. Even things we do that don't bring immediate happiness, like eating spinach, we do because we believe, if subconsciously, that they will make us happy in the long run. I also wholeheartedly believe in the concept of flow, as laid down in the diagram below. I am partly amused and partly appalled that it took an army of philosophers many centuries to discover its existence, but that is nothing new.

3. Where are you on the flow chart? (Below.)

I am in flow, at least for the moment. This year I have generally been pretty high up in the flow channel. I have skills and I have challenges. When I overstep the bounds of the flow channel, it is almost always in the anxiety direction, where my challenges exceed my skills. But this passes. 

4. How has this changed/remained the same throughout your project?

I chose, if I say it myself, a near-perfect project for me, one pretty much guaranteed to keep me in flow. I have challenged myself more than in any of my previous efforts in the studio, and found that my skills were up to the task.

5. How can you achieve flow?

I have achieved it. Had I not, I would say, by periodically introducing new challenges into one's life, and taking the time to master the skills required to confront said challenges before introducing new challenges.

Mentor Meeting 3/22

Today I loaded my pieces into the bisque kiln, which is somewhat akin to taking your children to their first day of school, in that you no longer control what happens to them, and you (or I at least) tend to freak out. What is something being fired next to them explodes? What if the shelf falls and they get crushed? What if whoever unloads them drops them? And so on and so forth. But the point is, while I was loading I was also meeting with Jocelyn.

Today we mainly talked about what's going to happen after all my pieces are complete. You see, I like making my pieces, and I want to keep making them, but currently I have twelve and I hope to have thirty and I don't need thirty vessels in my house, which is tiny. So I want to sell them, because it takes them off my hands, but mainly because I would like to donate the money to relief efforts in Japan, as I said earlier. But the question is, how? Apparently a few years ago Jocelyn mentored a guy named Tyler, who did photography for his project, and decided he wanted to have his presentation in a barn, and drove around the countryside until he found an appropriate barn, walked up and banged on the door of the corresponding farmhouse and presented his case to the old couple living there, and they agreed, and he had a sort of art show in their barn and sold his work in that way. Now this is not really my style - neither the barn part nor the banging on doors part. So I need another plan. I don't know where WISE presentations are normally given, but I have a feeling it's the cafeteria or the library, and those appeal to me less than the barn. Some ideas I have are:

-the black box theater in Kulp
-the public library (has sponsored school art shows before)
-outside somewhere?

So, not very many ideas. I have to keep working on that. There are several questions here - where to have the show, where to have the presentation, and whether or not to combine the two. I could also see if Handwork on the commons, which is an artist's cooperative, would take some of my work and sell it after the presentation. Or I could do it online, but then I have to store the pieces. Or I could ask people I know to buy it, but I like the idea of selling to strangers and establishing myself.

Jocelyn also suggested that I combine shows with somebody else, specifically Chelsea Schwartz, who is making some very wonderful jewelry, and who I believe also wants to donate her proceeds to charity. But I don't love this idea, mostly because I am a very selfish person indeed and am worried that sales would be uneven, that more people would be interested in the more conventional, and accessible, art form of jewelry. However, it could also work the other way around, and people could buy my things who would never have known about them if they hadn't come to see Chelsea's things. (I haven't actually talked to her yet, so this is all just in the idea phase.)

Class Meeting, Progress, and Game Plan 3/21

Today in class we received a reading and some questions with which I will be dealing in another entry, to follow close upon the heels of this one. Also, we discussed applying for $ to help with our projects. I am not sure what I need money for, except to but the $31.99 Greenstar seaweed, but I haven't yet ruled out other options. I need wood and sawdust and a metal lid for the kiln but I think I can get all those for free or dirt cheap. But I'll keep thinking.

As for progress: Here are the four pieces (eggs!) that I made on Friday. The littlest one, alas, is no more. But I have the others!

Some more progress. This picture is from Friday, so add three to it and you will have an idea of where I am. You see all the pots lined up at the back of the damp box. They are quite a bit larger than they appear. The ones on the right have been burnished with the spoon you can see, which is why they look funky. The white one has been bisqued.

Closeup of a lovely shiny burnished egg.

