London part II

Community contact. (heh.)

Crazy stuff just happens to me sometimes. Not Doctor Who crazy or Harold Camping Rapture crazy, but crazy enough to make my day, for sure.

On the sixth floor of the V&A (see previous entry) there are probably thousands of ceramic pieces, and there is also a small room off the main gallery, with windows to see into the gallery and to see out over London. It is a lovely room. In the room there was a man, and he had some porcelain vessels next to him, as-yet-unbisqued, and before him was a potter's wheel, where he was trimming one of the vessels. Right there on the top floor of the V&A.

Here he is.

I stood there and took it in for a bit and he saw me and told me to come in, so I did, and we got to talking. He turned out to be an amiable Brit, and it was clear from his pieces that he was good, but not a master potter. He's 57, but he's a student of ceramics at a nearby university, and one of the perks, you might even say THE perk, is that he has his own key to the V&A. He can come in early and stay late, and after hours, and the studio is open to him, and he has access to a kiln. There are about ten students in his program, of all ages and nationalities, though no Americans at present. He said I ought to write to the university and say I was interested in coming for a summer and the chances were good I could come, if I made my case well. I haven't a free summer in the foreseeable future, and you don't get paid, so I'd have to save up for living expenses, but it could happen. So there's a contact I made in the world of ceramics across the pond. 

London part I

Research.

So I was in London last week and it was splendid of course and one of the most splendid things I got to see was the Victoria and Albert Museum, the V&A. This museum is a gorgeous sprawling complex with six floors and has absolutely everything in it, from Rodin to Yohji Yamamoto, and the whole thing is packed with visitors from thirty-seven countries EXCEPT the sixth floor, where the stairs don't actually go, which can only be reached by one lift which is tucked away in the backwater corner of some exhibit that nobody likes. But I found it. It is entirely devoted to Ceramics: Materials and Techniques.

Love it.

The point is, I need some more research here, and I only used one source, really, to tell me how to dig my pit, so other nine (ugh) have to be devoted to something else, so I'm learning a bit about the history of ceramics and clay in general. Here's what I learned from the signs and captions on the pieces. 

The earliest known ceramics come from China, around 5000 BC. Kiln-fired ceramics were first prevalent during the Han dynasty, which began about 200 BC. Kilns produced ceramics for architecture, funerals, and everyday use, both functional and decorative. (The most common use of non-functional ceramics was placement in tombs and use during burial.) 

High-fired stoneware, what we would call bisqueware, was pioneered also in China around 500 AD. Kaolin-rich clay (see earlier entries) turned whitish when temperatures above 1100 C- remember it's Europe - were reached. This is a great deal hotter than my little pit, almost the temperature needed for modern high-firing, which melts glaze to a piece and seals the pores. And the Chinese were all about glaze; as soon as they could make it reliable, they glazed all their ceramics. 

Not so in Japan, at least in early Japan. The Japanese started making decent ceramics, or at least ceramics that have survived to now, around 400 AD. These early ceramics were known as Sue wares and were high-fired but unglazed. Sometimes they had a natural ash glaze, which is exactly what my pieces have - unintentional, unplanned, the ash somehow gets in amongst the ware and gives it that luster which I prize so highly. 

Here are some. 

And here's mine.

Resemblance achieved!

"What I know now that I didn't know in September"

Required entry. Can't make the fonts work. 
Entry follows....

I like blogging. I like being able to post pictures of what I’ve been doing, since my work lends itself so well to photography. I type faster than I write and I like being able to ramble on at great length and really say what I mean. (Not mutually exclusive, contrary to popular belief.) I particularly like it when people tell me that they read my blog and they think it’s terribly clever. Keep it up, devoted admirers. 

I have learned, and this is a big one, to ask people for help. I have all these horrible back problems that we needn’t go into, and I knew I wanted to dig a whacking great hole in my backyard, and that that would involve maneuvering pickaxes, slinging large stones, and pain and suffering in general. So I asked my large and well-muscled guy friends, and some girlfriends as well, to basically do it for me, and to my surprise they all said they would like nothing better. And I didn’t lift a finger. 

