New Business Cards

I ordered new business cards at moo. I ordered their "green" cards, environmental friendly. Unfortunately these do not come in glossy, nor with rounded edges, but at least I've done less harm to Mother Earth.

Loading another test kiln

Shane closing the kiln.

Cone 10 reduction - testing before final firings... With Shane and Brandon.

Glazing

Done! Loading a kiln tomorrow with more tests before we finally have to
make up our minds on how we want things to be glazed... Decision...decisions...

Progress in studio

Working on four sets of dinner plates, salad plates, and soup bowls (spoons, in my case)
+ 3 serving bowls

My Studio Space

Studio space at the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is sparse these days. Although our Junior group is small, we've had 28 Sophomores come in this semester, and nobody has dropped... yet... I am surprised, as usual, how much stuff I have and how much stuff I use, and how little space I have to store all of this stuff! So, a big clean-up was in order for midterm critique, I moved my wheel so I can utilize my entire work space in front of the window, organized my tools and moved all the other stuff into my cubby(ies). 

My wheel and work space. The lower two shelves are mine as well.

My image sources - pure inspiration! Plus some much needed workspace.
Thank goodness I have awesome studio mates who share some of their space :)
Kudos to Corey and Joey!

Some of my many tools in these awesome soda crates that I found for
cheap at an antique mall here in KCMO.

Work in progress

deadline for 5 more of these + 6 large dinner plates is Wednesday...
time flies, as usual -- am not sure what I've been doing these past 2 weeks?!?!

Almost midterm...

It's almost midterm time here at the Kansas City Art Institute -- our first midterm as Juniors!! I've been working pretty hard and long hours on putting together a place setting. We've had so many weeks of throwing bowls and plates, reviewing, refining, reproducing and we are still only at midterms. But how much fun it is to just play around with different forms and designs and let your ideas guide you through the process.

I started out throwing a bunch of little bowls and trimming the bottoms round; I then started to manipulate the rims, cutting something off here, re-attaching it there, shaping the bowls into ovals.

I added slabs and put an upholstery pattern on it, attached a foot off-center, took that off again, added a rim, added more detail, and finally came up with something that resembles a pillow. I stuck with this idea and am now in the process of developing this "pillow"-idea further and integrating it into a place set.

For my midterm critique I am going to have two sets; both are not fully developed yet, but the direction I am taking with this is pretty clear. On my source imagery blog I have several references to upholstery, and fabrics, as well as frames, borders, and rims. I'm still working on surface decoration for the lower plate, not sure yet if it will be therma-faxing, rice paper decals or iron-oxide decals yet. Maybe I can figure out a nice layering effect with a few of these techniques.

Follow me on Instagram: melancholie

I'm still struggling with how these sets will be glazed, but the testing will begin after midterms. I'm thinking bare, beautiful white porcelain, black underglaze, and gold luster... Wish me luck :)

Summer 2012

I am taking another wood and soda firing class at CLC this summer. It is good to be back from Kansas City (although I miss it already!) and work, load, and fire with some familiar faces. Our first firing in the CLC train kiln was a good one and we are hoping to get another three firings in until the end of July; including a reduction cooling and a tumble stack.

Starting the first CLC train kiln for the summer; Ben Bates

First wood firing; I had some re-fires (4 to the left), one rice-paper-decal trial,
and one plain, oribe over shino cup; all turned out awesome.

My favorite is this Matt Kelleher cup, which he made during the Penland
workshop with Dan Anderson. Dan trimmed and glazed it and we
fired it in the salt kiln. He asked me to bring it to CLC
and re-fire it. I re-glazed it and it is beautiful!

Opening the first (EVER!!) soda kiln; virgin firing, so to speak; Ben Bates, Brandon Schnur.

I had nothing but re-fires in the soda. Not as great as the wood firing, I think,
but I got two most awesome cups out of this one.

We are now working to fill our next kilns; one wood, one soda. We are firing the week after the 4th of July. I've been working on some jars with lids and cups.

Penland 2012 - Impressions

Blue Ridge Mountains - on my way to Asheville.

An old Gas Pump, at Penland.

Full Moon over Penland.

Sleeping Cabins, up in the woods. My home for two weeks.

Organized to a T!

Old School Entertainment, at Penland.

Penland 2012

At the end of May I had the wonderful opportunity to work as teacher assistant at the Dan Anderson workshop at Penland School of Crafts. I was there for two weeks and got to meet and work with some wonderful people.

My TA partner in crime, the one and only Mark Errol

Dan showed the class how to facet, stamp, paddle, pierce, apply feet and apply glaze. He demonstrated how to alter round forms into triangles and squares.

Dan showing Elina and Russel how he applies his signature feet to his pots

Dan is getting ready to pierce one of his pots with a square piercing tool

Dan had some of his friends from the Penland area do some throwing demos for the class.

Terry Gess, a former grad student of Dan's at SIUe

Matt Kelleher

A panoramic view of the Upper Clay Studio at Penland

At the end of the 2 week session we fired two salt kilns and a reduction kiln. Some of the students were brave enough to add the salt. It was a great experience since most of the class had never fired a salt kiln before.

Russel, Sherry, Mark, Sandy, Robbie, Seth and Heather glazing their wares for the end-of-session salt firing

My work, drying from washing off the underglaze, going into the salt kiln

Cones 06, 010 + 7, 8, 9, 10 for the salt kilns

Dan loaded Gin Gin

Mark and I loaded Juanita

Thanks to Susan Feagin's brilliantly organized brick-door-system, the kilns were bricked up in no time

Elina loading up the salt

Seth putting salt in the kiln [video 00:20]

We loaded the kiln on Monday night, fired all day Tuesday and went on a Field Trip on Wednesday, while the kiln was cooling. We went to Crimson Laurel Gallery and Mica Gallery in Bakersville, as well as the studios of Suzie Lindsey and Kent Mclaughlin (Fork Mountain Pottery), Michael Kline, Michael Hunt and Naomi Daglish (Bandana Pottery), and Courtney Martin. Thursday we unloaded the salt kilns.

Unloading the salt kiln - excellent results were achieved by all

Our evening entertainment contained a guitar, one or two banjos, and sometimes even the ukulele; here, Clara Hoag is performing one of her punk songs, while Mark and Izzy are listening (there actually was a whole group of people listening in the background)

Clara Hoag [video 00:28]

The session ended with a huge auction for the work study scholarship. Everybody was encouraged to donate a couple of pieces. Since I couldn't fit anything in my suitcase I brought a couple of the salt fired pieces up to Northlight and they were auctioned off on Thursday night.

A vase and a ketchup bottle of mine went to the auction

A French Fries Tray with the Ketchup Bottle went as well

Dan helped auction off some pieces, so did Cynthia Bringle

Some of the work I made while in Penland