First Summer 2016 Sculpture(s) in Progress (1 of 3)

finished wiggly rim selfie

Last week I was finally able to begin my first serious sculpture of 2016, after completing commission work and glazing through most of June.

one not-very-exciting thrown piece of the eventual sculpture

I threw some pieces on Tuesday and started putting them together over the next couple days. I had a fairly good idea of the basic structure of the one piece and the top of another, but the form of the pieces developed further while the thrown parts were pieced together. 

the basic form in progress

I wanted to build a piece that had a large bulb-like shape on the bottom rather than a simple round base. I was thinking of the form of the piece I did for the SRAM Bike Project, way back in 2012. However, now that I look back at that piece, the forms are less directly similar than they were in my head. Regardless, I wanted to explore this bulbous base for a bike-part form again.

texture, sprigs, and chain track in progress

I wanted to incorporate bike parts into this piece as well, but I didn't want the bottom part to be plain or all bike-part-y, so I incorporated some sprigs from a mold I've had for quite a while. The mold is off a bell pepper. It's one of the biggest sprig molds I have and it allowed me to make sprigs of different sizes for this piece.

part of the chain in its track

One issue that came up in building this form is that the chain doesn't really want to bend the way I'd like to use it. I decided to put the chain "track" where I want the chain to go and manually adjust the chain later, after firing. I want the chain to curve in both dimensions. I haven't altered the chain much previously, aside from length, so this will be a new challenge...to deal with later.

texture, sprigs, and chain track

As often happens, while I am building, I got so carried away with the surface texture on this piece (and two others I was working on concurrently), that the project surface took up the bulk of my time compared to the relatively fast building of the form.

the base, formed and mostly textured

I didn't work on the projects over the long weekend, though I was a little worried about them drying too much in that time. When I came back to them today, some parts for a different piece were a little dry, but this form was fine to build on.

 

the opening with gear stack (left) and the neck more completely textured (right)

Today I spent my time working mostly on the neck and the top opening of this form, but I am not finished. I want the gear cassette to be prominent in the opening at the top of the form, so I plan to cut the rim a little shorter than it is in these pictures and wave the edges.

the form and texture nearly complete for the day

When I finished working on this piece today, the rim was a little too dry to move how I wanted it too, so I wet it, compressed it, and wrapped it up in plastic. Then I started on the other larger sculpture I was working on and never got back to the first one. If all goes well, I should finish building this form tomorrow. Edit: I finished building this form Wednesday.

finished wiggly rim

New Glazed Work

I spent the bulk of the first two weeks of summer working on a commission for Rotary. While I was waiting on kilns, or filling in bits of unused time during this commission, I finished some functional work, mostly left over from last summer's workshop at Archie Bray.

slip trailed celadon mug thrown last summer, glazed last week

Last summer I threw work before the workshop, and glazed it in Montana. Then I threw work at the workshop and brought it home but mostly didn't get around to glazing it. I tried to spend my remaining bits of summer making sculpture, but mostly spent that time moving into the new building 

slip trailing bowls

Glazing is not my favorite fun-time activity. In fact I usually dread it. But, it is an activity that can be done in fairly small snatches of time when one doesn't have time to wedge, thrown and clean up before summer camp ends (and mom-time begins and one needs to pick up the kid).

slip trailing and underglaze

My major psychological advantage getting work glazed this summer versus last, is that this time around I had a stock of glazes that I actually kind of like. An added bonus is that I had a limited stock of glazes, so I wouldn't need to glaze more than four bottles worth.

slip trailing and celadon dots

I was fairly methodical in my glazing and stuck to the same palette and a similar plan as the work I did for the Rotary commission. The major adjustment is that instead of highlighting slashed marks with underglaze, I decorated some part of these pieces with slip trailed "hanging balloons." (I'm thinking of them as hanging balloons, from another perspective they're lollipops or circles at the end of lines.)

bowls and commission work after firing

I have fired about half of the glazed pieces, in the kilns with the Rotary commission work. Some of the stuff in the last firing didn't get quite hot enough, so I will need to re-fire it. Most of the work fired hot enough for the clear to flux (melt), but some of the colors look matte. Another 50-100 degrees or hour of firing should have fluxed all the glazes, but since they're cool now, I'll have to re-fire them completely.

under-fired pink celadon

I also have some pieces that haven't gotten to the kiln yet at all. Still, I have enough work done and fired correctly that I feel a sense of accomplishment and not the usual grumbly dread that accompanies glazing time for me.

