guests in the shop

I often throw out an invitation to those people who express an interest in making something out of clay. not necessarily coming up for "lessons"...just a simple project they had in mind.

a couple of weeks ago while working at the bookstore with my friend greer...i commented on her clay pendant and then carried on to say that if she was interested in making them...it could be a pretty simple project. being 23...done with college, light on the domestic obligations and pretty ambitious.. she got right to work.

instead of using my stamps/texture objects...she borrowed my lino cutter and picked up some pink erasers and after querying her friends about their 'spirit animals' proceeded to carve a load of beautiful rubber stamps.

when she arrived here...we rolled out a slab and she got to work....and did a mighty fine job.

it's always fun and a little strange to have someone in the shop working alongside me. how nice to be able to chat a bit with a person instead of the dogs. i usually have on just music or a book on tape or a tv show. leif rarely visits the studio for more than a few minutes...i'm not sure why. i'm considering removing a work table and putting in a small couch but that might facilitate entirely too much relaxing and cat nap taking and daydreaming. we'll see.

This time of year the studio starts getting stacked up with finished pots, pots that didn't quite work out, freshly thrown ware, dried work and general clay mess. Tea mugs and wine glasses and snack plates don't make it back to the kitchen at the end of the day.

Slop buckets get backed up as I fall behind with clay recycling and this is the season for knocking things over in the shop because it's just too cluttered.

I also notice that the stacks of misc. in the house get bigger and dishes linger near the sink longer. This morning I realized that I have subconsciously been avoiding work emails and phone messages..hmmmm. I am a firm believer that chaos breeds more chaos, like a bad virus.

So..back to scheduling 101 for the next 3 weeks. Get the monkey off my back and the boxes that I "cleaned" out of the closet either back into the closet or off to the goodwill. I straightened up in the studio yesterday for an hour and got my floor clean the way I like it. I work better when I'm not surrounded by mess but that is difficult right now.

I adore the holiday season in general but work wise it can make me a little nauseous.

May the force be with all of you "makers of things" with orders to fill and shelves to stock.

crocks r us

I'm loving the crock/giant vase making. I do have to pay close attention in order to get the handles on before the rims dry out but they seem to have survived. I hope to put some of these in my etsy shop if anyone is interested. I seem to be having a difficult time keeping the store up to date and stocked with pictures and descriptions. ...it's been added to the list.

Holiday production is under way as well as wedding registry roundup. I also took my first wholesale order yesterday which seems like it will work out well. It's just 48 mugs for a local coffee roaster to sell at their 4 valley locations so nothing crazy. They will let me put my business cards in the mugs so that will be great. Now, to get them made asap.

I also made an urn for my Grandma Betty who passed away on Friday. I'm so happy to be able to do this for her. I would love to keep a nice selection of cremation urns available. The funeral homes just take grieving folks for a ride with their selection....ridiculously overpriced.

I'm off to glaze pots for the day and grind shelves from the last firing and mix up new glazes. I hope to fire on Sunday and then again on Thursday.

snug as a pug....or something like that.

I've been anxiously awaiting the end of my scrap buckets of cone 6 stoneware so that I could completely clean all of the red clay out of my pugmill and start processing the scrap from my new high fire porcelain and stoneware. Thursday was that day. Of course I had 19 other things that I probably should have been working on but when duty calls....

I bought my Venco de-airing pugmill about 8 years ago I think. It's one of those luxuries that some potters afford themselves to recycle clay and in some cases...avoid wedging. (kneading the clay to get the air bubbles out). I treated myself because it was in the "pre-mortgage" glory days of extra money. I think it was about $2300 or so. Since I had it apart, I thought some of you might be interested in how it works (or not.) I'm a bit of a machine freak so I love this stuff. I usually take it apart about twice a year to clean out the screen which ends up full of gravel bits, sponge parts, earrings, etc. It usually takes a little over 2 hours and involves bleeding knuckles.

