The first of many, and cleaning time.

Hey there fellow pottery enthusiasts! This week we'll start a new tradition. Every Thursday I'll try to mention two potters whose work is inspiring me. The number of incredible contemporary potters is truly a vast and deep well filled with awesome pots! So let's jump in with this weeks artists. 

“If I don’t love and encourage a piece of clay, if I don’t help it inch its way along to become the most beautiful thing I want it to become, it’s sort of a futile process to me. The need to feel all of this as humans [support and encouragement] is synonymous to making a pot because it’s intimate in the same sort of way.”  - Matthew McGovern  

Matthew McGovern is one of the potters I've been paying particular attention to this week. The images of his pots have a peaceful quietness to them that is outstanding. He manipulates slip on the outside of his forms with outstanding results. I rarely attempt this for of decoration but whenever I see results like this I can't help but long to try my hand at it. Along with Matthew I've been looking at the wood fired work of Kurt Teeter. Teeter studied in MFA program in at West Virginia University. I heard about Teeter from my mother, and after first opening his web page I've had the colors of his pots in my mind. Especially the earthy deep blues of the pot pictured below. 

 
They are just the best kind soft. To my eyes the interplay of line between the uneven edge of the pot and the blocking of color and lined texture above it. Just visually wonderful and stimulating to me.

It's been a strange week in the studio. It is test week which means there is only about a 50 % chance that I'll make it into the studio. Unfortunately, at least two days this week have had me banished via locked doors and missing keys (you wouldn't think that could be a problem) to the silence of an empty staff room and the endless digital wastes of the internet. This time was immediately put to finding new potters and pottery articles to read up on. On Monday I cleaned EVERYTHING. The ever growing mound of cast off trimmings was beginning to take on a life of its own, so it was time for a fresh start.

 I did manage to glaze pots and load the kiln for a small glaze firing that will be on track to open on Monday.


In a somewhat out of character move there ended up being a lot of blues and greens in this batch of firing. Something in the pots made me want to play with color in a more experimental way than I typically do. I think that I am naturally drawn to earthen tones, and natural glazes. Glossy colored glazes typically turn my eye (just not my style), but I also think there is room for a new level of layering that I have trouble achieving with my matted glazes. I'm hoping that the under-glazes and brushwork I attempted to practice will shine through the semi transparent blues and greens I glazed with this time. That's right brush work and glossy! . . . Where did Andrew go?. . . I know right.

Hey, growth requires experimentation.

The last push of creation and experimentation this week was another attempt at dialing in what an A. Sartorius Ceramics tea pot will look like. Right now this is what is coming off the wheel. For me, it's not there. In rare form I like the handle and the curve of the body, but the lid and the spout need more work. None the less, progress!



To wrap up this week's post. Go experiment. Try something new. Stretch your comfort zones and create something new. It's the only real way to grow, and I am certainly am seeking growth more than anything else.

New Horizons

As the sun rises I awake to the sound of swallows on the windowsill and the river flowing behind the apartment, and increasingly when I wake I greet the day with the thought that today is going to be a day to create. A day to play. Another day to dream more. I am getting closer and closer to the genesis of my love for pottery. It is one of the few areas I have found where I am actually able to directly (at times at least) translate my dreams into physical being. Sometimes those dreams are spawned from seeing other potter's work, sometimes from nature, and sometimes from the clay itself as it spins on the wheel. My enthusiasm for pots has only been on the incline since I last wrote my friends.

Now, I know that was a long time ago, and I am sorry for abandoning you a bit. You see, I created a Facebook business page for A. Sartorius Ceramics, and the benefits and progress of continuing to post there are far and away more measurable and read than my continued posting on Blogger has been. This could be, and probably is, user error to some degree. However I have a new resolution to do my very best to post once a week here. I like having the ability to go more into the details of what I am reading about, listening to, and thinking about my making process. So I think we'll dub Thursday the day for thoughts and thinkings on all things throwing and pottery related.

In the time between our last conversation I've stumbled upon a few really great things for all those creatively minded with a pension for pots. The Tales of a Red Clay Rambler  is a weekly podcast put out by Ben Carter who is fantastic potter. Ben is doing some really incredible stuff and is very vocal about potters being culture makers. His interviews with other potters talk about everything from the state of the contemporary market to artist's inspirations and creative movements. I look forward to the new podcast each week, and you should check it out!

