Where I've Been Today, Etc.

I had a nice breakfast with fellow potter and neighbor Terry Gess and enjoyed some chicory coffee and apple fritters, yum. Then I took these pictures for Lyndsey who inquired about processing local clay. They are shots of the drying racks without sheets and slip and with slip drying in the brilliant sunshine today. I've mixed up about 800 lbs of dirt in the last week or so.



Here we see my pots set up as farm stand for the masses to come and buy them, priced and ready to go.

Then it was off to the shop to cut feet on some plates.


The plate on the left is made with my regular clay body. The one on the right is made from the mud I spread on the kiln door during the firing to fill gaps in the door. My door mud is essentially 50 sand and 50 fireclay. I was thinking about what Doug said in his Slipware Blog about grit and course material in the clay he uses. Then I thought of my mud reclaim. Maybe not exactly what Doug was talking about, but...

The sandy plate was a bit harder to smooth the foot ring as I did on the left. The rims of these plates are cut with a cheese cutter (free hand/eyeballed). If I used the clay with sand I would have to have a lot of spare cutting tools since the sand was grinding away at the metal pretty substantially. But I like the feel of this mud quite a bit. Maybe I will do some tests with less sand. The sand is from the feldspar company and has a bit of spar in it I suppose.

It's gotten cool tonight with a chance of frost in the early a.m. so I covered our apple tree with a tarp. In an ongoing battle against the elements and deer we hope to get some apples this year. It's looking good so far. Until next time...

Elizabeth Brim Sculpture In Spruce Pine

Here are some pictures of the sculpture I mentioned in this morning's post and a press release, here.

Fire On The Mountain

Saturday was a busy day for me. In the morning I took my daughters over to Spruce Pine for the annual "Fire On The Mountain" Blacksmith Festival. Here is my neighbor Andy Dohner putting the heat to the iron during he and Zack Noble's forge welding demo. looks like Zack better get out of the way of that flame...It was a beautiful spring day and there were a lot of folks dowtown to see the blacksmiths do their thing. There were blacksmiths from all over the Southeast in attendence. Unfortunately, for me, I missed the dedication of the new sculpture by Elizabeth Brim that was installed at the new clock on Upper St. Elazabeth created a full scale sculpture of a Sarvisberry tree to wrap around the clock. Here is a picture of Elizabeth and the work in process. I'll try to get a picture posted of the completed piece.

After I left the Blacksmith Festival I headed over to Seagrove, NC and the North Carolina Pottery Center.

It was the day of their annual benefit auction to which I had donated a piece. According to some of the folks there the attendance was down quite. There were some delicious snacks and plenty of refreshment for the public and the potters in attendance. It was great to look and pick up the pottery that was on display. There were contemporary as well as historical pottery that had been donated by potters and collectors respectfully. I wanted to get more pictures of those in attendance but got caught up in conversations with my "potter-cousins" and failed in my mission as a "poterrazzi". I did get these pictures of some curious pots that my friends Bruce Gohlson and Samantha Henneke picked up for a pittance.

We thought they were probably from Spain. I had seen a similar glaze treatment on a piece that Tom Spleth bought in Spain while he was vacationing but the press molded shells and other additions were different.

In the blurry detail above you may be able to see that it has a curious perforated neck with some flower shaped additions in side the neck. That was something I had never seen. Samantha thought that the body of the pot was thrown as a closed form and the neck was thrown onto the body. Interesting pot with no clear reason as to why it was made this way. Has anyone seen anything like this? Please comment if you have.

I had a great visit with all my Seagrove "cousins" at the after party at David Steumpfle and Nancy Gottovi's house. I stayed with Bruce and Samantha and I had a great visit on Sunday looking at their pots in their cupboard and their show room. Here are a couple of their fine pots.

Unfortunately I had to leave and they had to get some work done, so I shooed myself off to the mountains. I snapped a picture of Bruce and Samantha's new home and studio that's still under construction.

The little shack in the foreground is an old canning kitchen that served as their first studio after they had moved to the Seagrove area in 2000. I will look forward to visiting again after the new place is finished. It's an awesome space that they've been working on since last August. Maybe we'll see it in Dwell magazine!