After my slurry has dried for a week in a plaster tray (see 'clay management) it is fed through this hopper in tennis ball sized chunks. This screen catches any big items (needle tool) that may have fallen into the slop bucket.



It then passed into the auger chute and through this smaller screen which catches the bits of gravel chunks, etc. It then continues through the auger where the vacuum pump attaches and sucks out all of the air so there are no bubbles in the finished clay (that's a good thing).I've had some trouble with the old gasket leaking a bit so I pulled it out last year and now each time I crack open the barrel, I reseal it with this goopy gasket product that seems to do the trick.
The pugmill is anxiously awaiting some smooth, white cone 10 clay.....maybe this afternoon.

artist questionnaire..

When did you consider yourself a professional artist and when were you able to dedicate yourself full time to that pursuit?

i suppose when i started selling pots a little over a decade ago. when i look at them now, it is a sincere effort not to cringe but the people who bought them, enjoy them and that is really all that matters in the end.


How long have you been in this studio?

almost 7 years in this shop..we built our home here at that time.

Is your studio separate from your home? Is that what you prefer and does that affect your work?

my shop is about 150 feet from the house. it leads to a very intimate home/work relationship for me that is nearly impossible to separate. i'm in the shop throughout the day and night most every day. having your studio at home, to me, means integrating your work into the flow of your everyday.

Did you have a plan for the layout of your studio or did it develop organically?

leif tried diligently to get me to do a work flow layout when we were designing my building, but i've just never been a great planner.

we've already added on to my shop and i could use about double the space. i think i was going for cozy and am now interested in a bigger, more open space with an area for clay storage, hand building and a small gallery for finished work. (not asking for much, am i?)

Has the studio location influenced your work?

i don't see how it couldn't...i live in the forest near glacier national park. i see few, if any, people in the course of my day. i love living in the woods...love, love, love.

Please describe a typical day, being as specific as possible. For example: What time to you get up? When do you come to the studio? Do you have specific clothing you change into?

i get up when i wake up for the most part, which most often is between 7:30 and 8. it changes with the seasons and daylight hours. i usually drink tea or coffee and am on the computer for at least an hour. then clean up the house and maybe work outside and usually in the shop around 11am. i'm in and out all day...very a.d.d. in that regard. my work and housework are intertwined.

my clothing is usually an eclectic combination of cutoff overalls over leggings, several shirts, maybe boots if i'm in the mood. i really have to have be 'feeling' my outfit for some reason :)

working alone does not foster the most cohesive clothing choices, plus nearly everything that i own is stained, torn, or just plain tired.

Do you listen to music, the radio, or TV when you work? If so, what, and does it affect your work?

i listen to music (satellite radio or cds) depending on my mood. i also watch a few t.v. shows (oprah, charlie rose and sometimes martha stewart). at night, the t.v. definitely helps me to keep on working (we get 4 channels,thank god one of them is pbs). i also listen to books on c.d. and talk on the phone. a couple of weeks ago, i set up my computer and skyped with a friend in san francisco while trimming pots. it was great fun.

Do you have any special devices or tools that are unique to your creative process?

not that i know of...my wheel, kilns, and pugmill are tools of the trade. my hands are the most important tool and that's why i freak out if i hurt them (which is a regular occurrence).

Are there specific items here that have significant meaning to you?

in my shop, i imagine that the most meaningful objects are those things related to my friend susan who taught me so much and passed away 2 years ago. the ravens that she sculpted watch over me and a few pictures of us on the walls. also, tools that she bought for me.

Do you work on one project at a time, or several?

Several....i'll start throwing a new series while the previous set is drying. my work is not very complex or heady so it's more a matter of timing than mental focus.

When you are contemplating your work, where and how do you sit or stand?

i usually take a hard look at my pots when i put them on the shelves in front of my wheel and sit back down in my chair. if i need to tweak the lines, i'll stick the bat back on the wheel and touch it up. (a bat is the plastic disk that attaches to my wheel, that the pot sits on).

