Storyteller Mugs

storyteller mug with a bug growing out of a hanging balloon shape

This week I fired the storyteller mugs I glazed last week. The stories wrap around the mugs, in most cases from handle to handle. Some stories can essentially continue past the handle in an endless cycle.

most of the storyteller mugs

The stories being told are fairly simple little "animations" like those that might be seen in an old fashioned zoetrope. These mugs have bugs walking, climbing, and flying, flowers growing (more or less) and people or conveyors moving. There is one more mug that didn't get fired that has a stairway conveyor belt thing.

bug mug

In a photo that shows the mug, the story is incomplete. So I decided to try taking panoramic pictures while spinning the mugs on a banding wheel. And these wonky long mugs are the entertaining result.

this person walking down the stairs grabs onto a balloon and floats away to the handle

more of the bug from the hanging balloon

how a flower is made (and unmade) ...this one can cycle past the handle, maybe

I'm not a professional panoramic mug photographer, so at least a few of the mug pictures turned out especially weird with bent and twisting long mugs. 

ka-pow!

this one is sequential and its all happening at the same time, too. maybe less effective

My husband things I should now make the long mugs themselves.

I like the bug on the handle, mostly

Strangely, one of the mugs was very difficult to photograph using the panoramic mode. It has the least decoration, so I'm guessing the camera wasn't registering the movement as well as on the other mugs. The camera didn't create the whole mug while I turned the wheel.

camera does not like this mug

this was maybe the fourth try

This was the only mug that got a reaction out of my first viewer: my daughter laughed out loud when she got to this mug. The story is simpler than the others.

you get it in two images, at least

but its hard to see the person in this panoramic

I've got more mugs out of the kiln, so maybe I'll make more of these next week. As my friend Jennifer said today, I'm making a lot of functional work this summer. (sniff) But I am having more fun with function than I did last year. A few of these mugs have some strange elements that would benefit from a redo. At a couple points I have something that's supposed to be holding on, but the arms are at a funny angle. In another mug I forgot color on one of the balloons, so it looks oddly empty.

the figures on the left are apparently holding onto the balloon with their neck muscles

Functional Work from Last Week

Last week I threw some functional work in the studio on my newly repaired stool.

pitchers and mugs

I made some pitchers for a commission and some mugs because I had lumps of clay too small for pitchers and I was going to pull handles anyway. If I'm going to throw or pull handles, I'd rather make a bunch at once; it feels more efficient.

mugs

I made some lidded pieces because I might want to have a set with a spoon. Also I'm annoyed that I fired the last batch with their lids off and I want to do it right this time.

lidded containers with holes for spoons

I threw some funny knob n'all pieces and ended up hand-building a wiggly rim as decoration for these funny lids. I ended the day with two extra decent handles, so I hand-built a couple of simple mugs for the handles. I also made some new spoons and then stuck them in the kiln before I took a picture.

wiggly lidded pieces

Glazed Mugs for Storytelling Show

I used pencil to plan the mug decoration

Thursday I glazed. All day. I had to work hard to keep myself focused. I had 13 bisque fired mugs and I got them all decorated and glazed in one day. That doesn't sound as impressive as it feels.

Then I drew in the outlines with black underglaze in a slip trailer

Glazing took a little longer than usual because I actually needed to plan the decoration. These mugs are for a show at Boxx Gallery in Tieton featuring "storytellers". My idea is to keep the decoration similar to other cone 6 pieces I have done this summer, but make it sequential.

some of the designs use multiple colors for the "story"

I had sketched some ideas earlier this month, while I was waiting in the doctor's office, but was procrastinating getting them on the mugs. The idea for each mug is based on my slip trailed dripping balloons that I've been playing with this summer and last. In these new storytelling designs, the balloons move and change or other simple drawings interact with the balloons.

here you can see my slip trailer bottle and a design with a bug

Each mug has a different "story" told around the mug. In some, the colored balls fall from the strings down onto leafy stems. Others have the balls move around the cup or up and down in boxes and on strings. I have a bug that eats a balloon and another bug that was the balloon. I also have some plants that shoot stuff at the balloons.

these mugs have the decoration, interior and rim glazed

Each mug has a black slip trailed outline and uses green, blue, and/or pink celadon glaze for the action and the interior and rim. A few have decorations that interact with the handle.

here you can see the finished glaze colors (foreground, right)

I know what to expect from my glazes, but some of these decorations are more complex than I've done before, so I'm hoping everything looks okay once it is fired. I sometimes fire the slip in place before glazing over the top to prevent smearing, but I think I avoided trouble this time. However, I may have misjudged the thickness of the glaze on some of the early mugs before I switched brushes.

these mugs have clear glaze over the decoration

I hope to have these guys out of the kiln next week or the week after. The best looking selection should be going to Tieton to Boxx Gallery for an opening August 27.