No mentor meeting today because Jocelyn was some kind of busy, but I did go to the studio and find my pieces from Friday (pictured above), which were bone dry and useless, but I did not despair. I sprayed them periodically with water for ten minutes and gave trimming them my best shot and only lost the one. Jolly good. That brings my tally of made & trimmed pieces to thirteen, though the finished count is less than that because some are still awaiting burnishing.

In other news, here I thought I was the bee's knees having caught up with all my entries in one week, but apparently three per week is the "bare minimum" (read: grade of C). So I am going to write more, no problem. Here's a list of what I hope to cover this week because that worked out well last week:

1. Mentor meeting tomorrow
2. Reading from class today ("Happiness Revisited")
3. Info from The Complete Potter (research)
4. Info on the potential toxicity of silica (I have my reasons. You wait. More research here)
5. Freer/Sackler research

That, plus this one, is probably enough to be getting on with for now.

Response to Hannah Amsili's WISE Journal

It appears we have to do this entry for class, ho hum. I am going to evaluate the journal of a past WISE student based on several criteria, and this is the last entry I need to be completely caught up, so I'm going to waste no time. (FYI the WISE student is Hannah Amsili, and her project is a mosaic.)

First, the physical journal: Hannah's journal is paper, because she was in WISE in '05, and the blogosphere was only a fetus of the Internet at that time. Her entries are uniformly dated, and also titled. No complaint here. She even incorporates pictures, printed out and cut and pasted in - how quaint. She is clearly excited about her project, though she has a different way of showing it than I do. Her journal is replete with exclamation points, cute puns, and capital letters.

Hannah's handwriting is bad, but so is mine, and it's only sheer chance that you're not suffering through a journal of my handwriting at the moment. What surprises me more is that her entries are brief; I think I've already written more, word for word, than there is in her entire journal. This is not necessarily good nor bad. I'm typing, and I type fast, and there's a lot of room for extraneous words and thoughts and information. I can type in a sort of stream of consciousness, whereas if I was writing by hand, I might have to think more before I wrote. Which could be good, or I could lose the brilliance I have (heh) if it took me too long to get it down.

The nicest thing about reading this journal was that I got to see how Hannah's project evolved, and how her finished product wasn't exactly has she had envisioned at the start. My project, as you who have been dutifully following my progress are no doubt aware, has changed not a little since I laid down my first plan. Hannah's changed as well; from the location of her mural to smaller details like what grout to use on the backing, she made adjustments and made them well. Her finished product is a job well done. It gives me hope.

Materials List

I have access to clay, a wheel, and an electric kiln for bisqueing, but I need a lot more stuff for the pit firing process. I have decided to compile a preliminary list of materials I need and possible resources for those materials, and here it is.

For digging:
1. Shovels
2. Boys (I know how this sounds. But I have a fractured spine from figure skating and don't really want to dig a massive hole all by myself. And I have a bunch of guy friends whom I have promised to feed pizza to if they'll dig for me. Currently I have enlisted James, Robbie, Paul, Tim, John, and Jimmy, if you want to know.)
3. Open space in my backyard. My backyard is not nice, it's not groomed. No problem digging a massive hole in it, aesthetically at least. My dad swears he knows where all the pipes and power lines and buried treasure is and he'll make sure we don't dig through it.

For the fire:
1. Sawdust
2. Dry wood
3. Wood chips
4. Lighter fluid
5. Newspapers
None of this should be too hard to come by. I live in a forest, so I can just go get dead wood. Lighter fluid we have. I don't get the paper but some friends are saving theirs for me. For the sawdust, I'm going to see if I can contact the Unfinished Furniture Store, which is close to my house.
(The above info was gleaned from the pit-firing instructions in Alternative Kilns and Firing Techniques, by Paul Wandless and James Watkins)

For the pieces:
I need stuff to turn them colors. I plan to use any combination of the following:
1. Banana peels (for potassium, apparently turns green)
2. Seaweed (I looked at Greenstar when I was there and it is SO expensive. I think Wegmans/Tops might have cheaper stuff; I don't really care if it's organic if I'm not actually eating it)
3. Copper wire (to wrap the pots and produce interesting designs - don't know where to get this yet)
4. Salt
5. Baking soda

Other thoughts coming soon.

Chemical/Physical Properties & Geologic Origins of Clay

More copious thanks to Reader's Digest Crafts and Hobbies for the material for this entry.

