Penland Ramble

Mark at Penland today

I met Mark Shapiro at Penland on or about March 20th, 1989. Wow, twenty years ago! By some vernal coincidence, Mark has been here for a few days to visit and interview Paulus Berensohn and make a few demo's for McKenzie Smith and Gregory Miller's class. Tonight, Stacey, the girls, and I had the pleasure of having him over for dinner.

the original ad from Ceramics Monthly

Mark and I took that fateful workshop in March of 1989, along with fellow potters, Sam Taylor, Suze Lindsay, Marsha Owens, and Jane Shellenbarger, to study with Michael Simon who inspired us and a generation of potters to take the chance of being a potter and an artist.Things have changed a lot in the 20 years as far as how students assimilate information at the school but I would bet the experience of being at Penland is at it's core very much the same. It remains a place of intense energy, enthusiasm, and sharing.

Keeping in touch with friends,
Penland is a wireless campus!

STAR power!

downloading pots?

This Afternoon's Fun

My buddy, Mark Shapiro is in town to interview Paulus and we're heading up to Penland for Brunch! I'll take my camera and do a Penland Ramble for you. Meanwhile I am tending to these pots later this afternoon!

And Now For Something Completely Goofy

Rock Creek Bowl

copy cat bowls
[with original]
made after lunch

There is something about using a good pot that makes me want to make it. What is that impulse? Maybe trying to figure out how it can be so good, work so well? Sometimes I need a springboard to get the pottery flowing.

For lunch today I fixed a fettuccine with egg and feta cheese. Something simple and nice for Stacey and I. Stacey was working on her jewelry in her little workshop outside our house and I wanted something hot, but quick. Well, it wasn't that quick but it was simply tasty! I chose a Rock Creek Bowl that was just the right size. It fit on the table between our plates held the 3/4 lb of fettuccine for the two of us. After I cooked and drained the pasta I put it in this bowl and poured the two beat eggs in and tossed. Then I covered the bowl with a big Philbeck goat plate and waited a couple of minutes, checked email, whatever. The I tossed it again and by now the egg was just cooked and covered the pasta. Yum.

I tossed in 3/4 c crumbled Feta cheese, plenty of black pepper, and salt. It was so good that we got a good look at the empty bowl and it's odd design and its 'desert storm' palette.

Rock Creek Pottery, circa 1998

It has a shino like glaze that is ladled on or poured on in these nice little areas that break up the space of the bowl quite nicely. It was slipped and salted to a smooth sheen. Then there are these amber dots that are somewhat quarantined within four quick little brush strokes that form a kind of square. These brush strokes are done in such a way that gives the squares a kind of speed or movement. It is sort of a bird's eye view, sort of a map. The bowl has a paradoxical visual weight but feels just right. [what I mean is] The outside of the bowl is cut evenly and disregards the inside profile. The inside of the bowl was ribbed into two 'zones'. Well, there are two areas formed by the ribbed ridge. The bottom inside of the bowl is almost flat and then sweeps up to the ridge line before it sweeps up to the rim. It is cut/trimmed almost all of the way from the foot ring, which is quickly and squarely done, to the rim. The clay is lightly salted, orange in spots and dry in spots. The clay seems to have some sand which breaks up the smooth surface and gives it a subtle texture where the clay is cut. There was another small pot fired and wadded inside the bowl and it left a nice three point mark.

Well, I guess that's why I had to try to make this pot. It's too soon to tell as to my success or failure. As in many good pots, the proportions are very subtle. The timing of the lunch , picking the bowl, and my abundance of soft clay ready to be turned, conspired with my desire for this bowl. Maybe the fettuccine had something to do with it, too? We potters, should try to eat better, and use the best pots available. It certainly doesn't hurt!

Jug Handles

I followed some advice that Tom Turner gave me concerning my jug handles. [not without some hemming and hawing, though] and I think he was right to say that my handles are to small, which I interpreted as too strappy. The handle on the right is a strappy handle and the one on the left is rounder in cross section. I, myself, like the one on the left. Which one do you favor? These are pretty big pots. The one on the right is about 3 gallons and the left is about 2. So just from that info, with water weighing about 8 lbs/ gallon, the handle has got to be stout. But that's all I'll say. What do you say?

P.S. Tom, how'd I do?

Have a good weekend all!

R I P

January 2008

This week we lost one of our hens, affectionately known as "Booger". She was a good layer and we'll miss her beautiful brown eggs. Evelyn and Lillian made these headstone's to mark her memorial in the shadow of the coop. Luckily we will get more chicks soon and Silky will have some company.

Booger
?-March 17, 2009

new Potters Of The Roan web site

screen shot of my page at the POTR website

Being a new member of the Potters of the Roan, I'm excited to see the new website up and running. Here's the link. Our new brochure will also be published soon and I will make sure you get one if I have your mailing address. Send me an email with your mailing address to michael[at]klinepottery[dot]com if you aren't already on my mailing list. One of these days I will put a mailing list sign up form here...

NC Potter's Conference (Still)

Alex Matisse, myself, and Ron Philbeck
at the main venue during a break
at the 22nd Annual N.C. Potters Conference

I'm OK, really. Thanks for all of those concerned about my welfare. I'm just a little behind in all departments and haven't been able to post lately. There has been some pretty good coverage of the conference, though. Here are a few of the stories in case you missed them. Michael Mahan of Seagrove has several posts about the conference including a recent post of some work inspired by what he saw and heard. Bruce and Samantha of Bull Dog Pottery have a nice post today and Julie Jones of Durham writes about what she found interesting. Here's Ron Philbeck's coverage! Meredith over at Whynot Pottery caught me having a good time at the Friday Night Dinner and wrote about the conference here. I didn't have the pleasure of meeting Benjamin Gufford at the conference but he has a very nice blog here, with coverage from the event, including some videos which I haven't seen yet (remember, dial up, here?) but will see when we switch to high speed (soon!).
Nancy Utterback gave a wonderful presentation to complete the weekend and spoke eloquently about "green" practices in the individual or group studio. She and Melissa Oliveira have started a blog about such . It can be found here. I hope you will contribute to the conversation over at Green Ceramics. It's an important topic in these times.

Things get old really fast here on the bloggo-potto-sphere! I hope that I don't miss the already fading deadline to post my impressions of the NC PC in the next day or so. Thanks for keeping in touch.

Mark Pharis

cutting paper patterns.