un-fired glaze (on a form and glaze pattern started last year)

The glazes I used for these pieces are cone 6 celadons from Amaco. I've been pretty happy with them so far. I had started quite a few of the Archie Bray pieces with underglazes last summer, so the colors in this batch are more varied than they would otherwise be, but this time around, I only added black underglaze in a slip trailer and the four celadon glazes. 

two slip trailed pieces, possibly under-fired

On the new work, I have been trying to shape a thick rim into the pieces for a logical end for the colored glaze and a start for the hanging balloon decorations, but last summer I wasn't thinking this far ahead. The result is that some of the pieces I threw last year have a less logical starting point for glaze decoration. 

newly glazed bowls started last year

One really happy accidental result of this lack of planning when throwing is the bowl that has an irregular blue rim. The rim was meant to be round, but I slip trailed around the rim and ended up higher than intended. I decided to just treat the hanging string of one balloon as the edge for the rim color. I was annoyed when I glazed it, but coming out of the kiln it is one of my favorites.

my new favorite blue shell bowl

Last week, besides glazing old work, I threw some lidded pieces, in part because of a tentative commission through Oak Hollow Gallery. These pieces have slip trailing, but I haven't completed the glaze application yet. Actually, I ran out of glaze and only got the replacement order this week. 

slip trailed pieces awaiting new glaze

Glazed Work for Rotary Commission (Completed)

Over the weekend and Monday I fired the work for my Rotary Commission. I ended up making and firing 55 pieces, 45 of which are exactly what I wanted them to be.

pieces being unloaded (hot) from the under-fired kiln

The last firing seemed to be taking longer than usual, so I shut it off before the kiln sitter dropped. The kiln sitter is the part in a manually fired kiln that holds a cone. The cone melts at a certain time and temperature (referred to as a cone). When the cone melts, the bar that rests on top of the cone falls, causing the kiln sitter to shut off the kiln.

on the left, my half bent cone; on the right, a correctly bent cone in the kiln sitter

As it turned out, the cone was melting, and I was just impatient when I shut it off early, but most of the glaze melted anyway. Almost all of the commission work was fine. The stuff on the very bottom (not commission work) was under-fired and a few pieces on top also seemed under-fired, including one commission piece.

finished, fired commission pieces

I also had a few pieces that developed cracks in their bases during drying or firing. One cracked during drying, but I forgot and fired it anyway. The others have minor cracks, but I won't send them for the commission.

finished, fired commission pieces with stamps visible

For almost all of the pieces I threw for the commission, 51 pieces, to be exact, I used the same set of stamps to mark the pieces. One stamp says Rotary Yakima, the other has a gear symbol with S/S inside the gear, representing "Service over Self" the Rotary motto. These pieces also have my signature stamp on the other side. 

The stamp set I ended up using for most of the commission.

All three stamps were pressed into the wet clay and later inlaid with blue underglaze to highlight the text and image.

the individual letter stamps and the button stamp

Early on in the project, however, I tried a few other approaches to the stamps. For two pieces, I used the S/S gear stamp and individual letter stamps to write "Yakima Rotary". These are legible and clear, but take up a huge amount amount of space and were time consuming to stamp. Another approach I also scrapped because it was too big: I added a button of clay with the S/S gear stamped into it.

 on the left, the impression of the incised stamp; on the right, the stamp made from the incised stamp

I also fired a piece stamped with one of the very first versions of the Rotary stamp. In fact, this early stamp had lines incised into the Sculpey clay. The stamp I ended up using was one that I made by pressing Sculpey into the first stamp, thus creating the look of incised lines in the clay once the piece is stamped. I fired the test piece so I could see how it looked with underglaze. It looks worse than the new stamp.

most of the finished work

Glazing for the Rotary Commission

This week I've been working on my commission for the Rotary Club. I threw and trimmed the pieces last week, fired and washed the pieces over the weekend and have been under glazing and glazing them this week. I also fired some sample pieces this week to be sure the glazes were behaving like I expected.

bisque fired pieces drying after their rinse

I had to wash all the fired pieces because I had sanded them while they were dry, before firing. I don't usually sand my work but these pieces had some rough edges as a result of the slashing marks I added while they were wet. If a piece is dusty, glaze may not adhere correctly, so I took the time to wash each piece and rinse off any dust or residue from sanding. 