May was a busy month for me, with two really fantastic shows. The first was an event in Matsuyama, Ehime at the Sen Guesthouse. Live music by three of my very good friends from Kochi, and the guest house owners mixed up some delightful specialty cocktails for the event. Loads of great people came bye.

Towards the end of the month I participated in a group show at the Quard Market in Ino. This event was WAY busier than I was ready for, and was an absolute blast to go to. A day of local artists, food vendors, and musicians all coming together. There were tons of people. Great times all around.

Like I said I am going to make a concerted effort to bring this blog back into the light of day once a week. There's always more to talk about, and pots to be made! Hopefully I can revamp the blog a bit and get it up to the same level as the A. Sartorius Ceramics facebook page (which you should definitely go check out), and while you're there you should go ahead and pop on over to my brand spanking new Etsy shop! It's just getting off the ground, and I'm a total beginner at managing all this digital media, but it's the way of the future! And that future, it's coming our way. See you next Thursday!

DigiDestined . . . ?

So this happened: 

I am ever unsure about the need for a digital presence, and am especially tentative about self promotion, but it seems almost inescapable these days. I find myself in the midst of an effort to better upkeep my digital potter's portfolio. The FaceBook page will hopefully be a link between my instagram (name: bearsartorius), the longer ruminations on my making process at this blog, an etsy page (currently in construction), and also serve as a road map to my own pottery curiosities and inspirations. I think one of the things I've enjoyed most about my four year exploration into the pottery world is the broadening sense of community I have been able to find. Granted, most of the work and studios I'm finding and following are professionals on a far more educated plain than I am, but it gives me something to aspire to. My hope has always been that my posts about pottery will get others excited to give it a whirl and see where their hands take them. 

If you a missing out on the reference in the tittle just do yourself a favor and pop on over to view a bit of my childhood. 

I have about half a kiln loaded with work that'll get fired today. I have some new glaze combinations in this firing that make me a little nervous, but I'm hoping that they turn out just like I'm imagining they could. That's the best part though isn't it. Not really knowing exactly how it'll come out in the end. I love that to a degree I relinquish control of my work in the final stages and let heat do all the work for me.  

Get out there and create something! 

Updates and Spates

Every monthish, maybe month and a half, I am fortunate enough to get a package containing one or two new Ceramics Monthly. I could write about how charged up they get me to learn more and try new things in the studio, but I wanted to share a very well stated description of an artist named David Hicks. The reason I'd like to highlight him is for his description of his creation process.

"I tend to work in short encounters with my wall compositions. These encounters are broken up into multiple focuses. For example I initially begin by producing five or so objects that will set the tone for a piece. Once that has been established, I work to make pieces that relate to or respond to those initial model objects. This process is usually a fast-paced process that is heavy handed and quick so I can keep my direction. I have a tendency to drift with objects in an evolutionary way. Works keep evolving and changing, and I keep it quick so I don't stray too far. Honestly this pace also keeps my interest fresh and focused." 

Hicks continues on, describing how he chooses objects and hanging methods for his seedpod inspired wall clusters which have such a fluidity and organic sense I can hardly stand it. The repetition of form, but not exact form or glaze pulls my eye in in a way that many other works of similar theory (collections of many smaller ceramic pieces grouped together) tend to loose my interest. 

If you're in need of some beautiful sculptures to look at or perhaps a great short article (this isn't the one from the Ceramics Monthly but it'll give you a little more of an idea) Check it out! It's what's inspiring me this week. 

I'm trying to really crank out work for a bisque fire this Thursday. I have been working on a few larger forms, and am still cranking on the slab plates. Any way! If you're a reader tell me about your creative process. I think the biggest reason David Hick's work  speak to me is because of the episodic quality to the collection of work featured. They have a real sense of exploration within a given time to me. I've worked for three (going on four) years in a borrowed studio space here at Susaki high school, and I think I may have to use his words to express how my creative process has worked here. Each day, perhaps week at best, is an episode of my imagination. I can rarely build up any type of concrete process or method, so my work comes in spates. My goal for this most recent outcropping was to create forms in sets. except for this beauty below. 