Sitting is Difficult

Apparently I've been having trouble sitting in my studio this month. Earlier this month my throwing stool suddenly, and for no apparent reason, broke while I was sitting on it.

broken stool

Then this weekend my tall chair seat ripped when I stood up. Hmm...I did have a lot of cookies this weekend...

ripped canvas seat

Luckily, I have two of these tall director's chairs and the other one had its canvas seat replaced a few years ago, so I was able to resume sitting in the studio almost immediately.

did someone ship me a star? just what I've always wanted!

After a few e-mails, a week of waiting, and one follow up call, the stool company finally decided to send the replacement chair base. I was inordinately pleased by the way they chose to package the stool base for shipping. I'm guessing the packing people enjoyed this, too.

friendly wall pieces waiting for their firing

Despite the trouble I've had maintaining a fully functioning seat, I did manage to finish some work in the studio. I finished a few small wall sculptures last week and this weekend. 

lidded forms, ready to dry

This week I threw with the repaired stool and was happy to discover that my previous inability to throw was temporary. Either the new stool or a change in a variety of other factors (clay, mood, wedging, weather...) got me back to normal.

handles that don't annoy me.

I'm not sure the stool can account for my handles going better than last time, but pulling handles was noticeably more effective this week than last time. I was a little more careful in preparing my clay for throwing, but even that shouldn't have had any impact on handles, since I prepare them the exact same way and used the same type of clay.

pitcher/creamer form, pre-handle

One of the reasons I chose to throw again this week was to make a new creamer to replace one in a set that was ordered earlier this year. I am also considering using some of this weeks mugs in place of the ones I threw two weeks ago. 

you can see how lazy I was, I didn't switch out my throwing water when I switched from red to white clay

I usually trim pitchers or creamers on a chuck, but I hadn't prepared one and didn't want to. I was using my Giffin Grip in combination with a sponge to trim my lids and I thought I'd try a similar trick to trim my spouted forms. I was mostly being lazy, but I found that using a folded washcloth, in combination with the Giffin Grip worked pretty well.

Small Sculptures This Week

small wall sculpture with gears

This week I worked mostly on some small sculptures and some important but boring steps for my Art on the Wall piece.

end of same wall sculpture

I threw some pieces at the start of the week and the throwing went ok, though I was using recycled clay and my broken stool. I've ordered a new base for my stool and I was hoping to get it before I was ready to throw, but they didn't actually ship it until I called Thursday to ask about it.

wiggly rim form for Art on the Wall (with stamen-like addition)

I have been thinking about using concave (bowl) shapes with wiggly rims in several ways on my sculptures this summer. I have some in the works for Art on the Wall. This week I decided to try some as surface decorations of another form.

  

adding half-bowl forms to surface

I cut the wiggly rimmed shapes in half and attached them to the side of a form. The piece isn't quite finished and will have some non-ceramic stamen-like pieces coming out from the wiggly rim pieces, but I'm not as excited about this particular piece as I might have been.

half-bowl decorated form (maybe I needed more half-bowls)

Part of the reason I started small pieces this week was to take care of some partial pieces that have been sitting in the studio for a long time. My husband built a metal piece for me to use quite a while ago and this week I started building a form for this piece. 

 

top form and base for my husband's metal assemblage

The nice thing about working at a small scale is that it gives me an opportunity to work quickly through a few ideas. Some of the pieces I made this week will also serve as replacements for my wall installation which has had some turnover since it was on display in Seattle last year.

a third, incomplete wall sculpture

Lidded Jars with Spoons

lidded jar with decorated ceramic spoon

This week I glaze-fired some functional pieces, including some lidded sugar bowls with spoons.

glazed spoons before firing

I've seen a lot of clay spoons this year online and even in my classroom. I'd never made a clay spoon, so I thought I'd try it. They're pretty simple to make, though I haven't really tried picking up sugar with them yet.

ladle style spoon and sugar jar

I made a few different styles of spoons, including one that is shaped more like a miniature ladle so that it can be pulled straight up out of the sugar.

two lidded jars with different shaped spoons

I made several different jars with more or less similar lids. I'm fairly happy with the lids and jars as I threw them and the slip trailed and celadon glazed surfaces. 

knob'n'all style jars

I made one real mistake, and that was not firing the lids on their bases. I usually do, but the knob'n'all pieces were going to be a little fussy to fire together because of the lid flange which would have touched the glazed interior wall. A sophisticated solution would have been to wad the lid up off the base and fired them together. I took the lazy route, fired them separately, and now the slip trailed decoration on my blue lid don't line up correctly. 

book decorated vase/cup/jar

I also tried out a new slip/glaze decoration on the bottom of one piece. The colorful rectangles on the bottom are meant to represent books. I haven't decided if I like the books yet. 

I'm happiest with the lid fit and spoon fit on this sugar dish

I may make some more similar jars next time I throw. I tentatively agreed to make a matched set for someone who requested one, but I also have a couple other things to finish up in the near future.