The End Zone

My large piece from the Kevin Crowe workshop in March is finally done! I glazed the vase last Sunday with Neal's Blue, and accented the rim and the shoulder with Black Lapis.

Where the glaze is thinner, the clay shows through and has a green undertone. The Black Lapis reacted just the way I hoped it would with the Neal's Blue base.

How does one get such a large piece home? Very carefully of course.

I'm so grateful to Manassas Clay and Kevin Crowe for offering the workshop, and extending my horizon.

I'm A Big Teapot

My teapot from the Kevin Crowe workshop in March is finished. I glazed it with Golden Luster and dripped some Opal, since lately I've been fascinated by the reaction between the two on the Miller 70 clay. (If you use Opal by itself, it's this yellow/gray yuck color, but it does incredible things when matched with other glazes.)

I was so happy that the lid came off; you fire them together to retain the shape of both the lid and the body of the piece so that they will still fit together. But sometimes the glaze fuses them together.

I am also happy to report that the holes on the inside were not filled in with glaze, so tea will actually come out of the vessel, and the teapot pours nicely.

My gigantic pot is still drying. I modified it slightly from the stage I last posted about, just refining the shape and the surface. It will have to dry for weeks and weeks before it's ready to go into the kiln. The wait is almost a good thing, though, because I'll need that long to choose a glazing scheme. I used the same clay as I did for the teapot, so I am tempted to do a similar glazing (it's been nice every time I have done it so far, giving me a small hope that it would turn out similarly on this "important" piece). But I think the girl next to me in class will slap me, as she seems tired of my boring glazing choices. As always, I think way too hard about these things. Pottery is supposed to be zen. Not stressful.

B.I.G.

For those who remember my first attempts at pottery, today's pictures will really demonstrate my improvement over the last year and a half. These pieces are the large piece and the tea pot I started last week at Kevin Crowe's workshop. Below, the large piece sits under the fan, drying before I add the last level. Below, I'm adding the last piece. Please only look at the pot, not me... This is how it's looking now. I collared in the neck, and flared out the rim. I think I want to collar it in a bit more next week, so that the narrowness of the neck mirrors the narrow base. At this point the vase measures around 20 inches tall.

Today I added the handle to my tea pot. Kevin's tea pots have the handle connecting at the top, rather than on the back. At this point I think the tea pot is probably around 16 inches tall at the apex of the handle.

I tried to capture the organic nature of Kevin's work, so there is some "movement" in the body, and some uneven carving in the knob on the lid.

Cross your fingers for me that a) there isn't some horrible accident that knocks over either piece before next week, b) I don't ruin them next week, c) they come out of the bisque firing okay, d) I don't ruin them while glazing them, and e) they come out of the glaze firing okay. But I'm supposed to be zen about my pots, so I shall be aloof while your fingers are crossed.

Kevin Crowe

After I finish up some of the pieces I worked on during the Kevin Crowe workshop, I will take some pictures and share them with you. Until then, I wanted to share pictures of the two pots I bought from him. I was so glad to have the opportunity to purchase pots from such an amazing potter, and both of these forms will provide reminders of the techniques and inspiration he gave us.

The first pot is a tea bowl. It seems Kevin is a big fan of tea: it is both a Southern and Far Eastern ritual, and it only makes sense that tea would be a theme in an art that is capable of producing cups and tea pots to bring to the table. You can see from these pictures that the tea bowl is organic in shape, and he has incorporated natural elements (shells and fossils) in its decoration. One of the most difficult concepts of the workshop was letting go of the pursuit of perfection, and actually trying to create movement in the pot. Kevin uses a number of techniques to create the wavy rim and the organic form.

As I mentioned, he fires in a wood kiln, creating the beautiful finish.

One of our assignments during the workshop was to practice throwing the tea bowl form. It is difficult to let go of the desire to create straight, symmetrical pots. But in another way, it is freeing. After we threw the tea bowls, he later demonstrated trimming the foot on the bottom. Again, his techniques were a combination of practices that were familiar to me and mind-blowingly different than anything I had ever contemplated. Some of them were so simple, and producing such lovely results, that any one of them were worth the price of admission.

The second pot I bought from Kevin was this large bottle. There are elements of this pot that will remind me of what I learned in the workshop as well. Kevin alters forms both during throwing and afterwards, resulting in wonderful shapes.

I was also intrigued that someone could know their (gigantic) kiln so well that they would know how to place the pots to get certain finishes in certain areas of any given pot.

I love the chunky rims of his bottles, too.