 

Until next time. Go create something! 

New Year / New Pots

Happiest of 2014's to you all. It's a balmy, grey, 10 (C) degrees today, and I'm none to envious of the reports from America of temperatures hovering down far closer to zero (F)  than Kochi will ever get. I have so much to tell after a six day trip to Singapore and the issuing in of a new year, but I'll save all that for a post all of it's own. 

I've been able to sneak back into the studio since returning to school, though not near as much as I would like. In the time given I've been cranking out forms to be carved after they get to leather hard. Mostly slab work but they're a blast to crank out. I miss the wheel and can't wait to have a biger block of time to devot to it at work.  



Look at those lovely rows of comerical cups! Meet some new inspiration : the Kopi coffee cup. But! That looks like a regular cup and saucer. You might be thinking. In Singapore drink stands are called kopi tiam, and there is a lovely little history to these style of cups. The suacers are deeper than their more conventional cousins, and I just absolutely love both the coffee (sweetend with condensed milk) and the form of these little mugs. Hopefully I'll have time soon to try my hand at them, but figured the first post of the new year should include at least one goal for the comming year. 

Speaking of the new year i have a host of resolutions and hopes for 2014, a good deal of which deal entirely with pottery. On our way home from Singapore Steph and I stopped in Kyoto to aquire some good luck for the comming year.  

Nothing fills the heart with better feelings for the comming year's potential like macha, a delightful little sweet, and the best company I could ask for - all enjoyed in the outer guardens of Kinkakujin (the Golden Pavilion). It's going to be a wonderful year. I hope your Holidays were magical and your already doing well with your own resolutions.  

Recalibrate

After loading a small test batch of work into the newly repaired kiln I punched in the firing cycle and waited to see how the freshly refinished Kiln Gods would treat me.

The outcome is a mixed bag of over exposed and passable results. The kiln's programed cycles all were wiped durring the repair, and I must not have quite gotten the down fire temperatures right for this firing. Some adjustments are in order, but we'll get it sorted.

I'm particularly happy with the sculptural form I'd been working on for some time. It's one of the biggest peices I've ever done.



These little ochoko were really fun. At the end of the day, I'm jus texstatic to be back in buisness. The kiln is finally filled with the tiles from the workshop I ran back in October. As the weather turns my mind shifts to how to keep my hands warm in the studio, and what forms I most want to work on for the comming months. In January over half the school goes on class trips for about 3 weeks, and I will have more than ample time to get my hands really muddy.

If you just can't get enough of pottery and people talking about pottery, and you'd really like to see some fantastic surface treatments check out fetishghost (a fellow blogger user and great potter). Until next time keep creating! 

Flurry and Dust.

You're invited to come to: 

At the start of this long endevor I simply was craving exposure. I had 60 or 70 some peices gathering dust in my studio. My own collection of work rarely seen, and by anyone but you few internet friends. It was (has been) a supremely personal journey for the past 3 years into the world of pottery. The process of arranging and working towards a gallery show is so vastly different from the solotude of the studio I am so accustomed to when I make my works. Meeting the wonderful staff of the Machigato Gallery in Susaki, thinking over the best ways to instal my work in the gallery's space and "fill" it to a point that looks good, and then there is publicizing (which for me comes as the most difficult party). It is all wonderful, and new, and also very tiring.

 My extra time this week was eaten by preping works for transit to their new monthlong home. Hand wrapping each peice is an excellent time for self critique. My hands cradle each peice, and my fingers find the gritty imperfections that my eyes never reveal when I simply look at my collection. The learner's trials and happy accidents litter the surfaces of many of my works, and their lessons are greater for my growth than I could have hoped for.

Consequently, handling and wrapping each peice also kicked up quite a bit of duest which has rather unhappily settled itself in my nose. I sent 7 boxes packed full to the gallery on Monday, and will spend the greater part of tomorrow installing it all for the first time. I can't wait to see everyone's resonce to my work, and hope that you'll find the time to come and see it. I'm ever greatful for input and for your readership of my journey.

