Glazing Mugs, Plates, and Lemon Squeezers

My kid's reaction to a calendar snafu on the first day of online school

I was able to bisque and glaze almost a full kiln last week. Studio work this summer been slow, but work has gotten done. I used up all my porcelain clay and ordered more about a month ago. I ordered it from Tacoma and they sent it USPS to a different address in Yakima. Strangely they sent the other stuff I ordered to my house. Then they had to send they back to Tacoma before sending it back to Yakima for me. 50lbs of the clay made it to my house a week or two ago. The other 50lbs appear to be trapped in the USPS black hole. The clay has left Tacoma, but the tracking doesn't identify any more movement. I assume no one at USPS wants to pick up this 50lb box during the chaos and I don't blame them. 

bisque ware waiting to be glazed, mugs, plates, citrus squeezers and bulbs

Because I used different temperature clay for different projects, I wasn't able to fire the bulbs in the same firing as the plates, mugs, and citrus squeezers, so those haven't gotten done. I keep thinking I will make time to throw some more so I can fill a kiln to fire the mugs and bulbs I finished after this last firing, but I haven't done it yet. Instead I'm working on online classes, doing union stuff, and procrastinating. Today, I am also trying to calm down my kid, whose reaction to online school has been stomping, crying, and generally freaking out. First there was an error in the timing of the first class, then the link to the second class doesn't work. After solving the first issue, she allowed up to 12 minutes for her teacher to help on the second, but just in case he didn't reply, she started freaking out immediately. Um, so my hope for the school year is that this 7th grader learns patience?

porcelain plates from the second firing, and one stoneware clay on the top right

I'm pretty happy with the plates from this batch. In the first round my glaze application was irregular on some, and because I was worried about glazes dripping in the kiln, I put the plates on stilts. This was a dumb solution, because not only did I not put enough glaze on to drip, making the plates look a little splotchy, firing on stilts also warped the plates. This time around I used more glaze and did not stilt the plates, so there's less splotchiness and all the plates are flat and even.

porcelain plates in yellow, pink and peach

I also changed the shape for most of these plates because they were done on request. The person who ordered them wanted small plates with a flat flared rim. She liked them, so three of the six porcelain plates have been sold since I took these pictures. Four of the plates were done in a groggy sculpture clay, which is serviceable, but mutes the glaze colors and doesn't look as nice.

On all the plates I drizzled other colors inside. The reds and a sparkly glaze look particularly nice in person, but the photos didn't capture the colors as well.

I also glazed three screaming face mugs I made with the porcelain clay. I used dark glazes to highlight the features and wrinkles, and a semi-transparent glaze for the entire exterior. I am not excited about the result. The faces look too white and too plain. Part of the problem is the limited number of glazes I had (partly because I used some up on the plates) and part of the problem is that I didn't leave enough of the dark glazes in the wrinkles and indents. I have ordered some new glazes so on the next batch I can bring more color, assuming the glazes also don't end up in USPS limbo.

My kid's reaction to an error in a Google Meet link on the first day of school

I think these faces would look better if I layered more colors. I usually do this with my underglazed sculpture, putting down a base coat on bisque ware before a second firing, then layering a wash of contrasting color over the first. I haven't tried that with these glazes, but I'm considering it. Underglazes and glazes handle differently, but it's worth a shot.

screaming face mug with minimal color in the eyes and eyebrows

I did minimal mixing of colors in these mugs, but I was tentative compared to my "usual" work. I also did some mixing/layering in the new lemon squeezers, but for some reason the yellow and blue showed up best and overwhelm the other colors (or maybe I forgot to use much other than blue and yellow). I know I used the red/pink on at least two pieces and now it is barely evident.

