Just finished with all my "wet work" today and thanks to my blowdryer and boxfan, they are all sitting on the bisque shelf ready to be fired off tomorrow.
The last few days have been a bit stressful trying to get all my decorating done. I wasn't behind until Monday when I left the studio with my bag of ceramics tool on the roof of my car. Sadly, they were not there when I got home.

Never realized how much I heart my wire stylus. It is by far my favorite tool! Sorry for the very large graphic, I was too lazy to take a picture of mine (yes, I had to run out and get a new one right away) and this is the only picture I could find online that actually showed the tip clearly enough to see the tool. So anyways, the last two days I had my day job and couldn't get out to Bennet's so I tried to make my own. Theoretically, it seemed like it would be an easy thing to do. Best $2.55 I've spent in a long time!


This weekend will be bisquing and glazing and then next week I will have my glaze firing. Will post some pictures of the finished pieces as soon as I can! Am really excited about some of the new designs I've been doing. Well, cheerio and happy potting!

Today:

--threw 6 1lb. cups
--threw 4 2lb. bowls
--threw 2 2lb. batter bowls

--slipped and inlayed underglaze on large salad bowl
-- decorated 4 plates
--decorated 4 tumblers
--handled 8 mugs

Altogether, a pretty productive day! I think I'm actually ahead of schedule. How often does that happen? It's pretty much because I haven't had a moment away from clay (or my "other" job) in the past two weeks. Next week will be my last week of wet work for this show (assuming I don't get behind!). Wish me luck!

New Teapots

I am in the middle of pottery making mayham. There's a lifestyle gallery in New Jersey that wants to sell my work so I'm trying to make them up the requested amount of inventory. About $1000 worth. These pics are from my teapots:






As you can see, there's a few changes since the last time I made teapots. My knob is different and I have a new stamp. I hope they like them (and sell well)!

I stumbled across a few inspiring artists today that I thought I would share with you all. Enjoy!

Liz Summerfield:



(pics found at the AKAR Gallery website, even more images at her personal website)



Benjamin Carter:



(above pics found on-line at Charlie Cummings Gallery website, with even more images on his personal website)

I have been wasting today away surfing on the web and I have come across a few images I just had to share!

These first few I came across looking up embroidery patterns.
The first one I will be printing out to try on a test tile or two. I love the way the lines of the bird sort of blend into the foliage surrounding it! I am thinking of slowly adding a few birds to my designs but blending them with the surrounding vines and such so they seem just a part of the landscape.

Finally I am back! I know it's been a long time, my life has been pretty busy. I've actually had a bit of a selling spree this month, a commission to finish up and some other things in the works so it's been good!

Also, as you can see, I'm getting back into making some test tiles to try and experiment a little more with my work. As always, it's one of those things that takes quite a bit longer than you think it will!

I'm also trying to play around with my sprig molds again, in hope of getting some of that "wallpaper patterning" that I was talking about in a previous post to start happening on my pots.
This is one of my old sprig molds that I started to play around with on one of my test tiles (sadly, the fit of my slip was not as good as I could have hoped for and this one cracked off in the firing).

Here's a pic of the actual mold I used. It's made out of scrap plaster that I had left over from making some larger molds. I just use a brush to paint the slip into the mold, wait for it to get dry enough on the outside to come out of the mold and then I take it out and attach it to my piece.
The mold on the right is finished and the one on the left is one I'm currently working on. I drew the design on the plaster first with a pencil and then I just carve away at those lines in the right places, test it out a little, making it thicker in spots if it needs to be. Once all that is done, I have a nice sprig mold!

The idea I had for these molds is to start using them to create some extra pattern in my work the same way that use repeating designs in wallpaper. Such as this one by William Morris:

There's just something about that "mirror image" sort of thing that starts to happen but at the same time, it's organic (that sort of controlled organic) that I'm really enjoying. Mine would be simplified down quite a bit but it's still that same sort of idea.

I was actually fishing with my husband the other day and saw the way the reflection of this tree that had fallen into the water had this same quality to it. Here's a few snap shots I took of that that I've turned on their sides so you can see the "seam" of the mirror image vertically as you would in wallpaper.
Interesting, yes? I can almost start to see the damask pattern popping out at me just from this picture. Who says damask wasn't taken from nature!

My life has been busy lately-- too busy for my taste, haven't had enough time to get into the studio more than once a week or so for the past two months. I'm getting a bit ansty to really get my fingers dirty but this time has been good for filling up my scrapbook/sketchbook with new ideas.


Admittedly, I probably could have found more time to go if I really tried but my work feels like it's at a bit of a stalemate right now. That's how my work seems to go for me. I'll have these great times when I'm just pushing things out but then it seems like I hit a wall and am unsure where to go next. I'm starting to not be satisfied with my work, to look at it and only see flaws and so that's why I think I need this stepping back for a bit. I've been doing a lot of thinking and drawing and I think I've sorta figured out what quality in my work it is that I don't like, now the hard part: to change it/fix it so it's something I'm happy with again. Frustrating to do on only a few days a week!

So enough venting (that's not the reason I wanted to post today), I thought I would put up a few more of my inspirations and things I've been looking at and mulling over lately.

First is this lovely little blue and white tile handmade in Istanbul, Turkey. It's a more modern adaption of the Iznik Tiles of the 15th and 16th century. One of the things I've been playing around with adding to my work is a more fluid line for the vines and leaves of my pieces. There's a stiffness to my work right now that I don't like and am trying to get rid of.

Then part of me thinks that maybe I should play with that stiffness and try to make my designs more geometric such as these four tiles below which more islamic in style and use the flowers and leaves very symmetrically but something about them is still more graceful than my current designs.


So, in a pinch, those are the two main "types" of drawings I've played around with lately. Using symmetry as a tool to fashion my designs around and also the opposite. I guess the play of those two things is what I'm pretty interested in and have been throughout this body of work.

I did a painting in during undergrad that was modeled after some William Morris (another major art influence for me) where I took specific pieces of his floral designs and crafted my face in a repeating pattern. To me, it just reminded me of being a little girl staring at different wallpaper trying to find the faces and animals that would eventually emerge out of them. It turned out really well. I think there's something about that duality that I like as well (but I'm not sure if it fits into my work right now-- maybe it's best saved for the paintings!).