Before I go, I have been working on some new tiles for a tile workshop I'll be teaching on September 28th. Unfortunately the school's kiln's controle pannel and power switch have fallen victim to the extreem humidity here in Kochi. Yamatogi sensei assures me that it will be up and running again sometime in October, but for now that just means some of my peices will not be making it into my first show. It really jus tmeans I have more time to fill the kiln with more work for the next show!

Have a great day!
GO and make something!

Return

After a long trip home, the first in 2 years, I'm back in Susaki and in the studio. There is a lot of work to be done before the opening of my show on September 13th. I've been granted space in the Machikado Gallery to display my work. I've never put together a show before, esspecially a solo exhibition, so my thoughts about the best ways to display everything and all the other ins and outs are really racing.

I have always loved texture and surface decorations. They alter the tone and give the eye a reason to pull the hands to the peice. This show's collection is largely going to e peices that focus on texture and giving a sense of agedness to something new, and also atempting to replicate the natural element of an atmospheric firing in my electric kiln with only factory made glazes and changes to the temperature and exposure of the firing cycle. Just come and have a look!

Home was wonderful, as home should be! The whole family came out in force to welcome me back. We soaked eachother in for two weeks, and I even managed to see some of my oldest and dearest friends from both high school and the good old Wooster days. There will be more info and news to come along with more photos of new work, but for now the sauna of a studio is calling to me. Thanks for reading! It's good to be back.

Toys, Important dates, and lots of Plates

 It's been busy BUSY weeks since I last posted here. The summer sun seems to have come and finally burned off the residual moisture of last weeks tail end to the rainy season. As seems par for the course the rainy season saw my dear mellon and cucumber plants consumed by white powdery mold, but my cherry tomatoes seem to be doing ok and my greens carry on as though there were nothing wrong in the least.  I've grown esspecially fond of my fish pot with two big gold fish, and a medly of water plants to keep it well oxygenated. They greet me every time I go out onto my balcony.

All too soon I'll be venturing home to visit the family in West Virginia for the first time in two years at the end of this month. I'm excited beyond beleif to see them. So, with packing added to the already impressive list of things to do I have been releived that I still managed to make time to create my pots. I've been testing out some new (absolutely astonishingly great) tools. We loaded two kilns full of my work and some student works and fired them up. The first firing came out very well for the most part, but unfortnately the second firing seems ot have unintentionaly gone too hot. This caused the glazes to become more muted than I was going for. All of this push for work is because I have some wonderful news! In early-mid September I'll be having my first solo exhibition. More details to come, along with fun promotional goodness, but I just wanted to relay the good news with this weeks up date. KIeep creating!

Great new toys from Mudtools. Thanks Mom and Dad these work wonderfuly.
I am esspecially fond of the rubber ribs and the new clay cutter.



I've really been focusing a lot on cup and saucer designs.
These were from the most recent long cool down firing.

I'm still trying to dial in the right mix of glazes and temperature change to result in the most
atmosphiric looking results. I don't quite have it yet, but I'm always after those
Bizen and Shigaraki colors. I am quite happy with these though.

Bisque and News

Today's weather really threw me for a loop. Cool lovely morning, hot mid day, and then humid but cool night. I have some large tiles that have been drying for days in the studio and the humidity is keeping them quite damp still depsite my best efforts. I would really like them to dry so that I can glaze them and try to slip them (yes unbisqued, my god right?!) into Friday's firing. Last week saw a bisque fire come and go smoothly and without any casualties. I've spent the week glazing like a mad man attempting to get everything ready in time because there's big news on the horizon (but for now it must remain a secret)!

 All tantalizing secrets aside I find that glazing is still a part of my creative process that is most in need of refining. I don't fully understand the techniques needed to smoothly blend two glazes, or even to get the same effect reliably every time. It is truley a new and fantastic experience almost every time I open the kiln. Sometimes my glazes behave exactly as I have hoped and expected them to, sometimes I'm surprised in the best of ways, and sometimes I'm greated by pots that look as though they were glazed with as much attention to detail as sand blowing in the wind. I've been quite active in the studio this week beyond just my glazing. Every day I have been working to teach myself how to reliably throw (though I should, perhaps, just say center) larger amounts of clay. I find it really challenging to maintain that perfect centered position on the wheel and my work (with one exception) has turned out good enough for the reclaim bucket every day this week. It leaves my wrists and fingers soar, but in reality I find that soarness refreshing!