Also, I was worried about money, and I almost went without some things that I needed because I assumed they would cost so much that I shouldn’t even call, e.g. getting a load of sawdust from Cayuga Lumber and getting the Kulp Lobby space for our show. But on the off chance that we might be able to work something out I called these people up anyway, and what do you know, it was all free. So I would say don’t write off something you want before you’ve given it a try. 

Enfin, I say, things are possible. Things you wouldn’t think are possible, are eminently possible. The most important thing I can say to any future WISE student is don’t limit yourself; don’t shirk the big projects, don’t think “such and such would be so cool but I couldn’t do it because of x y or z”. X y and z are crap. Obstacles can be got round. Do the greatest thing you can think of, something you want to do because you love it. Start larger than life because you can always trim later, but if you do something you know will be easy at the outset it’s hard to make it anything but boring.

A few updates

-I typed up and formatted a lot of cool stuff for the show including my bio, a photo essay of how my firings are done, and a blurb about Direct Relief International.

-I still need to write a list of suggestions for what to do with my pieces once you are the proud owner of one of them. This I think will be fun.

-I folded a lot of paper cranes, twenty-five or so, and am folding more. I'm just going to make enough to fill a certain bowl that I have (which I also made) and put the bowl out at the show with a sign to the effect that anyone can take one and have a bit more peace in their lives.

-Three of my pieces are going in a different art show at the library. They will sit beside a small sign that says "for more of this, come to our real show", only in nicer prose and with a better font.

-I sold another piece to Judy, another art teacher at IHS, for $20. The Japan fund continues to grow!

-I confirmed that we have the space for the show which is a giant relief.

-I am going to London next week so you, my rabid reader, may unfortunately expect a dearth of new posts, for which I hope to make up once I get back and things really start hopping.

Mentor meeting 5/19

Jocelyn has confirmed that she can attend my presentation, which is Friday, 17 June at 11 AM. My last four pieces went into the bisque kiln today, but I'll be away starting Saturday, so I'll have to fire them when I get back, perhaps Monday 5/31 when we don't have school. I think everything is going well. I emailed Adam Zonder, Lord of Kulp, since I haven't heard anything from him since I reserved the space, and I hope very much that that's just because he's been busy (I believe his wife just had a baby) and not because our application got lost. CROSS YOUR FINGERS.

Jenny meeting

Yesterday I met with Jenny and we discussed many things. Here they are in list form. I do like lists.

1. James is playing his cello at the show. He has confirmed this and also promises that he is working on stuff to play.
2. Sam Donovan will be the lifeguard at the show (the AED-certified person.)
3. We are going to have food, but not over-themed food, and also, only sweet things. We like sweet things. Jenny is going to make cake balls and I am doing various things with fruits including cherries and mandarin oranges, which are Japanese.
4. My work is going to be on tables, and Jenny's will be hung on lines around the edges of the room.
5. Sales will go like this: cash or personal check paid to Jenny or myself, after which the purchaser is free to go, taking their new and beloved piece of art with them.
6. I am going to write up little signs describing the process by which I make my pieces, and also describing Direct Relief International, the organization to which we are entrusting our funds. This way people will understand my work from the very beginning to the very end.
7. Again we are not doing an ostentatious theme but one thing I would like to do is make paper cranes, which anyone can take, whether they buy a piece or not. So I have begun doing that.

In other news we have created a Facebook event for the show, which may be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=174274622628756

First sales

So last night there was a gathering at my house such as we have sometimes, of family and family friends. And there was a sort of pre-show screening of my work, and, as I had counted on them to do, they bought certain of my pieces! Below are the ones that sold.

That's about $175 worth of pottery, in that photograph, so that's about $175 for Japan, already. I was extremely surprised at the ones that people chose. First on the left and fourth from the left are two of my very favorites, and I'm glad they're going to good homes, but the other four I don't love and was considering not even putting in the show. I suppose it just shows that everybody's tastes are different. And I'm definitely glad I decided to bring out the rejects at the last minute, because apparently I'm the only one who thinks they're rejects. 