underglaze applied roughly

For rinsing the pieces, I had a handy bucket of water in the studio leftover from emptying the malfunctioning water heater on Sunday. For some reason I have a dishwasher rack in my studio, so I stacked the pieces on it to dry.

lots of underglaze applied to the first kiln load of work

After the pieces dried, I painted the slashed marks with underglaze and wiped away the excess. 

washing off underglaze and the resulting blue water

Most all of my processes this week felt like assembly line processes. I sanded 50-some pieces, then I washed 50-some pieces, then I painted underglaze on 50-some pieces, then I washed 50-some pieces again. 

all the pots from all the kilns, underglazes and washed

After washing the surface of the pieces again (which left the underglaze inside the slash marks and the stamps as a highlight), I glazed just a few so that I could test the new glazes. 

the test pieces before firing

I am using four glazes, plus the underglaze. All of my glazes are commercial celadons. I have three different interior and rim colors and all of the pieces get a clear coat on the bottom over the underglaze. I ran a small firing this week to test the colors for this commission and to finish a few unrelated pieces from last summer.

the test pieces after firing

After I checked my results, I started glazing the whole batch. I picked just 10 of each color to begin with and was able to glaze the interior and rims of almost 30 pieces in the not-quite-three hours I had available in the morning. In the afternoon I was able to glaze the exterior bottoms in the not-quite-two hours I had between commitments.

The first 10 pieces glazed with Jade on the rims and interior

I'm firing a second kiln now, but because of the size and setup in my kilns (and the fact that I probably need to buy another shelf), I will have to fire at least three more times to complete the commission. Tomorrow I should be able to finish the glazing for the last 20-ish pieces. It should probably take three hours. 

Sky and Jade rims and interiors

To prepare the clay and throw the 50-some pieces took about 6.25 hours. I only needed to make 47 pieces, but I wanted extras in case of cracks, problems with glaze, or other irregularities. I didn't time the trimming very well, but that probably took 6 hours including the time it took me to prepare the stamps. I also spent maybe an hour sanding the pieces, an hour washing the pieces, and a couple hours for the underglaze process. The glaze application should take roughly 8 hours total. Of course I am also loading and firing kilns throughout this process, but I did some of that in between hauling buckets of water up from the water heater with my family and thus didn't time it. At a very rough guess, I'd say this commission will have taken about 26 total hours, not counting planning, firing time, or clean up (the wheel needs to be cleaned between throwing and trimming, the dirty towels need to be rinsed before going in the wash, the trimming scraps need to be collected, the blue underglaze water needs to be changed for clean, the brushes need to be washed between glazing days, etc). 

All 30 pieces with a wonky panoramic shot

Last week, with some of my other commitments, I figure I spent about 25 hours in the studio. I threw and trimmed for this commission, but I also threw a little for a few other projects and I did some unrelated glazing as well as several rounds of firing and I wrote a blog post. This week I was only about to spend about half that amount of time in the studio, but I worked mostly on this commission.

Rotary Commission

This week, my first summer studio work week, I am mostly working on a commission. I was asked to throw a set of matching cups as gifts that Yakima's Rotary Club can present to speakers at their meetings throughout the year. I am basing the cups on some slashed surface pieces I threw last summer.

the prototype pieces

When I agreed to take on the commission, my daughter and husband asked me how long it would take me to throw the roughly 50 pieces for the commission, so this week I timed part of my process. (I meant to time the whole  process, but I forgot.)

25 lbs of clay in 20 pieces

It took me about 20 minutes to cut and wedge one bag of clay (25 pounds) from which I was able to throw 20-24 pieces. It took me about an hour to throw ten pieces. I was able to prepare my wheel, wedge and throw 20 pieces and clean up the wet stuff on my wheel in 3 hours. Then, after a lunch break that involved some mom-duties related to summer camp transportation, I was able to trim all 20 pieces that afternoon.

the wet forms right after throwing

I didn't time the trimming, initially, because first I needed to make and test some stamps. I made the stamps out of Sculpey polymer clay so that I could bake them in the oven and use them right away. It took me about half an hour to form a variety of stamps, then they took 15 minutes to bake. After they cooled, I tried the stamps in wet clay, made adjustment, and fired a new batch of stamps based on the wet clay results. By the time I was ready to trim, I had completely forgotten about timing my process.

a polymer stamp and the results after trimming

I ended up using three stamps for each piece. One stamp is my regular name stamp. The other two are specific to this commission. One says "Rotary Yakima" the other is a gear with "S/S",  referring to the Rotary motto, "Service over Self". In combination I think they are legible yet subtle.

double stamp close up

Over the next few days, I threw and trimmed almost 75 pounds of clay, which was about 56 pieces. I used some stoneware and some porcelain clay. I was able to wedge and throw faster with the porcelain, I think because it was wetter. The stoneware was leftover from last summer and the porcelain I bought last month. 