Geology: Dirt, as in the dirt you walk on, is divided into three types of particles: from biggest to smallest: sand, silt, and clay. Clay particles are very very small and not visible to the naked eye. I know this from earth science. What follows is what I did not know before I read this excellent book. Billions of years ago the earth was a swirling mass of primordial fire and molten metals, which gradually settled, pulled toward the earth's core by gravity, with heavier particles like metals and larger pieces sinking deeper than lighter elements, which rose to the surface. This cooling and settling also combined elements to form minerals, the most common of which (almost 60% of the earth's crust) is feldspar, and feldspar is what decomposed, over uncounted years of weathering by wind and rain, to make clay. Here is clay in the earth.

http://weewebwonders.pbworks.com/f/Clay-ss-2005.jpg

Chemistry: Feldspar, being a mineral, contains most of the same stuff as the earth's crust, and in about the same proportions. This "stuff" includes many metal oxides: SO2, Al2O3, MgO TiO2, CaO (silica, alumina, magnesia, titania, lime) - as well as sodium, potassium, and iron oxides, which don't have extra names ending in -a. Potter's clay is mainly silica (55-60%). Silica, alumina, and water are the only compounds common in large quantities to all clays.

Clay particles, as mentioned, are really tiny - <.001mm - and have thin, flat, approximately hexagonal shapes. The particles have slight negative charges, so they are attracted to water, and once they are wet, they cling to each other, in a phenomenon known as plasticity, the most important physical property of clay.

Here are some clay particles magnified approximately 40,000x.

http://www.dentisse.com/Images/technicalDataPhoto2_large.jpg

Physical properties: Plasticity refers to how well clay particles cling to each other. Smaller particle sizes, have greater the overall surface area, so clay can cling to more water. The more water clay holds, the tighter the particles cling, and the more plastic the clay is. So in short, the smaller the particle size, the greater the plasticity of the clay. And more plasticity is good. (White stoneware is described as "fairly plastic").

Another important thing to note is that when one is throwing, the clay is simply saturated with water - water already in the clay and water added on the wheel. Water takes up space. As the piece dries, the water evaporates, and the piece shrinks accordingly. Shrinkage rate varies with different types of clay. After bisque firing, the clay I use has shrunk by about 25%. 

Quick and Dirty History of Clay

When I began working on this project, I thought I would try to copy vessels from ancient cultures, with Greece being my first idea, then Southeast Asia. But since I have begun work my mind has changed, especially in light of the recent tragedy in Japan, which has given me a new goal for my finished pieces. I have been thinking more about that goal and decided to make my pieces according to a theme of my own design: the egg-type shape of the piece I showed you in the "Burnishing" entry, below. I like this form because it is challenging to throw and yet will probably stand up well to the pit-firing process, but most of all because it is simply dripping with symbolism:

-New life comes from eggs, and the goal of my eggs is to bring new life to Japan.
-Japan has been ravaged by fire (/nuclear meltdown) in the wake of the earthquake, and my eggs are born in fire, in the firing pit - so, that which is created in fire will help to restore that which was destroyed by it.
-The Japanese pioneered the raku- and pit-firing methods in the first place so it is fitting that I who use their methods give back to them, of those methods, when they are in need.

I mean, damn, amirite?

But think of all that as a foreword to the real meat of this entry, which is that EVEN THOUGH I am no longer so interested in emulating ancient forms of pottery, I believe it is still important to give credit where credit is due; that is, to learn something about the rich history of world ceramics, and also about the chemical and physical properties of clay, because, well, because why not? And I took four semesters of ceramics at my high school and it was good fun but we did not learn any of the above.

Reader's Digest Crafts and Hobbies is dated as hell and belonged to my hippie mother in the seventies but also has information on the history and how-to of everything from ceramics to - well, anything else you can think of. Here is what it has to say about "Clay in the Life of Man": The earliest known fired clay (figures and the like) comes from Mesopotamia, and the earliest known vessels come from what is now Turkey, and both date from about 7000-8000 BC and are made of crude, low-fired earthenware (more on that later). Pottery had spread to Egypt and the entire Near East (I think that means what we would call the Middle East, since Europe is generally considered the West, especially in the 70s) by 5000 BC. By this time firing temperatures were higher and pieces were harder and longer-lasting. The potter's wheel was invented in this Near East around 4000 BC and was in common use throughout the region about 1000 years later. Glaze first appears in Egypt on ceramics from about 3500 BC.