I priced them all before the assembled company showed up. They go from $15 to $50, based partly on size and craftsmanship and partly on how pretty the designs are. I don't know anything about what this type of work sells for - you can look at other people's stuff online, but they're professionals, so they obviously charge more than I can. On the other hand it is a fundraiser. On the third hand, to take one of these pieces from lump of clay to finished product probably takes eight to ten hours, or more. For one piece. So if I was factoring in labor costs they would have to cost more. But I'm really just pricing them by what I would like to pay for them. 

Hopefully I shall sell more at the show, but even if not, I've got some respectable money together, so I give a large thank you to my generous benefactors. 

Wax on, wax off

So my pieces had been fired, but were still missing a certain je-ne-sais-quoi, a certain shine. Watkins and Wandless suggested paste wax, but I didn't know what that was, but my father said it was the kind of stuff they use to wax cars - turtle wax. Now I looked up turtle wax and let me tell you it has nothing to do with either wax or turtles, for better or for worse. The main thing is being a born-and-bred Ithacan, so green that I am practically photosynthetic, I didn't want it on my pieces.

I therefore went to GreenStar which is a wonderful place and purchased a 100% beeswax candle. I rubbed the sides of this candle on the outside of my pieces, so that it looked like this.

This was not the look I had hoped for and for a while I was at a loss, but then it came to me to polish the wax with a cloth, which I am sure has been the obvious solution to you from the start, but I learn as I go. 

Anyway, it worked: 

Here's another:

The blacks in particular got richer and deeper and shone almost like basalt. All the colors became deeper. They're almost hypnotic, if you look at them too long. And the smoky patterns are like Rorschach tests; everybody sees something different in them. (Unfortunately the red that is visible above is a reflection from a red box near the pieces, and not a color on the pieces themselves. But you can see at least that they have high albedo.)

The waxing was pretty difficult to do, physically; it required a lot of elbow grease. I like the fact that it's local beeswax, though; it goes with the whole from-the-earth/from-my-home aspect of my project. All the materials I burned I found in my woods, except the newspaper, but that was recycling anyway. The clay they're made from is just clay, pure untreated earth, such as you can dig right out of the ground. The copper wire, the only foreign material, is pure copper, which is a naturally occurring element. The salt, likewise, is a naturally occurring compound, and I love that.

Mentor Meeting 3/10

Met with Jocelyn today in the blazing sun in the courtyard outside her room. As usual not much to discuss. She asked if I was doing okay and I said I was and she said she had seen Ms Gergely and talked to her but couldn't remember what about. Hope that wasn't important. Anyway, I am doing okay, and none the worse for lack of mentorship. I burnished what I hope will be my final four pieces today and they should be bisqued by Monday at the latest, so my last firing will probably be a weeknight next week.

Things to which I must devote my thought, in regards to the art show which is fast approaching, include:
-pricing my pieces
-how to display/make known my pieces' prices
-how to display my pieces themselves
-WHERE TO FIND A LIFEGUARD. I cannot tell you how much it gets my goat that ICSD requires someone who is AED certified to be in attendance at all events on premises, but they do. I want John Nord but he always has meets, so he's not the most reliable, through no fault of his own.

*****If you or any of your friends or relations is AED certified at current please please do let me know in the comments because I really do not want, nor have I the time or money, to shell out $50 to get certified myself online. We would pay such a person for their presence with our undying love and devotion and probably a cake. *****

-talking of cake- food for the show? little hors d'oeuvres things? Japanese theme? Or is that overkill?
-Probably other stuff but I can't think of it right now.

Results of round II

This is going to be a really long entry, long in inches I mean, as I have so many photographs for you. To begin, here are twenty-six pieces of the thirty pieces I have thus far fired. The other four aren't going in the show; I don't like them. They are lined up according to size because that seemed like the thing to do. 

Now I'm going to let you peruse the photographs below, with minimal commentary. The piece directly below I like because it has just that one lustrous spot and a lot of subtler smoky effects.

The one below is only about two inches tall and this picture doesn't show the colors, which are lovely. The lines (from the wire) are really a deep sort of magenta.

