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.