In the opinion of this book, Chinese pottery, though it caught on rather late in the grand scheme of things, is basically the best, and I see no reason to disagree. It was the Chinese who invented white stoneware, which is what I use today, in 1400 BC - a full 3000 years before it came to Europe. Then later on during the T'ang Dynasty (AD 618-906) they pioneered the first true porcelain. To this day Chinese porcelain is unrivaled.

Chinese pottery had a strong influence upon Korean pottery, which in turn was the basis for Japanese wares. Japanese pottery caught on very late (15th century AD) and is mainly important for the famous tea ceremony, the reason for the invention of the signature raku firing style.

As for the rest of the world: Islamic pottery is very important to world ceramics, if one cares about that sort of thing, since the Middle East was the true birthplace of clay vessels. Islam's other notable contributions to world ceramics are tin glaze and luster, a pigment containing precious metals applied to already-fired glaze. Greek pottery is very interesting and too complicated and detailed to do any kind of justice to here. European pottery is just boring. Native American pottery is "fundamentally different from anything in the Old World," says this book, mainly because nobody in the Americas ever invented the potter's wheel. It too is very interesting and has a rich history but is not strictly relevant to my interests so I will leave it at that.

Also in the interest of not putting my reader to sleep and breaking up my research into manageable chunks I will leave the chemical and physical properties of clay for my next entry.

Making Things, part III: Burnishing

Let us begin.

Clay comes in many different textures. The texture of the clay depends upon the concentration of grog, a sand-type particle responsible for strengthening the clay and making it plastic. Porcelain has no grog, which is why it is so fine, and also why it is nearly impossible to throw with. White stoneware, which is what I use, has a middling amount of grog. Burnishing is the process os pushing the grog/sand into the clay body to leave an even, silky texture. Normally glaze would provide the glassy outer surface of a pot, but since these won't be glazed, it must be attained by burnishing. 

While the piece is still turning on the wheel, once it is completely formed, I smooth the outside with a metal rib to kick-start the process. I let it dry overnight until it is what we call leather-hard - not yet like stone, but no longer wet. Then I take the back of a metal spoon (because that's what I have - professional potters suggest smooth tumbled stones, but a spoon works) and burnish the outer surface with small circular motions.

Here's the side of this piece that hasn't yet been burnished, dull and rough. 

Here's the other side. I don't know if the sheen shows up in the picture, but the clay feels like glass. This is after the first burnishing, so all the imperfections are visible. Burnishing must be done in two or three stages; the first one is shown here, and during the second one the piece is almost entirely dry, and a light coat of cooking oil may be applied to add even more gloss. I'm not to that point yet; will update when I am.

Here's a postscript: Today I made five new pieces in addition to the one that's been bisqued and the three from yesterday, less the one which broke, for a total of eight. I haven't set a number goal yet, so I will here: let's aim for thirty well-made, well-trimmed, double-burnished vessels by the time I fire, and if I exceed that, so much the better.

(Source for burnishing information: http://vickihardin.com/articles/pit-fire-ceramics.html - cited in my complete bibliography)

Making Things, Part II: Trimming

Yes sir, the long-awaited second installment in my Making Things series is now here. Today I trimmed, not the piece from the first entry, which has been bisqued already, but a series of three that I made yesterday.

For trimming, I use the kickwheel rather than the electric wheel, because I never go very fast and I find the kickwheel gives me better control.  There are concentric circles on the wheel to help you begin to center the piece, without which the trimming will be uneven. I place the piece rim-down on the wheel and anchor it with lumps of clay.

I spin the wheel and touch a pin tool to the top of the piece (really the bottom) to tell me if it's centered. If the circle is perfectly concentric with the circular edge of the piece, but if it's not - and it never is; see photo below - I stop the wheel and push the piece a little in the direction that the drawn circle is closest to the edge of the piece. (If that doesn't make sense, think of it as northwest in the picture below)

Then I trim some more and draw the circle again. This time the piece is centered.

