Journey Sept 18 - 21

Did a lot of sketching of designs for fishing woman/factory ship last week and so started working on one. They do take a long time to finish as I need to let them harden up and dry slowly. My sculptures seem to be getting more complicated - I would rather see them more simplified. This last one will have the fishing woman at the front, with the ship holding lots of fish on the sides. Somehow I seem to have lost the elegance of the design with this one - too many add ons. However will continue and see what Steven has to say in the consultation next week.


Ended up doing a lot of work at the Guild insulating the kiln shed and in helping with our open House on Wednesday. We had 12 new members sign up for lessons - several who had done pottery before so that is always encouraging as they tend to stay with it.

Journey Sept 8 - 15 "The Parade" Pots

I had made a slab vase pre-Steven Hill under "The Parade" theme, and decided to do another one. Not sure how successful this one was, it looked at bit like a prison tower with inmates rioting out the windows, so I added a tree to help it look like a street. With the tree partially sticking out it added another dimension to the vase so can work on this aspect for my slab vases in the future.


Well this was a rather frustrating week - not much time for pottery - lots of time spent cleaning up the Guild in readiness for the Open House next week. We hope to get many new members - the more members, the more inspiration and ideas get passed around. Whether I am helping a beginner or watching/talking to a more experienced potter I always find there is something new to learn. We are lucky to have this facility in Deep River, as for a yearly membership fee of $100, members get 24/7 key access, use of wheels, slab roller, electric and gas kilns. A series of 6 lessons is included in the fee - taught by Guild volunteers. Members buy their own clay and then pay for the firings according to weight. This includes the bisque fire, glazes and glaze firing. Ninety six cents/lb for electric and $1.28/lb for gas. This makes pottery affordable for everyone and it seems like over the 54 years that our Guild/club has been established someone from nearly every household in our town of 4500 has tried out pottery. As a result the townspeople are very supportive of the 6local potters that sell their work.
I did a lot of sketching for the fishing woman/factory ship theme, but having a hard time moving forward with that. I also made some more fish stamps based on medieval woodcuts, trying to get away from the cutesy look for my fish stamps.
I will also continue to make cups, practicing my handles pulled from the cup.

Journey Sept 1 - 7 Garbage Can Platter

Well after the rather disastrous firing last week (had lots of other small pots in the kiln - temmoku over celadon with wax resist (again too thick a temmoku). Also I was trying to get some nice red-gold spots on the temmoku by overspraying some rutile, iron combination. One combo from a recent clayart post recommended some clay in the wash so that it would not get dissolved - but it ended up rather dry. The best seems to be rutile / gerstley borate in 1:2 ratio which seemed to produce gold streaks.
I made another boat/fishing woman - this time much bigger. I think that I made the slabs too thick as it is very heavy. I also wanted to incorporate the curves of the woman into one back edge of the boat - to make it more interesting. Took quite a bit to time to get the edge to look right - ended up filling the upper left corner with lots of hair.
Not sure if my message of small fisherwoman vs factory ships comes across. My visiting daughter and her boyfriend both thought that it had something to do with the sea - a mermaid, perhaps the woman protecting fish - but the idea a a big factory ship did not come across at all. So will work on that. I do like one back edge having a curve. Also like the waves in front - again the diorama theme.

I have wanted to make some large plates so thought I would slump a large slab over the top of a garbage can. I tied and taped an old sheet over the top of the can and then used another thin cloth to transfer the slab that had been precut into a circle into the top of the can. It slumped beautifully. I extruded a wide rim and penciled in grooves using a ruler. Once it had stiffened up a bit I attached it to the plate/ I tried some fish paper cutouts - with shark etc. Then I threw a foot and which later attached once they were all stiff enough. In the end I decided no fish, but put on some slab handles. With the nest plate I think I will try some stamping on the slab before slumping and so that way they would tie in to my other work.

This week with visitors and it being the annual cleanup at the Guild - I really had little time for making pots.

Journey Aug 25 - 31 Bearded Ladies

Well this week had to glaze stuff for the Friday firing. I had my stamped mugs - those I used VCAA green and a clear on the inside. They turned out OK - in fact several have already sold.
I did a few more in the blue version of the VCAA but I put on the glaze too thick and they turned out a very strong blue black - not nice at all. However all the handles ended up a loose one finger handle - maybe need to make them either a tad smaller or bigger (for two fingers).

With the two large stamped plates - one I used a rutile blue which shows up texture well and the other a temmoku center , ringed with hannah ochre ash. Both turned out a disaster - no rutile blue - just a grey- brown, though the texture was OK and then my temmoku was too thick so the fish disappeared.
I decided to do the fake ash glazes on the figured pots. The landscape one used iron saturate on the bottom, wiping it off the high appliques. Then I sprayed with the blue ash and Ochre Ash and some more blue ash in the upper right hand corner.



With the women pots I just used the two ash glazes, wiping off the blue from the high points at the bottom. I think that I also did a light overspray with rutile/gerstley borate in some sections like the sun and the trees. However I mostly had too thick an application on all these pots - the backs turned out better as I did not put on such a thick layer - so ran and pooled a bit too much especially on the chins - like a beard. will have to see if I can grind those down - perhaps do a little sandblasting as well next time I visit my brother in Montreal. Well I will have to be more careful on the spraying to get more exacting results.