Wood Fired Raw Clay

Wow, raw yet fired.
If you're in the area check out the show which opens on Saturday in Bakersville, NC.

from the press release:

WOOD FIRED RAW CLAY
AT CRIMSON LAUREL GALLERY
BAKERSVILLE, NC

Be sure to join us this Saturday, April 26^th to see the beautiful work produced by this very talented group. We will be featuring the work of students James Ward, Rob Cartelli, Kirby Taylor, Mary Beth Thesing, Zvi Benninga, Fletcher Larkin, Claudia McElraney and Kim Shelton as well as the work of instructors and assistants including Michael Hunt, Naomi Dalglish, David Stumpfle, Maya Machlin and Josh Copus. Come and learn about the local materials available and see some truly amazing finished pieces. The exhibit opens April 26^th with a reception including aslide show and lecture and ends May 17th

Reception begins at 6pm. For more info call 828-688-3599. Go to Crimson Laurel web site here.

We Are The World

I just thought I would share this with all of ya'll. From yesterdays stats:

Going, Going, Gone........to Pots

Jar, 2007 (my donation this year)

I've always felt that the phrase "going to pot" was a bit derogatory and offensive to me as a potter. Here are a couple of things I have dredged up from the I.S.H. ( Information Super Highway)...

From Dictionary.com

25. go to pot, to become ruined; deteriorate: "With no one to care for it, the lovely old garden went to pot."

And this from the Urban Dictionary:

An item which is broken, defective or substandard. Two explainations have been historically applied. The first is that in olden times when food was scarce, people would leave the bones, fat and undesireable portions behind after eating their meal. These second-rate items would be used for soup the next day, so as such, the poor-quality leftovers would "go to pot". The second (and more plausible) explaination is that in the days of the industrial revolution and early mass-production, assembly workers would occasionally find a defective or out-of-tolerance part which was not suitable for use. This part would be sent back to the smelting room to be melted down and re-cast a second time. Since the smelting was done in a giant pot, these defective parts had "gone to pot". In either case, the phrase gained popular use by the American homeowner who would occasionally wear out an item which would fail- often at an inconvenient time. Frank didn't want to take his car in for routine maintenance. I wasn't surprised when his vacation was ruined after the car went to pot last summer.

What do you think?
Maybe we should call it sweetening the pot instead. I digress.

Bowl by Matt Kelleher

The Ninth Annual NC Pottery Center Benefit Auction is this Saturday! I have been donating pots to the auction almost every year. I kind of missed my chance last year somehow. These things happen. I love taking the trip over to Seagrove. Here is a nice online preview of Saturday's auction. I hope to see some of you there. Come and support our NC Pottery Center.

Linda McFarling

I wanted to post this picture of Linda in yesterday's post but just now found it. Taken by Asheville photographer Michael Mauney for the Highwater Clays catalog cover.

Life Gets In The Way

Today was another beautiful day here in the mountains. The kind of day that I dread going into the old mushroom factory studio. So I putzed around the house doing little projects like taking a broken storm window out of the girls bedroom, feeding the chickens, doing a load of laundry, making a mid morning snack for the girls, you get the picture. Anyway, after a string of phone calls I drive over to the studio. It's really not that bad this time of the year. I can open the big sliding door to the outside, the breeze is nice. The sun was pouring through the skylight. So off I go to make some plates. And make plates I did.

Then the ultimate distraction. My friend Shane is unloading a kiln at Linda McFarling's just over the hill and down the road. What a great reason to drop what I'm doing and visit with some potters. It was a great visit, with one kiln unloaded and another loaded and started with Joy Tanner's pots. Shane was trying to fix a problem with the burners which were sputtering a bit, Roan Mountain potter, Will Baker looks on.



There were tools everywhere, and of course I had to throw my two cents worth in. Here is Shane standing next to the soda kiln he built for Linda. The spy bricks are for spraying the soda into the cross draft gas kiln.

Here is a picture of Shane and Red Hill, NC potter, Joy Tanner adjusting the dampers.


Anyway, Linda and I had a great conversation as always about pots, teaching, making marks with brushes. Linda's pots are some of the best anywhere and I was really loving the brushwork she does. Here is a pot, though without applied decoration has plenty going on with its surface. I love this form which I think has a basket-like quality.



It's always a pleasure visiting Linda and we always exchange a lot of ideas when we do. I was reminded by this gathering of potters and neighbors how special this community is. Not only in the friendships but the inspiration I get from all these exciting potters.

In the Studio

I thought that I would show a picture of the plates I threw today. I don't throw these plates as much a smash them with the wheel spinning. It is a form I made a lot of after my accident a couple of years ago. With really soft clay I use the side of my palm to form the very slight curve. I then scrape and rib to get a real smooth surface to paint. It's a nice form to decorate. And with just the right camera angle makes me feel good about today's output. By the way here is my eight pounder with handle. It will be about a gallon and a half when fired.

On The Cover

Jenny Mendes on the cover of CM! Way to go. Also a nice cover story by Katey Schultz. Check it out here.