 

most of the citrus squeezers from the second batch, in both porcelain and sculpture clay

Something else happened in the glaze firing for these citrus squeezers. And this requires a bit of back-story. When I was in college, my clay professor told us that anytime we had a contained air pocket, it needed to be pierced so that the air could escape. If not, it would risk blowing up in the kiln. This is pretty conventional wisdom in the clay world and I know I've repeated it often enough. I remember one instance when I remembered too late that I had forgotten to pierce an air hole in a piece. When I opened the kiln I was surprised to see the piece had not exploded. At the time, my professor and I guessed that it was because I was using a raku clay, which is more porous than other clays.

more blue and yellow squeezers

Many years later, I joined a clay community on Facebook. One of the regular topics that comes up over and over again is that air pockets don't cause explosions during firing, only wet clay does. The reasoning goes that air is so small that it either doesn't need to escape or escapes through the walls of the clay. I allowed students to test this theory in class. Usually the pieces didn't explode, but sometimes they did. When asked, the folks in this online clay community assumed that these students must have soaked the pieces before glazing, or the pieces were simply too thick, or there was unaccounted for moisture left even after a long candle (candle means preheating the kiln to drive out excess moisture) or long drying time.

the bottoms of these two squeezers expanded due to expanding air inside during firing

It's difficult to rule out all these options with student work, but the results seemed inconclusive. This still bugs me, so I periodically test the theory. In my first citrus squeezers, I pierced the forms, leaving an unnecessary/essential escape for any heated air. This time around I did not pierce the forms. None of the pieces exploded in either firing, but in the glaze firing the bottoms of two of the pieces, which I had set on stilts in the kiln, expanded during the firing, going from a slightly concave base to a slightly convex base. Meaning that an air pocket inside did, in fact, expand during the firing and was unable to escape, suggesting that my online clay community, despite regular repetitions, is incorrect on this topic.

Face Bulbs Redux

I like this one where I expanded the mouth in exchange for removing the eyes entirely

Besides throwing plates and citrus squeezers and face mugs, I've also spent a bit of time this summer making face bulbs. I had started these in 2018, and enjoyed making them. I'd say their quality varies significantly based on how much time I am able to devote to each one, and, unfortunately, I'm fairly sure I've left a few half-finished in plastic on my work table for the past two weeks.

I tried to vary the age, gender, and race of the subjects I referenced in making these bulbs. I think I captured the older jowls on this man, but apparently I forgot about teeth.

I spent three days at the end of last week "at" a Zoom workshop, which one would think would be less time consuming than a live workshop, but somehow is just as exhausting. I think there's a lot of value in the in-between times of a live workshop, where you can have important casual conversations about the content during lunch or during breaks. I think these in-between talks are refreshing, while a series of Zoom workshops just leaves me drained. 

This one I did early in the summer. The hand is large and heavy, but I think the message is clear.

I was hoping to get the rest of the bulbs finished last week, but I was worthless after the meetings. I did manage to fire a bisque kiln, and today I have imposed a union ban on myself (so no working on union tasks) so I can get some glazing done. Good thing too, because the stress of writing this blog post is unusually high. Blogger has changed its format over the past few months and today I can't get it to allow me to type plain text--it turns every new line into linked text--and it keeps arbitrarily rearranging my justification.

Speaking of anger and hate speech, this one is based on picture of Trump, who appeared to be mid-curse.

The bulbs, like the face mugs, are trying to capture the general feeling of the past 4 years, and this year in particular (also Zoom and uncontrollable text formatting, I guess). Before COVID, I had been planning to make these screaming faces, but I also had been thinking of having the mouths spewing flames and snakes, as metaphors for the ubiquity of hate speech and general anger in the country today. I also planned to have mouths covered and bound, a bit like I had done in 2018.

It seemed ridiculous to make faces in 2020 and not include one with a mask, though now I wish I made one with the mask worn under the nose.

Once COVID started, it seemed like simply screaming captures one part of what we are all feeling, while specific imagery related to frustrations around speech, racism, and the politicization of mask wearing also fits in. I had planned to make some faces with enlarged coronavirus shapes coming out of the mouths, but I simply ran out of time. 

I made a press-mold from some bindweed we ripped out of the yard, but without the twining vines, its hard to recognize, maybe color will help.

