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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Back to it

I finally made it back to the studio this week.  I've had a few false starts over the months, but I'm hopeful this time it will stick.

Truth be told, I've been more than a little nerved out, basically starting over after so long away. But the art center is a great place, with great people, and all that crap in my head soon melted away.

One of my friends saw me there and welcomed me back. I told him I wasn't sure what I'd accomplish, but I had to start somewhere. He said, 'ahh, don't worry about it, it's just like riding a bicycle.' I said I just didn't want to fall off and skin my knee!

I started with 2 one pound bowl/dishes that have a domed lid.  I wanted to make some forms for tests I want to do with the terra sig fermenting in the garage....(gotta go deal with that this weekend). I'm wanting to try something 'different' (is there such a thing?) and want to minimize the risk to other work in the kiln, hence the lid/cover. I figure theres only about a 2% chance of something bad happening, but I don't want my work to end up on the 'Wall of Shame' and be branded one of 'those people'.

I still had some time, so I made the jump to 4lbs. I tried a tall bottle form, and it wasn't half bad. My clay was ok, but a bit stiff, so it wasn't pulling up very easily. Probably a pound carved off in my fingers trying to get it to raise.  Whatever.  I'll get new clay soon, but this is good enough for now. I want to use up the rest of the bag and it won't take long. You can see an aforementioned wall of shame piece sitting in the background, welded to the kiln shelf with glaze when the bottom cracked out and glaze ran under the piece.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Update

After yet another lapse, I'm giving it another try. The schedule never came together in April, and completely fell apart when the whole house came down with the flu, out of town guests, and a couple medical procedures thrown in for good measure.

So here I am, 2 months later. In summary:
 - I need a lot more practice making lids, and using my new calipers. Even with them, I managed to make lids that were a bit too small. They fit, but are sloppy/loose in the gallery. At least they don't fall through!
 - I've somehow made it on to a list of '50 Inspiring Pottery Blogs' -- I haven't been feeling very inspiring or inspired lately, but it's a great goal to shoot for!
 - I have about a million ideas that I've collected in my brain in my off-time, and I need to organize, edit, reduce, and make a plan for trying them out.

Onward!

Friday, June 18, 2010

BISHOC !

What's that you say?
Well, I've taken the liberty of modifying the acronym BICHOK that some writers use - Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard - or sometimes simply 'BIC' to something more alligned to my goals, thus:

Butt In Studio, Hands On Clay.

More to come . . .