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Marian Williams Pottery
Marian Williams Pottery

Mike Grafa

Amazing Potters
 
 
 
Mike Grafa
Mike is a Texas potter and that’s where I will be next week! So I hope to see some of his work in person!  I really like his glaze application – lots of colour, overlays, and really magical!
 
The Texas Clay Festival website and gallery are worth a look too.  Lots of talented people in that state!

 

Oh Baby! Convert me!

Setting Up A StudioStudio and EquipmentTools and Equipment
In Australia, a couple of times a year, you can put out “large rubbish” for collection.  These rubbish piles at the side of the road tend to become a never-ending garage sale and even the repentant garage sale shopper can be lured to the roadside castaways – or treasures as it were! My husband, Ronnie, is no exception!  When he came home with this “perfectly good baby stroller/pram”, I was a bit surprised and wondered “what the heck!?” as I am well-past needing a pram!
Ever the inventor for my pottery studio, Ronnie came up with a plan to convert the stroller (which by the way, was in excellent condition and one of those really expensive jogging strollers with the really nice wheels!) into a pottery tools cart.
If you have seen the posts of my studio, you would have seen the studio is located in a huge barn and to move things from one place to another can be annoying.  So, this was the perfect idea.
After stripping off the fabric and a few of the structural pieces, he added a “hour-glass shaped” piece of plywood.
I painted the plywood a lovely blue.
Added velcro strips – the heavy duty kind –  to the painted plywood and to the bottoms of all the containers and dividers.  Easy peasy!
I used some IKEA drawer dividers.
Added some styrofoam inserts from an appliance purchase box to hold tools.
Here it is! The finished tool cart!
All in all, it is a great conversion and allows me to keep my tools in one place, while wheeling the cart to the table that I’m using at that time.
Brilliant!

You light up my life! Luminaries!

CreationLuminaries
Aren’t these awesome!  These Porcelain lamps by Jane Thelwell at Anglin Bay Pottery in Kingston, Ontario are engrained with rice which burns out during the firing, leaving the small indentations and holes in the clay for light to come through.
Anglin Bay Pottery
Lantern Festival blog
Here is her blog post on the how and why of making the lamps: Post
I decided to try to make a luminary – how hard could it be?
First, I did a bit of research about the other types of luminaries that potters are making.
These luminaries by Arryn are so fun!  The colours, shapes, and attitude of these pieces are just  wonderful.
  Saw these and had to add them to my favourites!  Great idea-very unique-from Prague!
After doing a bit more recon on Google images for luminaries, I decided to use Southern Ice Porcelain as it is available here in Australia, was created in Australia, and is super transparent.  Several of the sites that I looked at are here:
Click to see Danica Wichtermann’s beautiful luminaries from Southern Ice Porcelain.
Kanimbla Clay
Very, very cool!
Petra Meinking
Love ’em!!!!

Since I had decided to use Southern Ice Porcelain, I decided to a little research on the clay.

Les Blakebrough
Southern Ice Porcelain was created by Les Blakebrough and is distributed through Clayworks Australia.  The information Is provided on the Clayworks Australia website for the specs on this amazing clay.  Here is the description on the Clayworks website:
“Truly magnificent, translucent, white porcelain. While it is one of the best porcelains available it is also surprisingly easy to work. For best whiteness and translucency fire in reduction. SOUTHERN ICE has received international recognition as one the world’s best porcelain bodies and is now sold in Europe, UK, USA, NZ, Switzerland, France and Singapore.”
Well…the rice luminaries all fell apart before they were even fired!  Back to the drawing board on that one!  So I decided to throw the Southern Ice Porcelain and OMG! it is fantastic!  The thrown Southern Ice Porcelain luminaries that I carved came out great!  I’ve got more on the way!

Wheels!

Setting Up A StudioStudio and EquipmentTools and Equipment

The older I get, the more in love I fall with wheels!  So my sweet husband, Ronnie, has made sure that almost everything in my studio has wheels!  Sweet!  Here are a few examples of the wheels in my studio!

Wheels on plywood bases for my chemicals
This, I like to call, my “Bat Mobile”! Ha!!!
I use this to go to classes, workshops, guilds.  It fits the clay, aprons, etc inside and a paint bucket attachment (the cloth thingy) from the local hardware store (slit at the side with scissors) serves as a place to put my tools.
This was an old golf bag caddy! So my husband took off a couple of pieces, added a plywood base and now I have a great little cart for moving heavy buckets!  (See below)
This is the golf caddy/bucket mover in action!
This was found by a friend and will the newest addition to the studio when it has wooden shelves added to make a ware cart!
All in all, as potters, we must protect our health – our backs – as best we can!  So a few wheels added to our daily used equipment will only improve the odds!  Most of the wheels are recycled off other items (old office chairs, etc), but the cost of a few wheels is far cheaper than a hospital bill!