I take clay off the bottom and sides to even the thickness, using one of the tools displayed in the first Making Things entry. Normally I would add a foot but since I'm not glazing these pieces it isn't necessary. Here's a trimmed piece. I should smooth out the horizontal lines visible on the sides; I'll try and accomplish that by burnishing.

I impress my honu stamp into the bottom like a boss. (Unfortunately, one of the three pieces had a bottom that was too thin, so the act of stamping made the bottom cave in. So I lost that one. Very sad.)

Here is what the trimmings look like as they fall from the piece. They are much too fragile to keep or fire, which is a pity, since I enjoy their curly shape, but such is life. 

- Next up: Burnishing! -

Brainwave

This is the recent Japanese Sendai Earthquake. It is tragic and horrible in every possible way and I have no intention of being flippant about it. This is a serious entry. I have had an idea.

I need something to do with me pieces after I've made them. I had already decided to sell them on Etsy (if anybody would buy them) but now I have a better idea. I've been reading a great deal about artists selling their work and donating the proceeds to Japan. I don't know if I can call myself an artist, but I do know that the earliest pit-fired pottery comes from Japan and China, and it seems fitting to me to take any proceeds from the sale of my work and forward them to helping the Japanese people rebuild their infrastructure and culture. 

It's not much, but it's something, and perhaps it will convince more people to buy my work, thereby taking it off my hands which needs to happen anyway, as I don't want to saddle my parents with a house full of strange vessels when I head to college, and it will also give me a new and better goal, an incentive to stay on schedule with my project, if you will.

I feel sort of odd posting this on here because it sounds somewhat pompous to say the above to a wide audience, like "Look at me and how righteous and good I am", but in another way this is just a journal, written by me and for me, and I've had an idea which I think is a good one, and one which I believe should be recorded.

Reactions to "Two Tramps in Mud Time" and "Practicing"

We all have to complete this assignment, akin to a first-semester journal entry, detailing our reactions to two readings. One is a poem by Robert Frost, whom I greatly admire, and one is a random piece of Internet detritus which breaks off abruptly in the middle of a sentence. They both deal with work, which I imagine is why we have to read them, because we are all doing projects which involve work.

Profound eh? I thought so.

So: "Practicing" appears to have been written for one of the teach-yourself-to-play-guitar websites with which the Internet is so thickly packed that it is impossible to swing a virtual cat without hitting eight or nine of them. The author has a lot of deep wisdom to share about pushing oneself outside of one's comfort zone if one wants to improve at whatever one is working on. I don't really scoff at this. It seems obvious enough, but when I look at my life I see that it really is an easy thing to forget. It's odd, when everything about our world and our species is driven by change, that individuals instinctually don't want any part in advancing that change on a small scale. With a few exceptions, we don't like practice; we want immediate gratification - the final product now, without any of the work. But without the work, the final product cannot exist. So we force ourselves to practice whatever it is we're doing - in my particular case, the skills involved in wheel-throwing - and we are better for it.

I agree with the article's message as a whole, and I think it is sad but true that we need constant reminding to step outside our comfort zones or we won't do it. One thing the article says, though, I do not understand at all: "I can't tell you how many times I've practiced a particular lick or technique for an hour straight with minimal improvement that day, but the next day almost as soon as I tried it, it seemed to flow more easily." I wish I had ever felt this. Ceramics is a crapshoot, if you will - I have good days and bad days at the wheel, days where I can make anything I want and days when the clay seems to hate me and ends up as a useless lump. In my other life as an athlete, this is true as well. So maybe if I want to experience what the author of this article is describing, I need more practice.

Now I come to "Two Tramps in Mud Time". I very much enjoyed this poem, which is written in Robert Frost's characteristic simple, sweet style. But I think I am supposed to be relating these reading to my project, so I won't spend time quoting lines I like, but go straight to responding to the passage I am sure Ms. Gergely had in mind for us:

   But yield who will to their separation
   My object in living is to unite
   My avocation and my vocation
   As my two eyes make one in sight.

Oh, how nice that sounds, to be able to do what you love as your job, and not relegate it to the realm of "hobby", only to be dragged out of the closet on alternate Sundays. I wish it applied to me. But unfortunately, the things I love best are things that would make me no money at all. Ceramics is a solid example. In truth, that's most of the reason why I took WISE, so I could devote a whole semester to my avocation before going off to college and studying for a vocation which must, for me, be different.