How often do you clean your studio, and does it affect your work?

i am a chronic shop cleaner....clay dust and glaze drips are my enemy. that doesn't mean i'm the neatest person in the world, but i mop and sponge several times a day. my shop is small so being clean is important.

Do you have assistants?

i often dream of an assistant to do some of the more tedious tasks but then i remind myself that i still love the process and that moving clay slop, mixing glazes, loading kilns and pugging clay are an important part of the pot making.

Did you ever work for another artist, and if so, did that have any effect on the way you work?

i have never worked for another artist but think that being an apprentice would have improved my learning curve. i love to chat with other full time artists who make their living selling their work. we are a small crowd for sure and i love getting a different perspective on the creative process as well as the business end of selling our work.
Do you have a motto or creed that as an artist you live by?

"ain't is a blessing to be doing what what you wanna do?" is a shawn mullins quote that i have painted on the door of my shop and it's the truth. hard as it is sometimes, i wouldn't have it any other way.

What advice would you give a young artist that is just starting out?

i find it curious that so many artists advise choosing another path...because it can be so difficult to make a living selling art but i firmly believe that with the right approach, strong work ethic and proper business training..it is possible earn a living but i think it is a tough road for studio artists. selling on the internet has cracked open the market though for those that can keep up.

making a plan..

cup o tea...check. one of the 19 notebooks that I use...check. calculator...check.

It's "make a plan before you spontaneously combust" day. I gotta say...I do love to plan and make lists and schedule my month a bit. Even though it rarely comes to exact fruition, just by putting pen to paper, I tend to feel loads better.

Currently, I've got special orders written on scraps of paper floating around or just written in my head. I've now deleted the phone number for a woman in Havre who ordered mixing bowls....I thought for sure it would stay in my caller i.d. but ummmm....not. I'll track her down but how ridiculous. Sometimes the planning just gets away from me and then I feel overwhelmed and start having dreams about being late for concerts and planes and totally unprepared.

I already feel better as a result of writing that I'm going to make a plan, even though I haven't done a thing yet. Sigh.

final tweaks and we're hot

A quick update for those that do not follow on facebook as to the tweaking of the kiln.

First...I took apart my door and car bed so that we could lift it up (way heavy) to get the rails in. Also, I could rebuild the door with the car in place to make sure and have a tight seal where before it was losing way too much heat around the front and also not reducing well in that area because too much air was getting sucked in during the firing.

I bought 1/2" angle iron for the rails and rolled the car up on it so that it fit well. I then welded the rails together with strap steel so that they would be parallel ( I seem to have a problem with parallel). Leif drilled holes through the strap and rotohammered into the concrete so that we could drop bolts through the straps and hold the rails in place.

I rebuilt the bed much tighter to the walls and then the door. raw fingertips because apparently I am also allergic to gloves :). and those bricks are rough. The door fits mucho bettero now. Before, I was stuffing the obvious leaks with kaowool...not so good.

During this time, the new retention tips arrived and were easily attached to the burners with a 2" coupler. This lengthened the burners substantially and is where the difficult (perceived) task came about. The plumbing (black pipe) had to be completely taken apart and revised to that the burners sat properly at the ports. We paid the plumbers 1000 dollars for the initial work and I was not in the mood to have them back so we tackled it ourselves.

Getting everything unscrewed was the toughest part. Leif and I and 2 pipe wrenches and a bucket of sweat got the job done. .then off to the hardware store for me and back to the lookout for Leif. I got my pipe and pipe dope (to seal not to smoke) and put her all back together. (not hard at all). Called the propane company ( the woman was NOT psyched that i did it myself) and had them fill the tank and test for leaks. A-OK was the word...(visualize the heidi happy dance).

I finally got the load glazed and she's off and running as I type. crap....I just realized that I am sans kiln god/goddess for this firing. better get on that...i really don't need to piss off that crowd.

enjoy.