PotterLove: Roger Law

Amazing Potters
 
 
 
 
Holy Cow!  How is it that I have never HEARD of or SEEN any of the work of Roger Law?  His work is totally amazing!  The sculpturist carving of the clay, the detail, the artistry-what can I say…I’m not worthy, nor shall I ever be!
 
 

 
 
ROGER LAW

“Roger Law spent the 1960s and early 70s as an illustrator and cartoonist for newspapers and magazines all over the world, including theObserver, the Sunday Times, Private Eye andNewsweek. In 1975 he teamed up with Peter Fluck to produce 3D caricatures, to great success, and the pair then co-created Spitting Image, staying with the show for the entire 12-year run. Law now lives in Sydney”and makes ceramics.”

http://www.nakedflameproductions.com/index.php?action=vc&id=139

Roger Law Ceramics – this link takes you to his website, which highlights his amazing work.

This link features an interview with Roger Law and gives great insight to the artist.

Japanese pottery

CreationJapan

Isn’t this amazing!! Nothing changes!

“Three children sit in front of a shop cramped with ceramics and pottery. Inside a boy, probably an apprentice, is using a Soroban (abacus). Lots of teapots and cups can be seen. Under the eaves large plates are on display.
This photo is featured in Japan, Described and Illustrated by the Japanese, edited by Captain F Brinkley., with the text: “Porcelain and Pottery Shops. Japanese keramic art dates from about A.D. 1600, having been introduced by Korean captives. The variety of wares from the coarsest to the finest is bewildering to the uninitiated. Small shops for the sale of crockery abound everywhere, and, being tastefully arranged, are very attractive.”1
The photographs for this publication were sourced by Kozaburo Tamamura (1856-1923?), but it is not known who the photographer is of this image.”

1 Captain Brinkley, Frank (1897). Japan, Described and Illustrated by the Japanese, Shogun Edition.http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2vKU2b/oldphotosjapan.com/en/photos/56/ceramics-and-pottery-shop/

Glazes: Attention to detail

FiringGas - ReductionGlazesResults
It’s All In the DETAILS!!!
It’s all in the details!  That is a commonly used phrase, but how can it apply to glazes on pottery?  In Dick Lehman’s blog post , he writes about “seeing and appreciating the details”.
Do you see anything amazing about this test tile? (I know, it’s cracked!)  At first neither did I!   This was a test tile of Greg Daly glazes and most of them came out looking pretty good, but I saw no big “Wows!”.   Until I noticed one small little area where some magic occurred!

Thankfully on this tile I did take good notes!  So I know that to get that result I need to put Greg Daly S67 iron brown on the rim after pouring Greg Daly’s F Base Glaze on bowl. I then added Gary Huntoon’s Wash to the rim.

The recipe for Gary Huntoon’s Wash is:
50% gertsley borate
50% rutile
Make a very thin mixture and then use it in a painterly fashion, sparingly!
Thanks Gary for allowing me to pass this along!

Here is a bowl that I just recently fired that had this glaze combo on it!  It is much prettier in person, but hopefully this photo will give you a clue to how it looks.
I do think that the secret to achieving great glazes is in paying attention to the subtle differences and effects of layering glazes.
Greg Daly is a master at noticing the subtle beauty of a small section of a test tile – which can reward you with a great glaze effect.  He encourages all to look for the little areas that have magic!

A great resource for more information on washes and their use is at:  Click here

A Love Affair With Clay

Musings

Recently, my daughter, Liz, found some old photos of pottery that I did in the 80’s!!! They look pretty bad and the shot setup was horrible! But…. I was wishing I were a good potter, but I had  to postpone my involvement until a later date.

So now my “Love Affair With Clay” can resume!  And I decided to blog about it!

At first I simply called my blog: “Marian Williams’ Pottery”.  I changed the name of my blog to “A Love Affair With Clay” because that is what I am ultimately writing about – an obsession, a love, a jealous lover.  When I say, “A Love Affair”, I mean it.  I fell in love with clay a long time ago and she has been my secret obsession, happy to stay in the background, until I could give her time again.

I came across this website the other day and the author says it beautifully!  Have a read:  Barebente

In the blog post, she says:   “Throwing is a strange thing – some days I couldn’t even center, other days it was all a doddle. It is a sensual, earthy, deeply touchy-feely thing that seems to reflect moods, and ideally you should chose the task fitting the day. Clay is great material, and working with the elements is deeply satisfying. You create from earth.”

She goes on to say, “The kiln fires the gooey, soft, sensual clay into stone; it is a non-reversible process, and the object dies a little for me – I tend to lose interest in the finished product. It is the clay part of the process, and firing kilns that attracts me. The transformation is total, the pot will never leave earth, it cannot be broken down to the original materials. Ages hence, my pottery shards will still be around. Longevity. Infinity. A mindblowing thought – and one that (should) keeps potters constantly reminded to not fire substandard pots in the first place. We won’t get rid of them.”   Barebente

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