Broke Down Blues

The mornings are quickly transitioning from cool to cold. Before I have time to blink it will be winter again, and my hands will be struggling to center in the cold of the studio. November is the busiest time of year. Speech contests for my students kick into full gear, my yearly volunteer course begins, and preparations for winter travels.

I have hit a rock and a hard place. Just before the show in Susaki City the kiln broke down. I was expecting the repair to be somewhat expedient, however my hopes have proven futile. Yamatogi Sensei assures me that the peice in need ot repairs has been shipped, and now we are just in a waiting game. This waiting. . . constantly not knowing when you'll be back in the flow of create, bisque, glaze, and fire is disheartaning. I've had little drive to go create in the studio because I've no garantees I'll be able to complete the works. I still am carving on pots, and tryign to keep my skills at least mildly sharpened.

I doodle frequently. . . in bright colors, and in rarely planned out patterns. They are studies in bordom and color. Like gesture drawings, they're done hastlily and meant more to capture the fleeting feeling of a moment rather than anything else. I would love to find the correct materials to allow me to doodle on the surfaces of my pots, but currently I do not have glazes like that at my disposal.

The maze.

Typhoon Friday

I'm veyr hopeful that we'll be back in business soon, and that I can return to work in full confidence that the work I'm doing will actually come to completion.

Untill then I'll keep the creative juices flowing however I can, and you should do the same!

Stuck in over-DRIVE

Today I'll walk the 20 minutes it takes to wind my way from my school to the Gallery where my work is. The walk will have my eyes right in the sun as it begins it's descent toward the mountains that encircle the horizon. I'll wind my way through Susaki propper. I'll pass the tiny hill top temple just after the only nice bike shop in town, and the famous soya(sho-yu) sauce business that all the city tourism pamphlets foucs on. I'll pass the post office, 4 run down houses overflowing with weeds and litterbox stinks, and many windows that belong to stores I've never seen open. I'm already anticipating the sense of relief I know the space will bring.

 I havn't been able to spend nearly enough time here since the show started. On a rainy Saturday I met Tabe Sensei and her son for breakfast and we went to the show together.

 The building is just one block off the main road through town, and it affords it a quietness that I love. When a guest goes into the main room the gallery owners bring you a small cup of iced tea to enjoy as you explore the exhibit. I really loved spending time asking Tabe Sensei about her feedback on my exhibit. I miss having someone to bounce my ceramic ideas off at school. It was a great morning. Don't worry you faithful readers there will be more pictures of the exhibit to come shortly. This weekend I'll be hosting a one day workshop on tile carving and texturing. I'll also be photoing the exhibit to better showcase the space. I'm not looking forward to taking the exhibit down. There ended up being about 104 peices once everything was unwrapped and on the tables.

    The reasons I've not been able to soak in the gallery is because fall is always the most chaotic time for me as an English teacher. Speach contest has rolled around again, and I'm rehersing with a student every day after school (she's fantastic and excited about English. It is rare and wonderful!). I'll be starting my extra lessons with the older folks in my area at the local community center come November (they are always a blast, but it means extra lessons and loads of planning). There are also of course the ever present tests and papers to grade.

But the real pain has been studying for the Japanese Driving test. It's a wonderful strange process that has been ranted about far too many times in the history of internet I'm sure. If you're really curious about the multi colored insanity show that's pictured above and my exact thoughts on it, feel free to ask. I take the test tomorrow, and despite studying, and being a fairly compitant experienced driver, I've less than high hopes for my first Japan Driving Test experience. Who knows!

What I do know is I can't wait for the workshop on Saturday, or to get back in the studio once the kiln is repaired. I have a whole batch of new work that's ready to fire, and a new goal to work towards with my ceramics. Thanks for reading, and if you've time come on bye the show.

Go create something!

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!