This one, for some reason, turned completely black, a lovely shiny rich black, on one side. The other side is grey-ish. You can see where the colors meet.

More effects of the wire. This piece is actually almost yellowish where it isn't marked.

On some pieces (most actually), such as this one, the wire left marks, but the marks were just black.

The rest of these are just eye candy, close-ups of pieces that I particularly love.

Good-o.

Firing the pit, round II

It took about eight matches to light the pit this time as there was somewhat of a breeze and also I was afraid to stand close to it for fear of being blown backwards like in Die Hard, like last time, so I had to throw the matches at it, and they all went out, and we had only put about half the amount of lighter fluid as last time anyway. In the end we lit a twist of newspaper and put it in, and nothing blew up; in fact it started very meekly, as fires go. 

Soon it had quite a good blaze going. The smoke is because some of the wood was wet, despite my best efforts. But it dried out very fast.

After forty minutes or so it had burned down to this. It is possible to see some pieces peeking through, but only if you know where they are, as I do, so you may not spot them.

No problem, here they are. Now the pit is still actually on fire at this point, I had to use my fill flash to get a picture that would show up. It's not pretty, but it gets the point across.

Here's a photo taken within seconds of the one above, using no flash. (My flash is extremely powerful, eh?) It's about a 1.6 second exposure, and I couldn't keep my hands steady, so it's blurred, but sort of appealing.

Now to wait till morning and dig them out. 

Loading the pit, round II

I started with some bigger logs on the bottom this time instead of just little ones. Then kindling and newspaper, then sawdust. I nestled the pieces in the sawdust as before:

But instead of going kindling-newspaper-sawdust-pieces-kindling-newspaper-sawdust, as before, I did sawdust-pieces-sawdust: a sort of sawdust sandwich, with newspaper directly above and below and kindling directly above and below that. Here you can see I pretty much covered them up with sawdust, though I left some room at the top to conserve sawdust and because I knew the flames would advance upward a bit and leave their marks even above the sawdust.

I then proceeded with more newspaper, and a great deal more wood, as dry as I could find. The size of the sticks/logs increased as I added more. I poked yet more newspaper in among the largest logs, which were on top. This time the combustibles are stacked in more of a teepee formation, and protrude above the edge of the pit, at least in the middle. 

Dressing pieces round II

For this round (you may recall) I said to hell with all the fancy time consuming organic matter, and let's just use copper wire. So that is what I did. Here are eight of the fifteen pieces currently ablaze in my backyard, before they became ablaze.

Some had copper wire wrapped around them once or twice, pretty loosely, more because I can't get it tight enough due to lack of traction than because it's a design choice or whatever.

I got a little more spiffy with some of the others and twisted the wire around itself before wrapping it around the pieces. No idea what the effect will be but it sure did look pretty before firing.

Something unexpected

Here is the pit after I fired it the first time. The ash has now been rained on and compacted, but this is what it looked like that first morning. 

Here is a closeup of the wall of the pit. 

The something interesting that I wish to share with you is this. The earth around my house is almost all clay. We noticed this as we were digging; it has tremendous water-holding capacity, which goes along with small particle size. Plus the dirt was almost plastic to the touch.

The point is, the pit actually fired not only my pieces, but also itself. Its walls, after the first real firing which burned very hot for more than an hour, are now impermeable and impervious both. It's a clay body in and of itself. This is very good because it means all the rain we've been having will neither soak in and make the pit mushy nor cause the walls to collapse. Not terribly important but I thought it was interesting. 

Mentor meeting 5/3

Had an AP on Monday so I couldn't attend class this week, but I did meet briefly with Jocelyn. She suggested I make some bigger stuff, which I agreed with as nothing broke during the first firing, so I've made five more slightly larger but not colossal pieces so far this week. Making really big stuff is really hard. So right now I have thirty pieces all fired (the bisque kiln came out yesterday with my last ten, none of which broke) ranging from 1 1/2 to about 7 inches in height, and I'd put the ones I've made this week at closer to 10 inches - of course, they'll shrink during firing. Ten of the thirty are pit-fired and ready to go, although I've decided that only six of them are good enough to go in the show. The remaining twenty-five are hopefully mostly getting fired on Friday, if the weather continues fine. I should be able to do a large number at one go because a lot of them are so tiny. It still might not be all 25, but we'll see.

