ART ON THE FARM

I am showing some pottery pieces at "Art On The Farm" this weekend. Sat 12-8pm, Sun 12-5pm. Admission is free, lots of other great local artists. (Chiques Creek Farm, 2995 Shenck rd., Manheim, PA. www.artonthefarmlancaster.com ) (my stuff is in the Lancaster Clay Studios area.)

First showing

I'm having a table show in the Borough building on 15 East High street in the Manheim Square on Saturday the 24th. It's next to the small park. I'll be there from 9am to 3pm.

facebook page and new photos of newly glazed pots

New Gas Firing done

Finally all of my pieces for this last gas firing are done. I am pretty pleased with the outcome, not what I expected on some from how I glazed them. I know what I did wrong, so next time I should be able to get more of what I want. I will take individual pictures very soon.

Almost done my last two pieces, now working on these sort of large (for me) pieces.

Couple new things I'm carving.

Here is a new piece I've been working on, basically the same style except for the base, more of a geometrical wood design. I plan on making more of this type and expanding on the idea and see where it takes me.

Working on stuff for gas fire

There is going to be a gas kiln cone 10 firing the first week of September that I will be putting a lot of pieces in. About 3 of my big pieces wont be going in due to that mineral chipping that happened a while back, so they are at risk for exploding. So I'm making some more things and gathering pots that have been in my basement collecting dust from not making it into the last gas firing. Mid September I should have many more pots in my inventory and be more comfortable selling at shows. There is going to be a show that my studio is taking part in called "Art on the Farm" in Manheim, which I will make a post about closer to the date, it is the first weekend in November. I will definitely have pieces in that. So here is a picture of some of the pieces that will be going into the gas firing coming up. I need to do a ton of glazing this week.

Threw more today, spent about 6 hours at the studio. I made one hollow ball thing and put spikes on it while i was waiting for some clay to set up. One pretty big vase type and two small vase dealies that are going to be similar to the pots in the next post that are already bisqued.

Trimmed these today and just waiting for them to dry more so I can sand and sign them.

Made 3 things tonight, two vases, and then the other a flower pot. They don't look like much here but they always look better after trimming =]

Made a handle out of twine for this. Enjoy~

Here is what I spent all day working on today. enjoy!

Lots of carving

Currently what I have been working on for the last 3 full days. I threw it on sunday night and have been carving it mon-wed. Taking a break today. I'm almost done carving, taking a lot of the weight out, but it is going to be atleast 7-8 lbs. I might do a scholar stone base for it, we'll see.

Cutting weight out

Cut about 5 lbs of weight off, I know you can't really see it, but it happened. Then did some more trim work. Next step is to dry and sand it.

Lot of work done tonight

Probably spent 5 or so hours working on this tonight. I like where it is going.

Big swirl thing

Just made this at like 12am. Probably 15-20lbs of clay, I had a ball twice as big to do next, but I decided to just keep it to one. I was pretty exhausted. Going in later today to start to trim and dry it.

Made some glaze testers

As the topic says I made some new glaze testers. Pretty much just a piece of clay with some texture that you cover with either one glaze or two to see how they turn out before you put it on a piece you actually care about.

Two new pots I am working on

Here are a few before and after pictures of two pots I threw on monday and carved today.

Weird

Made and fired this pot atleast a month ago, I had mixed in some Franklin NJ fluorescent mineral chips which are mostly calcium carbonate. That doesn't melt or frit at bisque temperatures but apparently this stuff does? So one hot and humid day I go to look at it and about 50 or so chips popped off and in the center were the graphite looking rocks I put in that shouldnt have done what they did. They must have absorbed the moisture from the air and expanded. There doesn't appear to be any structural cracks on the pot so it should still be salvagable. I'm definitely not mixing those large chunks into any more clay though. I am going to let it sit for a while on the shelf to make sure all of the rocks expand. Wouldn't want any explosions when I glaze it.

My teacher was curious about the rocks also so she took a bunch and put them in the last bisque firing in a bowl. I think we are going to explore glazing possibilities with the minerals at some point.

ready to bisque

All finished carving and sanding this. Ready for bisque firing.

more work done

did a bunch of carving to the base of this. should be done this week.