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!

GO HERE! GO GO GO!

Two and a half hours north of Kochi City and then a short train ride to the east is a place where stacks upon stacks of cut and dried pine litter the streets. A place where back alleis were cobbled with the old broken bits of pottery deemed unfit for sale. Where every storefront, every window has vestles painted with flame and ash, and ever third home sprouts a 5 story chimney from a kiln shed that's taken root just behind a home. They've been digging and firing clay from the green hilsides here since the Heian period (794). The peices unearthed from the large anagama kilns are known for their red and brown shades. This little slice of pottery nerd heaven is called Bizen, and it's Japan's oldest midevil pottery town.  

Last weekend I went with Steph and a fellow pottery enthusiast named Mitch to visit this mythical place of pottery power. Due to time constraints we were only able to spend one day exporing this little hot bed of ceramics goodness, but it left a lasting impresion on me. Every corner, every wall, every store front, and even the local temple were covered in tiny hand made ceramics details.

A ceramic face  peeks out from  an overgrown wall.

The wall to the local shrine had a tile from every potter that lived in the town.

One of the many many kilns we saw just awaiting use in someone's back yard.

To walk through these streets, see the galleries (esspecially the huge one in the train station), and just be surounded by a place absolutely soaked in ceramics was such a wonderful expereince. I day dreamed as we walked, talking about the endless potential for growth I saw in a place like this, so much so that I had to be reminded of the endless potential for growth I have at my finger tips here in the ceramics studio in susaki.

Oh those Bizen colors.

We even managed to get a small hand building lesson.

I've read that it's very difficult to study in Bizen, and truly I am a full time teacher who only has time for a hobby in ceramics at the moment, but a boy's got to dream doesn't he! Our exploratiosn of the pottery center left me hungry for more, and itching to get back in the studio. I managed to sneak in enough time yesterday to build several lovely little bowls, and have plans to dash down just now and squeeze in another hour or so. Go out and find your equivilent of a pottery village! Persue what speaks to you in any way possible, and get hungry for it. little trips like last weekends help remind me why I've such a hunger for ceramics!

Thanks for reading! See you again soon.

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!

Bad News Break Down

    As an English teacher in Japan's public school system you know you come the end of March with the opening of cherry blossoms also comes the potential for your work world to dramatically change. Voices from mysterious Prefectural offices send out names on charts that, seemingly, uncaringly uproot teachers from their current schools and forcibly scatter them to all the far flung corners of the prefecture. For my past two years the teacher change has left my school largely unaffected.

    I entered to pottery studio last Thursday to desks covered in cardboard boxes and a very overwhelmed best friend. Tabe Sensei (my school's incredible craft teacher, and the reason I am able to use the pottery studio at my school, and most importantly my best friend at work) has been summoned away by the voices on high. She has 3 days to completely clean the studio and all of its Tabe art, decorations, and teaching aids. It's a daunting task. Over her years here many students have gifted her their art projects. These gifts adorn every inch of the studio. In slight shock at the news that Thursday and Friday will be my last days of seeing her, and my studio (at least as I have known it), all I can muster is, "I'll help?"
    In relative silence we collect the relics of her years teaching here. She chooses a few that mean the most to her (they'll follow her to her next school), but there are far more than could ever make the trip to her currently unknown next school. So, with pliers, hammers, and other instruments of disaster we deconstruct her collection of art in to suitably sorted piles of recyclabe parts. We save the pottery room for last. There we gather all our students work that is left over. . .

take it out behind the kiln shed,

Tabe the destroyer!

This is only a third of the student's work we smashed.

the aftermath

     and take out our frustration in a duel hammer weilding frenzy. After the dust settles and we've spread the shattered bits evenly about laughter takes us. Inside I'm still smashing things with hammers. We go back and talk about our years together with kids and in the studio. We cram all our work into the electric kiln for one last group bisque fire, and watch as a construction crew crain lifts the old broken down gas kiln away into nothingness (now even the kiln room feels empty). She says she'll come to school and visit me when she can, and reminds me that we live in the same town. I assure her that I'll take her up on her invitation of comming to her house any time to say hello.

     All in all, last weeks ceramics news was somewhat crippling. It is a total system reset. It means getting to know a new craft teacher, probably not teaching any ceramics courses this year, and at least for the moment a severly less agressive studio presence. Tabe sensei apearantly went to university with the genltman who will be taking her spot at school. She says he's brilliant, and claims that she has explained to him that I use the studio and can help the students as well. These are all promissing details, but none the less change (big or small) is difficult, and my school in total lost about 13 incredible teachers. Two of those 13 are English teachers I love working with, and one is my best Japanese friend.
    For now, I have to go and continue to help clean the studio, and say farewells. More will come as I know what the ceramics situation looks like from here. I'll post when I can with updates.
Everything changes, the important thing is how you handle that change. Tabe sensei and I will see eachother again, and even if I am only granted once a week after school studio time it will still be sticking my hands in mud. . . . gratitude for my two plus years of working with her and thoughts of how much she ( and the time she allowed me to have in the studio) helped me to find my love of ceramics throughout my years here are the thoughts I'm trying really hard to focus on.

more soon.

Keep creating friends!