forks throws pottery (and maybe you do too?) - An ILX Ceramics Thread

my local deli guy makes a crazy good meatball sub and I promised him i would make him something so i channelled r crumb

http://i.imgur.com/PMaPdIM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ziRWEU5g.jpg

yes!!

last night
https://www.instagram.com/p/BT8Fa6FF-jx/
i'm afraid i might just become a potter or something and quit everything else. being in the studio and carving for five hours straight feels deeply meditative, if a bit crampy. this shit brings out my zen.

kinda having fun with this
https://www.instagram.com/p/BUYA-QGFdE_/

i just saw some early work from yayoi kusama (specifically the infinity nets) and it broke my mind. OCD based fine art! It's out there!

anyways, here's some recent work and collaborations:

http://i.imgur.com/bAtR5xh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/e3T92rZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Y6YSFDP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/T3YVXwi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KZMrhLO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3ca7WQw.jpg

http://imgur.com/C3i25cf
http://imgur.com/XDlrTAg

whoops
http://i.imgur.com/XDlrTAg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/C3i25cf.jpg

Love these, forks, especially the pot with the cut outs.

Would like to see more of the one with the legs. I can only see one pic ATM.

one with the legs has moved on with someone else. that house got finished though I haven't gotten around to photographing as of yet.

some immediate work:

http://i.imgur.com/S0IPPf4.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/BiPYVwb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/i0Mfmxb.jpg

here's some poorly filmed iphone video for you as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEJdPzcJrP8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-_MWmbtVU4

and this, which was a monster to do:

http://i.imgur.com/TAPW0xK.jpg

Plenty of other work too! I just reached a point where I'm just posting to insta moreso than anything else with this stuff.

Over the past year, I got a bit more serious about this and - for the past two months - started a three-day-a-week studio practice. I've also been doing a lot of collaborative work. Kinda feels like I've made some breakthroughs so I'm likely gonna start sharing here again.

This is a collaborative vase (me on carving and glaze, her on form) with my friend Joan H.
http://i.imgur.com/Zl4hMW2.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/YC1o1BF.png
bowl currently in progress

buddy of mine came by and took some pix of my stuff both old and new . here's a few.

http://imgur.com/syAnBej.jpg
http://imgur.com/B3OCYmY.jpg
http://imgur.com/nBamasw.jpg
http://imgur.com/LFSFfjF.jpg
http://imgur.com/iMzdS9l.jpg

some recent work; form by two different friends, decorative work by me.

Carving a kiln god into the vase. This one is going in for a glaze firing and will look much different when it's out of the fire, will repost later.
http://i.imgur.com/11G4n3d.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/i54yKjG.jpg

Coil-built double vase, still green. I have some ideas for glazing that are going to take some time.
http://i.imgur.com/dbUMelo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JxxvmUZ.jpg

I don't throw pots but worked in a pottery studio until covid. Most of my favorite pieces were slabs and pinch pots that the kids' classes frankensteined together.

Some very creative stuff itt

Ulysses, that first one is especially amazing. I would love a tokkuri that looked like that.

I’ve never really considered ceramics before, but my online sake nerd group has expanded beyond virtual visits to breweries to virtual visits to Japanese potters and it’s absolutely fascinating. I really want to go and see one of these immense wood fired tunnel kilns being fired.

a sake bottle spirit sounds like a fun project!
i don't hand build much so i like to work with people who do (that second piece) and with folks who get shapes and sizes that are harder for me to achieve (the first). i enjoy the creative conversation through work a lot.

re: immense tunnel kilns - there's an amazing example of an anagama kiln in this special... totally inspiring and worth a watch.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7nvcwu

deflator did you work for a school group or something? watching kids create with clay is endlessly fascinating.

It was a neighborhood pottery studio that offered classes both for kids and adults. It was mostly older and elderly women, especially during open studio hours. They've been slow to reopen for the obvious reasons.

As a generalization, the kids are very into the process and want to enjoy it but don't necessarily care about the outcome. The pieces they handbuilt were way more interesting than the ones they threw on the wheel usually. I loved watching them work so much that I came by on my days off just to hang out. I even tried to make stuff that looked like what they did a few times.

My parents live near this guy in Eastern PA who studied in Mashiko, Japan for a number of years. He built his own very large wood-fired kiln that is similar to what is in your link. He only fires a couple of times a year because has to stay up for like 3-4 days straight to keep the fire going. He also uses mostly local clays and materials for his glazes.

Xp I have photos of some favorite pieces but i'd have to really dig. I think my all time favorite was this rudiculous slab urn with enormous handles made by one of the oldest kids (12 or 13 yo) that looked like a trophy. It was a very rough piece and I took it for the work of a much younger child until one of my co-workers told me which kid was responsible.

that singleton guy's work is pretty nice! I respect anyone who gets into the process in such a way that they make their own glazes, source their own clay, build their own kiln... that shit is ridiculously impressive and difficult! I am less motivated by specific colors and harmonious forms and more into the manic/obsessive decorative process. Mostly, i feel like i'm making easels to draw on.

making "interesting" wheel built pieces takes such a long time. Centering and lifting the clay and trimming is time-consuming and requires practice and even then you're limited by the symmetry and your willingness to alter afterward. For kids, i find wheel work is generally more about them discovering if they can maintain the focus and patience necessary to get the basic chops. either way it's super fun to watch them connect with the medium.

