ceramics

Slabfest

Sorry to everyone for the lack of posting lately, particularly pictures of results from the last firing. I’ve been taking photos, but keep having to scrap them because the color is all over the place. When I did the remodel of the workshop it totally screwed up the ambient light on the 2nd floor. That, combined with me moving my photo setup downstairs, and my white balance is completely out of whack. So, I will post finished work when I get that all sorted out. It’s looking like I’ll have to move the photo setup back upstairs and go back to dedicated lighting of one type only (at this point all you photographers are thinking “no shit, Sherlock”, no doubt.)

Anyway… back to the slabfest thing. After finishing a lot of pots for a wedding order, I started thinking about slabs, and the fact that I finally figured out how to make them without having them all crack during either drying and/or firing. So this next firing will include thicker and larger slab plates,  and also one experimental interlocking slab wall hanging that will be about 5 ft. tall.

Lately, all my slabs are made by slapping a piece of clay out on the floor until it is the desired thickness. After that, I get them onto a board and paddle the bejeezus out of them. Lastly, the edges get compressed with a damp chamois. On one of my dog walks a couple of years ago, I found an old rusty sickle which I hammered into a curve and now use to facet and flute different pieces. It also works great on these slabs.

smaller slabs all finished and now drying
smaller slabs all finished and now drying

 

edge detail. gouged with a piece of rough pine and smoothed over with a chamois and hands.
edge detail. gouged with a piece of rough pine and smoothed over with a chamois and hands.

IMG00452

surface carved to look like tortoiseshell bamboo.
surface carved to look like tortoiseshell bamboo.
simple fluting
simple fluting

These three do not have raised edges, since they are meant to be a wall hanging.

one of three interlocking slabs.
one of three interlocking slabs.
they will be held together with wooden butterfly keys
they will be held together with wooden butterfly keys
all three will have iron underglaze brush decoration with traditional motifs.
all three will have iron underglaze brush decoration with traditional motifs.
36cm square slab, same size as the others above. This one will be for food, so the edges are raised, and smoothed.
36cm square slab, same size as the others above. This one will be for food, so the edges are raised, and smoothed.
detail of rim and fluted surface
detail of rim and fluted surface
tabula rasa. I haven't decided what to do with this yet. It is double the size of the others, 10kg of clay.
tabula rasa. I haven’t decided what to do with this yet. It is double the size of the others, 10kg of clay.

 

A pot only a potter can love…

This last wood kiln firing was a real disaster. All of my large pieces cracked or collapsed completely, and all of the smaller work ended up under-fired badly. The upside to this is that they can all be refired, and I just finished the 2nd of 3 refire loads in the gas kiln this morning.

From the first refire load, my favorite pot is a porcelain teabowl glazed with rice straw ash glaze. I don’t normally work in porcelain, but in my search for bodies that vitrify a little better than the local clays, I’ve started using partly or mostly porcelain in some of my work. This particular bowl is porcelain with as much feldspar sandstone mixed in as I could manage, and still have it wedge-able.

In the wood firing it was in a spot that got a lot of fly ash, and in fact a lot of flaky ash collected inside the bowl. Making sure not to dump this, I saved it for the gas kiln and fired it to cone 11 flat. All of that ash melted really nicely, mixing with the rice straw ash glaze for some nice color.

There are several bloats on the interior, but none really fragile or severe. These bloats and the blues and greens on the interior really remind me of some the old Karatsu bowls with their warty bloated surfaces and subtle coloring of fly ash on rice straw ash glaze. Another nice thing about this pot: the fire color from the wood kiln was not lost in the gas firing. There is a nice gold luster on the  melted surface of the bare porcelain body.

Bummer…

This just made me sad when I saw it this morning. We had a LOT of rain over ten last 36 hours, and I think the footers sank a bit, tilting the stack forward, then dumping it. This will take some time to clean up.

** Just one quick amendment to this post: on re-reading the post and comments, I realized that I may have mislead people to believe that the stack (chimney) went over. Not so, thankfully. Just the stack of wood. No damage to the kiln other than a few scratches to the insulating top coat, and about 5 unlucky shelves that had been sitting right where the wood struck.


-Posted from iMike

Location:Taku, Saga, Japan

WIT 2012: Okamoto Sakurei

During the fourth and fifth days of the Workshop in Taku 2012: The Simple Teabowl, we were treated to pottery demonstrations by Okamoto Sakurei. He made a variety of items for us using a variety of techniques. On the afternoon of day four, we visited his studio and showroom and he honored us by allowing us to view some of the older pots in his personal collection. Breathtaking Korean bowls, and a couple of Japanese bowls. They were just amazing to hold (and maybe a little bit of fondling happened too, but mum’s the word).

May/June Update

Well, all lot of little things have happened over the last month or so, but nothing really blogworthy all by itself, so I thought I might do an umbrella post for May/June.

First, and what I posted about before, was the Workshop in Taku, 2012: The Simple Teabowl workshop, with Kawakami Mako, Tsuruta Yoshihisa, Okamoto Sakurei, and Maruta Munehiko. We started with a wonderful tea ceremony demonstration and talk, then we moved outside to prepare tea ourselves. The second and third day, Tsuruta sensei demonstrated his pottery making techniques, fourth and fifth day Okamoto sensei demonstrated, and on the sixth day we watched Maruta sensei at his studio. The last evening we had a very nice banquet at Hisago, and Kawakami sensei joined us again for that.

After the workshop I needed to decompress for a couple of days, then found out I’d be needing to go back to the US for the summer, so I moved up my kiln firing schedule to the end of June. Got into the studio to start making work again, and also found some time to bid on a Furo being auctioned off on Yahoo Auctions. A Furo is used to heat water for tea ceremony. Next, after years of looking for a suitable garden hose storage device, I broke down and decided to just make a few which I am pretty happy with, we’ll see how they look after the firing. Several friends came over last weekend and spent much of the day playing on my wheels. They ended up with about 20 pots which will go into the next firing. I wedged up some clay and played too, some guinomi and chawan for the rear chamber. Lastly, I spent yesterday morning gathering wood from the local mill, who sold me three K truck (a very light little flatbed type of truck that is used a lot in the country areas of Japan) loads of mill ends for about $30, a real bargain, so I donated some coffee mugs to their mill office. Hopefully they will get some use out of them.

Well, that’s about it, have a great week!

 

Mike

WIT2012,The First Pottery Demo: Tsuruta Yoshihisa

Here are some pictures from the first pottery demo conducted during the Workshop in Taku, 2012: The Simple Teabowl. Tsuruta Sensei’s demonstration was conducted over the course of two mornings. He did all of his work on a small kickwheel, focusing on handbuilding techniques for teabowls, cups, flasks, and water jars.

The first day he demonstrated coil built bowls, cups, and a flask. The second day he trimmed the first day’s pieces, and demonstrated the coil and paddle water jar.

Thank you Kim and Minna for all of your great photos!