Kevin creates his own stamps, and though he doesn't technically sign his pots, I think his particular aesthetic and the recurring themes in his work mark them as his, and he will leave a lasting legacy in the world of pottery.

I'm very grateful to Manassas Clay for offering this workshop, and to Kevin Crowe for taking two days to teach 8 potters as much of his wisdom as we could absorb. I'm looking forward to continuing to practice and hone the techniques he taught us, and his influence has surely made a mark on what will eventually become my "voice" as a potter.

Ten

Today was the first day of the Kevin Crowe workshop. The group decided to work on tea bowls, large pieces, tea pots, and baskets. I threw four tea bowls, and started to get the hang of it by the fourth. I then threw 10 pounds of clay to start the large piece. The most clay I had ever attempted to center and throw before was 4 pounds, and I was less than successful. But today I threw 10 pounds for the base of my piece. Tomorrow we'll add to the pieces to increase the size. I started on the tea pot, but I'll have to continue with that tomorrow, too. I can't wait to get back and see where Kevin takes us.

Upcoming Workshop

On Sunday I registered for an upcoming workshop at Manassas Clay. Kevin Crowe, a well known and inspiring potter, will be teaching a lucky few of us to broaden our horizons and create pottery we might never have realized we are capable of. That's what I've heard, anyway. I have my doubts about my capacity to learn and perform such stunning feats, but I'm game to try. The workshop will be over the course of two days, a Saturday and Sunday. I have pottery class late on Sundays, so it will be a pottering weekend (yay!).

I will of course try to take pictures during the workshop, and I certainly hope to be able to share the results with you. From his website: "Kevin produces wood-fired functional stoneware with strong Asian and English roots. His work ranges from 4” teabowls to 48” vases. Kevin's pots are fired in a 450 cu. ft., 3 chamber combination anagama and noborigama kiln. Firings last 4 days, consuming approximately 5 cords of wood and firing 1200-1500 pots. The kiln is fired twice a year."

I am enamored with his artist statement, part of which is "Making pots will be an act of civil disobedience."

So, my fellow local potters, if you are available the weekend of March 13-14, I highly encourage you to join me for the Kevin Crowe workshop at Manassas Clay! I understand there are a few spots open, but space is limited, so you'll have to be quick!

In the meantime, I encourage you to check out his website, which is where I found these images of his pots. He is also on Etsy as TyeRiverPottery.

Wish me luck, and keep your eyes peeled for posts on how the workshop goes, and whether any of my pieces are worth writing home about!

Crusty Pots

I wanted to share the glazing results on two of the pots I posted recently. I threw two cylanders, painted each with a liquid silicate (dyed with iron oxide for a red color), let the silicate dry, and then bellied out each of the cylanders to reveal craggy crackles. The next week I trimmed a foot on each pot. After they were bisque fired, I dipped each in soda ash. This first pot was also given a black lapis rim, slightly uneven, just for kicks. I threw the first pot with a speckled clay, and the second was thrown with a smooth, white clay.

You can see the specks in the clay on the inside of the pot.

I expected to like the first pot a lot better, but I have to admit that the red looks really vibrant on the white clay, and I enjoy how it becomes orange near the rim.

I flattened this pot a bit after I threw it, giving it a somewhat oval shape.

You may also recall that I did a tile workshop in May. One of the things we did was paint on some blank tiles with glaze. This is one of the tiles I painted - we used a number of glazes and wax resist. I'm not sure if I like the result, but it's growing on me. I especially like the glaze in the hill behind the tree. It was called Sherwood Forest.

Plumeria Postmortem

My faithful readers (hi mom!) are surely waiting to see pictures of the plumeria tiles now that they have been glazed and fired. If you want to catch up on how I made them, check this post and this post. Overall, I am fairly pleased with them. For someone 9 months into clay, and for first tiles made from a first mold, they're pretty good. I used the same underglazes and clear glaze on top of these tiles so that I could compare the two different clays I used. I believe the Shenandoah and Dogwood clays proved to be about the same.

The green underglaze that I used for the background doesn't like the clear glaze over it, which resulted in a brown or washed out effect in areas. The darker green on the leaves came out much better, and I will probably use it again, but with a different green in the background. I was pleased with the white and yellow parts of the flowers, but next time I make tiles from this mold I will probably spend some more time perfecting each individual tile. At the workshop I was just trying to get several made in a short timeframe. The back of each tile could use some work as well, but since I don't have an air compressor, I'll have to carefully extract them and go back and smooth the surface.

I don't plan to list these prototypes in my Etsy shop, but I have learned a great deal from them and I think the next round will be even better.