Forms

A bonus entry, because I just thought of this. I know in my entries regarding the Louvre and the Freer/Sackler galleries I did a lot of "Look at this picture! Look at these forms! They're so nice, and I shall emulate them" type stuff. And here's a thing about me: I'm not much of one for sketching, at least not for sketching ceramics before I make them. I can draw okay, but I prefer to just get an idea in my head of what the piece will look like, and then make it. Call me lazy but it almost always works out.

For this project, though, it being so life-changing and all-important and all, I think I had better set some guidelines for what my pieces are going to look like, and put them all in one place so that you, esteemed reader, don't have to go hunting through all my entries and potentially get fed up enough to dock my grade.

So, I am going to make relatively small pieces, as a general rule under the 6-inch in height mark, and I would like them to have small bases and then flare out near the top and then taper in again to a narrow opening (and I haven't ruled out tiny handles like the Naqada ceramics from the Louvre have, but I haven't ruled them in either). My pieces are not going to be tall or thin or have long necks or rims that taper in and then flare out again, like many vases. The exact shape will vary but as a rule they will be reasonably short and squat, with small openings.

So there you have it - no sketches, I wouldn't go that far - but better than nothing. Now let us see if I can stick to my plan.

Mentor Meeting 3/14

Meeting with Jocelyn is difficult because her room is nine times out of ten a chaotic menagerie of students actually in her class, students skipping other classes, students with free periods, past students, prospective students, and God only knows who else. And me. Today she was also trying to work on some item on the computer, so I came in quietly and noticed two plaster bats replete with just-pugged wet clay, so I spread it on the other two bats and caused it to dry, and then wedged it, so I can throw tomorrow, which means I can put up the highly anticipated Making Things: Part II entry on Wednesday, when I trim, and also a bonus Making Things, part III entry, in which I explain the process of burnishing.

My first piece is out of the bisque kiln, which I had burnished with the flat side of a paintbrush handle prior to firing; Jocelyn suggests a metal spoon next time, because it makes the lines of contact less noticeable, but the burnishing I did was still visible - more on that at a later date.

The rest of our meeting went more or less like this:

J: "Are you doing okay?"
Self: "Yup."
J: "On schedule?"
Self: "Yup."
J: "Okay!"
Self: "Bye!"

It's true, you see. I know Ms. Gergely wants my head on a silver platter, but the thing is, my journal is behind, and there have been some unfortunate mix-ups about the whole coming-to-class thing, but my project is proceeding pretty much apace. I'm wheel-throwing tomorrow, trimming Wednesday, burnishing and maybe adding designs the rest of the week, and then doing it all over again until I have a suitable number of pieces, which should be soon. We are well into the month of March but the snow is still thick on the ground at my house, which means no digging as of yet. And talking of digging, Jocelyn and I did discuss materials to add to my pieces in firings, but I'll put that in the "Materials" entry, for which you should stay tuned.

Class Meeting 3/14

Well, hell.

We were harangued by our teacher at some length this fine Monday morning about how behind we all are in our projects. She is entirely justified in this, if my progress is anything to go by. Some of my current shortcomings are as follows:
-I have missed the past 3 classes.
-I have not had a mentor meeting for the past 2 weeks.
-I am 8 (count them, 8) journal entries behind schedule.
In brief, I suck.

I hope it isn't too late to fix my grade, which is certainly abysmal at this point in time. I am certain I can fix my project, though. Here is how.

-I have missed the past two Mondays, the day when class meets and I meet with Jocelyn, once due to illness and once due to a snow day. Though it is through my own stupidity that I have not made up classwork from those Mondays, it is also fact that I was absolutely unable to meet with Jocelyn any other day, because of my job at the rink - which is now closed, and over. So now I have two more free periods every day to devote to WISE, and believe me, I will. (I met with Jocelyn today; entry to follow close upon the heels of this one.)

