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!

Photo Journal: The Dragon

Pots out back of Thow Kwang Pottery Center

The baby dragon. 

One of Singapore's last 2 dragon kilns. This thing was massive! 

Inside the dragon. 

So back in the holiday season Stephanie and I went to Singapore, and I may have mentioned that we adventured our way to one of Singapore's last giant climbing dragon kilns. When we got to the slightly out of the way location it was starting to rain, we were being devoured by mosquitoes, and it turned out that there were no classes being offered that day. So. . . resigned to only getting to look at a kiln without really getting a chance to learn much about it we explored the large open air studio. A whole lot of the work sold at this pottery center isn't had made in Singapore, but we managed to find one of the artists in residency at Thow Kwang Pottery, Steven Low. And he saved our day of pottery center exploration. Steven talked to us about the ceramics community that had grown around these dragon kilns, and about his time as care taker for the kiln. He also talked with us a little about his new lines of work. His kindness and personal attention to two wayward travelers interested in a bit of pottery was incredibly generous. Thank you Steven! If you are ever in Singapore and want to have a guaranteed great time GO VISIT STEVEN! The dragon kiln is a stunning sight, and the work that comes out of it is equally stunning.

Steven with some of his work in progress. 

I love his tea bowls. 

Steven loves making tea bowls, and has a huge collection of beautiful creations at the pottery center. This little beauty was irresistible, and is now happily siting in my apartment.  

Steven's studio. 

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.  

Tobe: the Real Deal

Two weeks ago Stephanie and I took her friend Sarah to Tobe Yaki. Tobe, like Bizen, is a traditional Japanese pottery center. Tobe's style couldn't be more different than the dark reds, bronzes, and gold browns of Bizen's climbing kilns, but the feel is largely the same. Almost every home has some little ceramic detail, and every garage, livingroom, or back yard has some type pottery studio, collection of slip molds, or even a small kiln shed in the back yard. IT WAS GLORIOUS to see.

Simply the idea of an artistic community dedicated to preserving, promoting, and simutaniously modernizing local pottery traditions is like stepping into my dream list of job titles and making them materialize before my eyes. The Tobe Culture Center has a fantastic show room that takes you through the early traditions of the pottery, and also showcases the way the various artists and families of potters have changed the traditional forms and had fun with the glazes. Tobe is most well known for its navey blue brush work on white clay, but as you can see there are many takes on this old standard.

We got a chance to try our hand at painting a pot of our choosing. My brushwork clearly needs work, but I think Steph is a natural! It was great fun, and I'd return in a heart beat to show just about anyone this little treasure of ceramic culture.

Here are a few of the more contemporary designes we saw at the cultural center. There was a huge (very cool) store where you could buy work, but photos were prohibited.

I have some peices in a local christmas market in Kochi City. If you're in Japan and have just been itching for one of my pots then this would be a good chance. Yamma Neko gallery is a great place.

Mr. Leach even made time to stop in. It's always such a pleasure to see his work.

All this typing about pottery has me itching to get into the studio and get back into the making cycle. I saw some really fantastic slab work in Tobe and have been thinking about trying my hand at it since. I'm off to create something, you should do the same!

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! 

Follow Up

The school is like a came. The halls are dark, and the thick cement walls hold the night's cold far longer than one would think. Fall's colors are all scattered across the hills and it's dark by 5:30 if your lucky now. It seems like winter came almost without any sense of Fall at all. Perhaps two weeks at best, but that's ok by me. Winter here is quite mild, and though the homes are not so well heated or insulated it means more hot beverages and soups. I'd take being cold over being hot any day.

I wanted to follow up on my post about the young potters I saw in Tobe with a few pictures of the more traditional Tobe Yaki look.

There is a lovely little hand made gallery just down the street from my apartment where I try to stop in once every month or so just to check what pottery and laquer ware turns up, and this month they had a real surplus of new potters. The two folks from tobe above, and a new Kochi potter. All I was able to understand from the store owner's description is that the potter was a woman who lived about 20 minutes away in Tosa and that she built everything by hand without the use of a wheel. I really love the glaze on the first tea bowl pictured.

Hoping to return to posting every Monday and Thursday now that the kiln in back on line. We'll see you soon everyone. Go CREATE!

Dream Walks and Fixed Kilns

Step by step in the quiet rain I head for temples hidden amoungst the hustle of one of Shikoku's biggest cities. Two weeks ago Steph and I checked off Matsuyama from our 88 temple trek. Along the way we stayed at the always fantastic Sen Guesthouse (seriously if you travel through Matsuyama do yourself a favor and stay there!). While there, I got to conversing with the owner about local potters. Matsuyama is home to Tobe Yaki, a place which I am sadly very under educated at the moment. The work that I associate with Tobe Yaki (as I knew it) is traditionaly a white clay body with blue designs painted under a clear glossy glaze. The owners at the Sen guest house assured me that that may be the traditional imagery, but that there is some really creative and absolutely fantastic contemporary ceramics comming out of Tobe.  

 This is a pot from Asato Ikeda, and I am absolutely in love with his forms. They're loaded with motion and energy. Appearantly the folks and Sen Guesthouse are friends of his and work to help him publisize his ceramics from time to time. I'd love to pic this guys brain, and watch his process for creating such movement within the clay. 

As some of you may know my other obsession in life is tiny houses, and I saw this little beauty cruzing down the road on the way to the Kochi Air Port for a business trip to Tokyo. Similarly to my desire to pic the brains of Tobe's youthful potters I would LOVE to spend an afternoon exploring the construction of this little movable cabin. I doubt it is used for camping or dwelling. It is owned by a bakery, but I am willing to bet it could be repurposed to be dweld within. If you asked me why I love tiny houses I don't think I could adiquately articulate my feelings in a clear enough mannor. The biggest appeal of them is that they seem doable! I have always wanted to build my own home, but have absolutely no knowledge of carpentry, construction, and only the very basest of handymanery. Constructing something tiny is a way to get around the daunting challenge of learning all of that full scale. They are also significantly easier to heat, own, make energy efficient, and leave less of an imprint on the world that surrounds us. I could go on for days about hwo freak'n cool tiny structers are and how much I want to make pottery in one, but I won't . . . because that isn't what you're here for.

You're here because you're my friend, and you are curious about my ceramics and life. Now we come to the news that you and I have been waiting for, for weeks and weeks. The kiln repair is complete! There is a bisque firing happening as we speak and Yamatogi Sensei assures me that I can do a glaze firing this weekend if all goes well. Extatic does not do my feelings justice. I have a load of my own work (mostly ochoko and a few tea bowls) to fire, and probably at least a load of tiles from the workshop I did last month during my exhibition.

Thanks for reading! If you get a chance go check out Asato's work. Keep creating.

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!