Yeah, I love the decorative patterning on your pieces - it's distinctive. Also, it is really amazing to see the progression in your work from the start of the thread until now. I hope you are very proud!

I'm curious how that first piece in this revive is going to change in the kiln.

Thanks for the kind words! I'm excited that i have a medium to work with that allows me to be creative and present a vision that feels very much like it's mine.

Will start posting work in here more often. I have no job! Might as well focus on clay for a few months until i know that it's time to look for a new life.

I'm always impressed by your stuff, forks. I got to do some making/glazing with my mum last year (including a raku firing, yesssss) - I very much did not inherit any talent for it, but it was still fun.

boy i'd like to try raku sometime. share pix of your stuff? i'm curious.

I love Raku stuff, I think I can trace back my (fairly new) interest in ceramic art to a trip a couple of years ago to the Sagawa Art museum near Kyoto. They have a pretty extensive collection of tea bowls by the fifteenth Raku presented in this really atmospheric underground vault, underneath a tea room the he also designed. I recently saw something in an auctions catalogue by the 10th Raku which was even more breathtaking. However its only recently I've been starting to appreciate the art form more and there is some truly amazing stuff in this thread.

I'm getting really excited by the wood firing and ash glazing stuff I've been seeing recently. Its; such an interesting way of working, there's so much that is a mixture of experience and chance.

Super excited to see how your kiln god turns out.

Thanks! Here's a few other pieces I've done relatively recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQIkhKDaLHU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-ic1hsuUVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfuiR1E5Z5A

The first two are completely finished. The head jug was just fooling around and promptly discarded but it made for a fun afternoon of play.

and here's a few views of a piece i made as part of a set in collaboration with a friend who was making replicas of ancient pigeon figurines that I dressed up in different suits. Lemme know if you're curious about the other five or so i did with her?
http://i.imgur.com/dPRq02v.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qKjbeZO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZJGtNvi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Va26hkF.jpg

anyways i have plenty more pieces i could put up here but i guess one more will do for now.
This was very intentionally Haring inspired and done in collaboration with the same guy who did the coil built double vase above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7x834dCjsk

share pix of your stuff? i'm curious.

Oh lord no, I only did a few sessions and they were all just the basics of different practices (pinch pot, wheel and glazing), so my results were very much of an embarrassing first-timer. I used my mum's pots to glaze for the raku firing and I was kind of pleased with some of the expressionist daubing I did, but even that still wasn't great!

i love seeing first time results! and if you scroll to the top of this thread, you'll see piles of mine! It's useful to share and keep; that's how ideas get around.

I love that bowl and the alien apple, your carved stuff is truly amazing.

Right now I am obsessing over this style of natural glazing, this green glass over white clay is really striking

http://japaneseceramicart.com/shopdetail/000000001209/yui_tsujimura/page1/order/
https://www.yui-tsujimura.com/about

I'm really growing in an appreciation for ceramics as an art form. Like a lot of the art I like there is a really interesting intersection between art, craft, deep knowledge of the materials, engineering, artifice and science, plus some degree of magic when you don't quite know how something will transform when it is fired.

Yeah, the weird thing about pottery compared to painting or sculpture is that element: almost like baking bread, you don't truly know how a piece will turn out until it comes out of the oven/kiln.

I think that is what excites me about the big tunnel kilns, 6 month or a year throwing pots, weeks of loading, choosing spots in the kiln, days and nights of firing, weeks of cooling and unloading and only then do you know if your tea bowl is a masterpiece or a heap of fragments.

The guy in PA who I linked to above said he loses up to 50% of his pots in a firing. Crazy.

yyyyyyes the baking analogy is not inaccurate but it's worth noting that if you really want to just make basic pots, you can pretty reliably produce work in an electric kiln. Like everything else, it's a question of the risks you're taking and the effect you want to get. Some breakage and error is almost inevitable though, yes.

Kiln god vase came out pretty good! Will photo.

Until then, here's a hopeful detail (about an inch by and inch and a half) from a piece i made after the 2018 elections

http://i.imgur.com/YX9ecYx.png

Good luck charm.

buddy at the studio was working on making cork-nose piggybanks for his kids and I asked if he wanted me to try my hand at freehand decorating one. Got it back to him about two hours later and he seemed real happy so we may do it again!
http://i.imgur.com/EwRVQdn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CbMnbez.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JbbQDJ8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4lAC2HU.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BYNFvliyR0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2onuBxhafg

Great Pottery Throwdown S4 started a bubble season this week with a rebooted judge/host/studio tech and I already like it better than before!

Heh, yes. Much-needed comfort TV for me, will be watching along.

improvements:
1) they got rid of the previous "our host is a model" host and replaced with someone much more fun to be around
2) they took their previous (immensely likable) studio tech and made him a judge. Both Sue and Kate were fine but added a note of rigor and precision to the judging that feels less appropriate given the global circumstances.
3) the emotions are even higher than usual and people are almost all in a continuous state of nearly sobbing which makes this the realest and most healthy looking show on television right now. It's chill without being background tv or just pap.
4) our new studio tech is Rose Schmitts whose work reminds me of some things I've done in the past, dresses snazzy, and makes an explicit point about the show's stance on gender politics
https://www.instagram.com/roseschmits/
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/01/11/rose-schmits-trans-great-pottery-throw-down-channel-4/

Yeah, I never understood the presenter choices, this one seems much less annoying so far. Also didn't know anything about the studio tech, she seems very cool!