I did attempt some pieces with weeds growing out of the mouths, but I'm not happy with how they turned out. I'm not sure the plants are recognizably weeds and I didn't make them appear to grow in any convincing way. Additionally, there's some issues with fragility in the vines. Ultimately I think I'd be better off making the weeds from another medium, like Sculpey, but I can play with glazing in these beta tests.

Here I added the vines, but I didn't attach them particularly well so they're going to break.

I haven't been working with these faces long, once you factor in the breaks. In general, I think the forms and expressions are improving, even if individual bulbs are duds. I keep saying it, but I'd like to spend more time on them. Without a show coming up as a deadline, and with a number of other responsibilities encroaching, I'm not even sure that I'll get these glazed before school starts. 

I'm generally happy with my progress on squinty eyes and most of my later noses. proportions are funny on these, since the bulbs themselves aren't head shaped. 

My time was so interrupted towards the end of July, that I left two of these out to dry without even remembering to put the hanging hole in the back. Luckily I was able to carve it in, but I was kicking myself when I first picked them up to load the kiln.

This one is the screaming mouth with no eyes. I was really annoyed when I flipped it over on the way into the kiln, but I guess I'm glad I checked before loading.

More Throwing: Lemon Squeezers, Plates, Scream Mugs, and Kid Lessons

Dry plates waiting to be fired

At the end of June, I told myself that I could have all of July to myself before I started thinking about prepping classes for the fall. It didn't work out quite as planned, and I spent more time working on work related stuff, but I did keep my promise not to prep classes until August. Tomorrow, then, I start class prep.

Citrus squeezer parts thrown, before carving

In July, I managed to throw regularly and spend some studio time sculpting, too. It wasn't as productive a summer as some, based on what I made in the studio, but I was glad to get the time despite the chaos of this particular summer. I threw mostly plates, mugs, and lemon squeezers, with a few odds and ends we needed for the house.

Citrus squeezers (both carved and coiled ridges)

I managed to throw enough that I ran out of throwing clay. I tried throwing with some sculpture clay I had hanging around. I know I want to glaze all the work at cone 6, and my only other option was some recycled scrap clay that is about half low fire clay. I tested this recycled clay at cone 6 and it didn't work well.

Bottom of a trimmed plate in sculpture clay: holes are from grog, the hairs are from a clump of nylon fiber

The sculpture clay is heavily grogged (grog is ground up fired clay) and has nylon fibers (for building and drying strength) in it, both of which are nice for sculpture, but pretty gross for throwing. The clay looks especially rough when trimmed. Throwing was actually fine, but the texture is certainly noticeable. I'm a bit concerned about how this clay will fire, but I didn't really have brain space for sculpture that week.

More citrus squeezers in sculpture clay

I've since ordered some replacement throwing clay, so if I can squeeze in some studio time in August, I can make some more mugs. If the plates don't work in the sculpture clay body, I can also remake them.

Screaming face mug in progress

I spent some more time on a few screaming face mugs. I have four in progress and about three in the kiln I loaded today. I've discovered the certain features tend to come easier to me. Specifically, I have been having trouble with thin lips. I have been working from photographs and the flat image leaves some information out for the transition to three dimensions. 

Poorly rendered Trump on the right

I've been trying to capture Trump's face in one of the mugs and one of the bulbs, but I keep struggling with something about the face, either the lips or they eyes. The anonymous faces might simply be easier because I don't mean them to look like anyone I can recognize.

Kids' throwing lesson

I also took one exhausting day and gave a clay lesson to my daughter and the neighbor girls (ages 8-12). The lesson went fairly well. We all wore masks and kept the door open and the fan on in the studio. I had all of us throw on bats so we could take turns. (I also had saved out some small pieces of throwing clay so the kids didn't have to use rough sculpture clay which would hurt their hands). 

Kids' throwing lesson

I showed the girls how to center, then let each one try. I ended up helping them with that step, but they mostly didn't need my help for throwing or for trimming (other than getting the clay centered for trimming). All three girls managed to throw and trim a small bowl and I managed to get some help from all three in cleaning the shockingly messy studio afterwards, but it wasn't until this evening that the studio was fully cleaned and recovered after the experience!