Thoughts after first firing

1. All the elaborate dressings that I put on the pots prior to firing had no effect, with the exception of the copper wire. The banana peels actually prevented the smoke from reaching the pots during firing, which I think is not a pleasing effect, but it does add texture.

2. The copper wire turned the pots pink in some areas, which is pretty, so I'm going to up the use of copper wire next time. I might braid it or twist it to increase the area. I did buy some more from Agway which is a thicker gauge to begin with, though, so hopefully that will have a greater effect than the leftover thin jeweler's wire I had been using.

3. The lustrous effects occurred near where I had placed the packets of salt, so more of those next time. I think the colorful luster comes from the table salt and the uglier brownish color comes from the epsom salt, so I'm just going to use table salt in future.

4. Most of the smoky effects appeared near the bottom of the pieces. I believe this is because that's where the sawdust touched them. So next time I'm going to bury them completely in sawdust and just have that one sawdust layer in the middle, rather than several alternating ones. 

The big reveal

I don't believe in suspense so I'll just tell you: nothing broke and everything was transformed. It wasn't what I was expecting/hoping for, but I think I kind of love it anyway.

Now pictures. No commentary, they speak for themselves.

The red is from the copper wire. The black is from the smoke and the iridescence, I am pretty sure, is from the salts. The vase was a test piece, one of the first ones I made, and it's not going in the show as it doesn't fit the theme, so I'm keeping it, which is nice, because it's the best so far. Although they are all sort of wonderful. I hope you agree. 

Firing the pit

So at this point the pit is all loaded and lovingly packed in the best and carefulest way I could devise. It was then drenched with lighter fuel and I lit a long match and tossed it in, below.

There was a massive and terrifying explosion which blew me backwards, actually blew me backwards and kind of sideways, just like in the movies. Flaming newspaper went everywhere and lodged in the blossoms of the long-suffering cherry tree whose trunk you can observe in the right of the picture below. (It was exactly like in Return of the King when they toss the ring into Mount Doom and Tolkien says "there was a great roar and confusion of noise. Flames leapt up and licked the roof." Yes, I know that passage by heart. Nerd digression is now over.)

ANYWAY.

Here is the chaos.

Here is after we stamped out the flames and chased the flying combustibles back into the pit where they belong.

After about forty minutes it had burned down to this. You can see the rims of the pieces poking out.

Here's after an hour. Everything's still very hot. I was really freaking out about the fact that what you can see of the pieces is just white; I thought it hadn't worked. And the pit didn't cool down that night so I couldn't take the pieces out before I went to bed, so I actually did dream a) that everything had exploded and b) that they all came out just like they had gone in. This is not the case as you will soon see.

Preparing the pit

So on Saturday the pit was dug and I thought to myself "no time like the present" and so I decided to fire it and here we go.

I went pretty much according to the book, the aforementioned book Alternative Kilns and Firing Techniques, to be precise. I first filled the bottom with dry kindling:

Strips of newspaper over that:

And sawdust over that, to fill in the gaps. (I got the sawdust from some very nice gentlemen at Cayuga Lumber who called me "dear", showed me where it was, helped me put it in a garbage bag, and then carried it to my car. When I first showed up it was the end of the business day and they were all standing around in the parking lot, and when I asked if they had sawdust one said "Just between my ears, miss." But they turned out to be very helpful after that.)

Anyway, I then nestled the pieces in with the sawdust, away from each other and away from the walls, to maximize their exposure to the smoke.

I added the little packets of salts that I'd made over break around the pieces to see what would happen.

The next layer was more kindling:

Then more of Jamie's old Ithaca Journals because what else are they fit for really:

Then we added more sawdust and then I stacked the bigger logs on top, crosswise, which I don't seem to have a picture of. When full, the wood came all the way up to the top of the pit. I'll show you the actual firing in the next entry.