I am not sure if in the end if I like the ash glazes on these pots better than
the Rhodes 32. There is another glaze that I am thinking of using - that's the VCAA base - but should do a line blend to see what colours I can develop - the VCAA green and blue are both too strong and vibrant I think for these pots. I have the the tan version - but it is a bit dark.


I tried a variation of the landscape on a large plate - but used a wax batik method to apply the iron underglaze decoration and then used a semitransparent that is supposed to be good for iron reds. Unfortunately it is quite shiny - so do not really like the result - though the iron came through beautifully. So perhaps will try to work on that glaze to develop a matte version.

Journey Aug 18-24 "What Do You Think"

Marian sent me an email on Tuesday and reminded me that our first session with Stephen was coming up in a couple of days! Yikes - I rapidly finished the third vase that was sitting under plastic for the last week. On this one I decided to do a landscape as I feel that it will be easier try different glazes and have success than with the woman pots. I also need to make a bunch of smaller sample pots with appliques and test out glazes.
Fortunately I received an email from Stephen delaying the monthly session, giving me more time to get my pictures together. On Wednesday I finally pulled handles on 11cups that I had thrown last week. I use an old fridge as a damp cupboard and the cups were still soft enough to attach the handles. Did a rather messy job - but will keep at it. I really need to start with smaller rolls of clay at the start and the attachment point is still very thick - out of proportion to the rest of the handle.
Maybe the cups have too much on them - throwing rings at the top, stamp and then the wacks at the bottom, though I like the long wacks that go up the cup - look like sails of a boat and go with the stamp of water and sun. Actually I find the throwing rings also repeat the water waves in the stamp.
I tried stamping some smaller bowls but found the flat stamps did not work well on the curves - so made some fish stamps on rounded surfaces and so will see if these work better.
Had to make more teabag rests - almost sold out of them - sold over 50 in July - so they are a nice source of income. I will try some appliques on the teabag rests so then can use them as glaze samples as well.
Also need to make some more olive canoes - as these sell well for the tourists. Will try to incorporate stamps, appliques to those as well.
On Saturday helped with a culture grant workshop for kids at a farmers market in Killaloe - about an hour away from us. As the market was just in its first year the attendance was very poor - but it was a nice location with a beautiful old barn and a great little band with a neat washtub bass. Get an old washtub, tape off the holes for the handles, attach a bass G-string with washers to the middle of the tub and the other end to a stick. Notch the bottom of the stick and rest it on the bottom ridge when playing.

Journey Aug 10 - 17 Fish Stamps

Started on my second vase - using the fishing woman with lots of waves that I had made at Center Street Clay and not sure if I improved on the top - just a short indent rather than going around corner. Also tied in the "waves" into the base by building up the ends. It gives a more complete look I think to the vase. Put a fish on Kanthal wire at the base as well.
Made two large bowls which I plan to stamp. I love making stamps, but getting around to it is another thing. I finally got some fish stamps carved at our farm on Monday since it was raining and couldn't do any of the grass cutting around the kiln shed that I had planned. The grass was waist high in places and preventing some of the stoking wood from drying. It finally got dry enough on Thursday that I could cut the grass. I'm hoping to do a wood firing in September - as long as we get a good dry period as right now everything is totally damp as we are having the wettest year ever. I've been cutting and drying white pine branches as I need more soft wood to mix in with my ironwood.

I also had to make some cups as I was running out of them at our artisans co-op. Will try out the handles pulled off the cup with them.
My stamps were bisqued on Saturday and so stamped the plates with fishes - I see all sorts of possibilites with this so will work some more with them.
I will have to start thinking about glazing these works - so far my appliqued vases are all glazed with Rhodes 32 but will look at applying some slips and perhaps ash glazes. Not sure how ash glazes will show up the stamps in the bowls.

Journey Aug 3 - 9 Pots with a Message

Sunday I had to pick up my mother and niece in Ottawa and was busy with them until Wednesday when I drove them back to Ottawa. Tuesday I volunteered for an afternoon to demonstrate making First Nations pottery in nearby Pembroke as part of their waterfront celebrations. The kids and even some adults really enjoyed making the pots - using the upside down coil method as they did 2500 years ago. My 15 year old niece was a big help with the kids.

I managed to make a third slab vase - a horizontal one like I made at the workshop and spent Friday thinking out the design and Sat working on it. I decided to stick with the fishing woman and the issues of hunger, sustainability, etc. - issues important to me. the vase itself will be a large fishing boat, with the fishing woman with a net on the front - Third World vs large factory ships. I decided to add the 3-D fish on the front base - sort of tieing in the diorama theme - the dioramas that I used to make with my father as a child. Also one fish would be on Kanthal wire - so that would tie in with the birds that I make on Kanthal wire.(trying to make more unified work)

Friday an art student at the Ontario College of Art joined our Guild. She mentioned how taking courses in art really stunted your creativity. Since they were graded, students would try to make work that they knew their teachers would like. She also mentioned how hard it was to do art with a message - it would be graded either too obvious or not obvious enough. I had never considered that being too obvious would be a no no.
Looking at my fishing woman and boat - I see that maybe things are too obvious - so will need to work on that.