I tried to redo the video (without the side of the jar in the way), but someone called halfway through. Also I can't listen to my audiobooks while filming at time-lapse on my phone.

I only lost two pieces so far, but about half of them are still wet, so I may have some cracks show up during drying or firing. One had a small crack on its base and another flew off the wheel while I was trimming. I also have a few that I will pull out of the batch because I was trying different stamps on them. I eventually decided the other stamps were too large and looked awkward on these forms.

some pieces ready to trim (with the prototype)

I had one last step to complete before loading up the kiln to fir this weekend. Once the pieces were dry, I sanded down the surfaces of the slashes I had made on the wheel. When I cut the walls, the edges of the cuts were raised up. These were fairly quick to sand down and I think they'll look nicer with glaze. I'm not generally a big fan of sanding bone dry clay, but I wore a mask and will wipe down the table and vacuum. I will also have to wash all the pieces after firing and before glazing so that the glazes adhere well.

sanding station

Leaching Test for New Studio Glazes

This quarter began with a great deal of energy in the studio around testing new glazes. Most quarters I have my intermediate class mix and test glazes to give them some experience reading glaze recipes, handling materials, glazing, firing, and analyzing test results. Occasionally I have organized larger groups of students to find new glazes or glaze replacements, or to perform leaching tests.

our glaze test bowls laid out before the leaching test commenced

In 2013 I had a large group of students involved in a leaching test to make sure that all of our studio glazes are food safe. About a year ago, I had two smaller groups of students test and mix replacements for the clear glaze we had been using in the class (it was coming out opaque) and for another class glaze that wasn't giving us the color we wanted. Both of these glazes are now used in the studio in place of the old blue and old clear glazes. As a result of the leaching tests, we have relabeled all of our class glazes and are in the process of phasing out our last remaining decorative glaze that is not food safe but could mistakenly be used on a functional interior.

our leaching test with lemon, detergent and control (nothing)

In March of this year, there was a lot of energy and excitement about testing glazes and replacing some class glazes, especially from my independent students. Early in the quarter, I met with the students to discuss the scope of the project, divide up the work and plan when various stages of the process needed to be done. Most students who volunteered (or, in the case of my intermediate class, were required) to be involved were able to find recipes and mix small batches by the agreed upon date. Most of these were then fired and we planned to meet to discuss the results.

The fourth line of bowls (at top) is in a different clay. Most test bowls are stoneware with the spare in porcelain. The celadon clay bodies are reversed with an inlaid coil of stoneware for two bowls because uniformity is, apparently, too difficult.

For a variety of reasons, several students didn't attend the second meeting. This quarter's independent student cohort has been uncharacteristically incapable of getting along in the studio and some of the drama escaped its bounds that day. I've had patches of disharmony in the studio before, but this year, and this quarter in particular, the situation reached an almost unbearable level. It has since gotten marginally better and we were able to complete the work of the quarter, but I am discontinuing the independent class for a time. Some of the students need to move on and find a new place for their work to continue to grow. Some students simply took advantage of my patience and the studio setup too many times until I finally reached my own breaking point.

washed bowls after the test, can you spot a difference?

Even with the drama of these students this quarter, we were able to successfully complete the planned testing process for five glazes, more or less. All five of the tested glazes passed the leaching test, though one test was a little odd since we appear to have two different colors of one recipe. Next week we will decide whether to incorporate any of the glazes into our studio as new glazes or replacements for existing class glazes. We tested two black glazes, one matte and one gloss. We also tested a celadon, a satin/matte orange glaze and a purple/blue glaze that has been hanging around the studio for some time. We (sort of) performed leaching tests on our new-this-year blue and a Shino that gets used sparingly in the studio.

The two bowls on the end only had one bowl dipped in each glaze so the leaching tests had to be done in stages. The cracked bowl is in celadon as are the others in its line. For some reason one of the bowls is blue, the other is taupe; they are supposed to be the same glaze.

If you like the bowls in this test, some of them will be available for purchase in the clay sale this coming November 2016.