I know you've seen these guys already, but I just fin this image far more pleasing than the other
and simply had to share it. 

My favorite mug from last weeks firing. 

Go create something TODAY! 

Fired, Blues, and News

About two weeks ago I opened up the kiln of an incredibly rainy Monday. The weather was terrible, and I had the day off from school to dedicate time to cleaning my house and relaxation. What I saw with this firing was really quite surprising. many more muted colors than I am used to, and lots and lots of drips. Now I7m really quite partial to runny yellow glazes, and that metalic blue that fades to slighly crystalized copper burns when exposed to my long back fire firing cycle makes for some pots with a lot of character, but this time the glazes left me feeling like they were a bit . . . rushed.

I'm very happy with this tea bowl.

 

I love the forms, but I really want the glaze to uniformly fade. Granted the kilns "kiss" and treatment of each individual pot is part of what makes pottery so endlessly entertaining.

I'm not the happiest with these two mugs.

Love this carved mug.  

I am still working on coffee mugs and demitause cups. I am amassing so many peices that I really need to do a bisque firing, but the communication barrier at school with my new ceramics instructor, Yamatogi Sensei, hasn't been 100% broken down as of yet. There are some deadlines for compititions at the end of this month that I would really like to apply to. . . so , we'll just have to do some sweet talking and creative gesturing convince him otherwize.

I wrote a few posts ago about my trip to Bizen and how I was equaly in awe and more than a little jealous of all the clay culture that surrounded me while I was there. Sometimes I think young artists, or just young people in general get a restlessness that builds within them. It's the desire to have the life you know you want. I often think that I want a life in pottery. I'm not sure where or how that happenes but 9 out of 10 days I want it more than just about anything I can dream of. So, when I see an artist with a studio in ceramics monthly it's hard to not think, "man they have it all!". The truth is that they are working, and have been working - along their own paths - for YEARS to get to that article. It's the same in any job, for any twenty something. We're hungry for our dreams to come to a point where we feel we're living them not living for the hope of dreaming them. All of that to say that I just got the June Ceramics Monthly and its pages are a wash with artists and pots that make me hungerier than and more excited than a 5 year old at an all you can eat cake and icecream buffet, but I opened it up to a quote on the very subject I've been ranting on by a Potrland, Oregon potter named Brian R. Jones:

"My advice to others interested in a career in pottery: You have to dig your well deep. invest in youself and others will invest in you. Things happen when they happen and that's not something you have control over. Don't get too concerned or resentful with someone else's success. They are not being successful at you. It's just their time. Use your energy to make better work."

So it's off to make better work I go!

Drive and publicity!

Working towards goals is one of the most self empowering things you can do in your day to day life. Be they goals in fitness, education, ceramics, painting, music or competative TV staring (well maybe not so much the later) striving to better yourself is a HUGE opportinity for generating happiness. 

For my first year and a half here my work was almost 90% spontanious. I might sit down to the wheel and say, "I'm going to make a bowl", and sure enough a bowl of some type would be the result. I don't see any problem with this, however recently I have been focusing much more on creating with a designed purpose. Sketching out pots, looking through Ceramics Monthly for inspirational forms constantly, and in general being more demanding of my own creative process. The result of this is an ever growing collection of work ready to be bisqued, and the need to set goals.



Greenware ready and waiting for the bisque.



Living here in Japan I feel fairly disconnected from the pottery communities I spend most of my days reading about, and the language barrier between Japan's pottery community and myself is quite large (this is mostly my own fault for choosing gardening and pottery over studying all the time). That all being said, I've recently really been focused on finding international art competitions and calls for entry to work towards. I like having a challenge or a goal to push for, and the addition of a deadline really helps to accelerate my drive sense of purpose while in the studio. The show I'm currently working at applications for is a call for demitasse and saucer designs. So I'm expiramenting.