To prove my undying devotion to my blog, my project, and this infinitely estimable class, here is a list of journal entries I will be posting in the very near future, hopefully before the week is out (in no particular order):

1. This one
2. Mentor meeting 3/14
3. Summary of item captions from the Freer and Sackler galleries (no, I haven't forgotten!!)
4. Making things, part II: Trimming
5. Making things, part III: Burnishing
6. History of clay and early kilns (research fun!)
7. List of materials I need for firings and possible resources
8. Information gleaned from a book I have recently acquired, The Complete Potter
9. Response to readings we received in class today: "Practicing" and "Two Tramps in Mud Time"
10. Response to Hannah Amsili's 2005 WISE journal, which I also received today.

Making Things, part I

So I have pretty nice fingernails. They grow long without cracking and taper at the ends and I like them. But today I cut them off because I'm finally back in the studio, making things instead of looking at other peoples' things. And it feels good. So here is my first entry about my own pieces, and it's going to be a how-to, because I don't know who's reading this but unless you're Jocelyn I think it's a safe bet that you don't know everything I'm about to show you. 

When I tear clay off the block, or squish somebody else's failed piece for reuse, it looks like this. 

This is not pretty; I don't like it; I can't use it. I have to wedge it, which is a process much like kneading bread dough. Wedging, when done correctly, presses out all the air bubbles in the clay and aligns the microscopic clay particles, which are actually cylindrical, so they go the same direction, which is good. If I use a plaster board as a wedging surface, it also removes excess moisture from the clay; if the clay is exactly the right amount wet, I use a canvas board, which leaves the moisture content alone. 

When the clay is wedged, it looks like this: 

Here, I've cut the clay in half, so you can see that there are no air bubbles remaining. (Air bubbles wreak havoc in wheel throwing.)

Below is what the clay would look like if it wasn't wedged sufficiently. The small dark spots are air bubbles. Small but deadly.

Now I form my air-bubble-free clay into a ball and I'm ready to throw. Below are the tools I personally like to use. From left to right: metal rib, for smoothing the outside of the piece; wooden rib tool #1, for trimming excess clay from the base; pin tool, for evening out the rim (or puncturing air bubbles); wooden rib tool #2, for I don't know exactly what--I use it to clean extra clay off the wheel between pieces; sponge, for doing what sponges do; and wire cutter (a cutter made out of wire, not something that cuts wire) for getting the piece off the wheel when it's finished. 

 I don't actually know why wheel throwing is called "throwing." My best guess is because of the very first step, which is throwing the ball of clay down onto the wheel really hard so that it sticks, as illustrated below. That's an electric wheel; you press the foot pedal at right to make it spin. There are also wheels which have to be kicked, but they don't go fast enough for my taste.

Add water. (This is more of an explanation of what I do than a lesson on wheel-throwing, so I'll just say that this part is called centering and centering is vital, and not explain how to do it, because I don't really know how to explain it.) The clay is spinning very fast under your hands; the objective is to feel as though it wasn't moving at all; that way you know it's perfectly centered. The clay below is centered.

I push my thumbs slowly down into the very middle of the centered clay to open the form, like so. I also begin to slow the wheel down a little at this point.

Then I push my thumbs outward, still very slowly, to make the floor of the piece. I compress the floor with my thumb and/or fingers.

Then I start pulling up the walls of the piece with my right hand, thumb inside and fingers outside. The piece stays wet the whole time or my fingers will skid and the piece will come off-center. I use the sponge to get the water out of the middle--if it remains there while the piece dries it's likely to crack. I compress the rim with my fingertips.

I use the longer wooden rib tool to scrape some of the excess clay from the bottom while the wheel is moving. Then, because this is a pretty small piece and doesn't require much shaping, I'm done.

The walls of the piece should be an even thickness all the way up. The floor should be a little thicker if I'm planning to trim it (make a foot).

I'm not using that piece, obviously, so I squish it up and form it into an arch and put it on the wedging board with other peoples'. Apparently the arch shape helps the clay dry faster.

I used somebody else's clay arch to make the piece below, which I did keep, and which is now drying in the damp box. Part II of the "making things" entry is going to be the trimming part, which has fewer stages but is still important. I'm going to try to trim this piece tomorrow; it's winter and the air is dry so it should be ready, but I don't know.

By the way, my wee honu stamp came out of the bisque kiln, which means the clay is completely dry and cannot be reused, ever, even if I wanted to. If I glazed it, that would be a second firing. Classy picture, right, with the sun and everything? I know.