If you like art of all sorts, and would like to see a fantastic digital collection of up and comming artists check out artascent.com. Art Ascent is a great sight. Their goal is to create themed competitions for international artists to have a chance to share their work with a wider community. If you are an up and comming artist I can't recommend them enough. They put out a lot of different calls for work and their themes are ussually really interesting. My work is up on their web site, and later I will be featured in a paper publication as well. Can't wait to see a hard copy of that. The other featured artists are really great and totally worth checking out as well.

I think that's about all the news from the studio this week. Be on the lookout in the near future for more news, and hopefully a firing soon!

Go create something! Stop thinking about it and do it!

Latest Push

I make my cup of coffee, sit in my squicky office chair, read the blogosphere updates, and scan NPR's web page for the news. Then it's down to the studio to push towards getting my hands in the clay. Working with larger mounds of clay is still challenging for my hands, and when I go to wedge it I notice my form gets sloppy the bigger the mound of clay before is. Bringing it all to center takes a bit more focus, but the real challenge comes with pulling it to the right thickness and shaping the transition from bottle neck to body. This shoulder of the peice should be such an elegant shape, but mine often wobble or flair in hopefully attractive ways. It's a continual battle to teach myself how to create the fished pots I see in a lump of clay as uposed to the finished pot the lump of clay, at times, forces me to make. It's days like this that make me crave a daily routine focused on bettering my skills under the wing of some expert. A master to study under, or even a friend to explore the trials of unknowing with. When these quiet frustrations work their way into my days I often retreat from the studio into my english classes, or perhaps into my ever growing collection of Ceramics Monthly. That magazine is my life line to the seemingly limitless potential for creativity that rests in human hands and mud.

The work is startign to pile up. Will have to do a bisque firing soon.

I realize I've been absent for a few weeks now, and I do appologize for that. My days in school have been busy, and the studio hasn't recieved as much attention as it perhaps should have. Last week my energies were spent in attempting to take some really good photos of some of my more textured and rough vase forms to send in to an online international call for entries. No high hopes on that application, but I did my best, and will keep my fingers crossed. More to come in the very near future!

"For the wheel's still in spin"

 

After almost 3 years of daily visits for coffee and tomfoolery, working to improve one another's teaching skills beyond the confounding barrier of two languages, getting muddy on days when there were no classes, and endless giving and kindness Tabe Sensei is now working for Susaki Technical High School and Kubokawa High School. They can't know how lucky their students are.  We spent our final day, which was appropriately gray and melancholy, of working together laughing about old times, and going on a lovely lunch excursion to a surprisingly fantastic Italian place near my school. Pasta, a surprisingly crusty (in the good way) peice of home made bread, and the ploting of ways to stay in contact despite now different schools. It was a bitter sweet day of fond farewells.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! For your greatness!

It's a sunny spring day today with enough a chill in the air that a light sweater is still appriciated, but hardly necessary. The sakura infront of the craft room are at their peak, and though quite (with a gaping Tabe Sensei shaped hole) the studio is still a lovely place to do work. I've been filling the silence with Mr. Dylan's songs. It seemed all to fitting to use a line from one of his songs for this post's tittle.

 The new craft instructor invited me down to the studio two days ago to watch me do some work. Yamatogi Sensei was a year ahead of Tabe Sensei in university and specializes in making wooden art objects. My initial impressions are dominated by his neatness, big smiles, and relative lack of English. After watching me work for a day he said that I should feel free to use the studio as I liked. His exact words translated to, "use the same as you did". This is hesitantly great news, and most of this week I've been in and out of the studio creating new pots. I recently watched a small documentary that focused on the pottery community in Minnesota. Sharing the Fire, is great if you are interested in seeing a vibrant potter's community, and many different journeys that all led to careers in ceramics. Check it out!

 

Somewhere within all of these farewells and new works I managed to have some really great visitors from the USA stop bye. Meet the Strubles!

They came for a visit with Steph, and walked away with a family of three tea cups that have been looking for the perfect home. The visit with Steph's family was a hoot! They're a barrel of laughs and we surfed, beach walked, ate well, and generally shared good times. Can hardly wait to see them again. Hopefully they'll think Kochi whenever they enjoy a cup of tea.

I'm off to trim some of my new work, and possible throw some more vase forms (I am really enjoying bottles and vases these days. They take to texturing really well). Have a happy weekend!