A Goal Without a Plan...

...is just a wish. I have a lot of wishes in the works. If you haven't gathered, the dark of the year is when I do my best navel-gazing: evaluating where I am and where I want to be, and what it takes to get there. I made some good progress in the past year, since my last prolonged episode of pondering. My reach exceeded my grasp, but I got much further than I would have had I not reached in the first place.  I had hoped we'd rebuild the kiln; instead we built the kiln shelter and amassed about 10 percent of the necessary brick. I do spend more time making pots, and as a result make more and hopefully better pots. I got three new consignment outlets to sell the extra inventory. And I had one big project that resulted in many new techniques and forms in my standard vocabulary. Planning works a little like prayer: you don't always get what you plan for, either.

Speaking of, I have learned a little motivational trick using my planner. Non-artist friends are often surprised when I tell them I have to motivate myself to get into the studio. They sort of picture a potter's life as a grinning jubilee of fun-fun-fun! in the studio. Don't get me wrong, I often do have fun in the studio, and that thumpingly good feeling of satisfaction I get when I have made something that I know is good, is compelling all by itself. But that doesn't mean that I don't get up sometimes and just feel like lazing around re-reading the Harry Potter series. The intellectual engagement necessary to make good pots can be a challenge to bring myself around to. So I trick myself using a much shallower system of reward: I give myself happy-face stickers for time spent in the studio. I also earn stickers for working out, and sometimes foil stars for completing tasks that I've been avoiding. If I get fifty stickers in a month, I buy myself something. Nothing grand: perhaps a lipstick, or a CD.

I just had a sudden, embarrassing thought: what if it is just me? What if other potters are gleefully shoving aside the Netflix when it arrives, because it will only subtract from their studio time!?! Maybe other potters have to be restrained from staying up all night, and dragged away for meals. Maybe I really am just lazy. 

No, I can't be the only one. Can I? If you need motivational tricks to get yourself working, share them with me!

Two More Lookies

The plate on the top has black slip stripes, with dots of Satin Matte Black and Coilles Clear. The plate on the bottom is soda fired with a copper red center and Satin Matte Black vermiform design.

To Do Today

1) Mix Bauer Orange Flashing Slip:
41.9 EPK
41.9 OM 4
5.7 Borax
10.5 Zircopax

2) Mix Oestrich Shino for Soda test:
40 Nepheline Syenite
30 Spodumene
17 Kentucky OM#4 Ball Clay
5 EPK

3) Gallery sit. Boring! But it's a short day, being Sunday, and maybe I can use the time to look up a few more flashing slips to try.

4)Trim cat urns.

What I really want to do today is make bourbon cups, with little square trays to carry sets of them; but there probably isn't going to be time for that. Maybe I can sketch them out while I am gallery-sitting, to try to keep the inspiration alive.

The Joy of the Unnecessary

There's something about the unnecessary accessory that appeals to me. In a way, handmade pottery is all an unnecessary luxury, when plastic or cheap mass-produced ware will serve the same function as well. Sometimes I like to make things that push that quality, that sense of unnecessary luxury, to a point that almost feels decadent. The sets I was working on yesterday feel like that to me: not content to be mere salt and pepper shakers, they have to have their own little tray, to literally underline their preciousness.

Now I read that, and it sounds stupid, as it often does when I try to explain why I make what I do. I am better off quoting Stephen King, when asked why he writes horror: "What makes you think I have a choice?"

Anyway, getting to the point: Lookie what I made!

Words, Words, Words

Since I got back together with Zapp, (our breakup was totally my fault; I just wasn't ready. This time we are taking it slow.) I have been getting emails listing upcoming art fair deadlines, which serves to remind me how much I miss doing fairs. I notice that both Art Fair on the Square, in Madison, and The Uptown, in Minneapolis, are now accepting apps. I love both of those cites, and Minneapolis has the added temptation of free lodging (right, MJ?) but I have listed here before the obstacles to doing the circuit again: 1) no appropriate vehicle; 2) no display; 3) hundreds of dollars in up-front costs. Add to that my fear that I won't have time to make enough work to make the fair(s) worthwhile, and it's a daunting prospect. I barely make enough now to keep my consignment outlets happy. Still, part of me says if I applied and was accepted (and there's no guarantee of that: these are tough, top-shelf shows in the outdoor circuit) I'd find a way to make all the rest happen. Carrot-and-stick seems to be how I roll. 

I have another, more doable idea for the carrot, as well, but it would probably be a one-time thing, and not lead to a life change, the way re-entering the art fair world might do. Also, is there an echo in here? It seems like I was typing the exact same words last year at this time. Might be time to do something about that. 

I am the Hamlet of potters, all talk, no action. Why couldn't I have been born a Fortinbras? 

November Goal Setting

This month is all about inventory for the holiday season. The kiln project is on hold, except for accumulating brick, until warmer weather. I need to do a firing prior to Thanksgiving, and to that end I'll need to make a bunch of pots and mix a bunch of glazes. In addition, it's time to fill my recurrent cat-urn order. It's going to be a busy month. With that in mind, big picture goal-setting for November is quite moderate. 

Basically this month I want to do some thinking about priorities for time expenditure, and come up with a daily or weekly schedule for the major aspects of business: producing, marketing, and management. (You would think having only one employee - me - would make management easier, but labor relations can be surprisingly dicey!) Hopefully I can come up with a model that will work for the upcoming year. I also want to choose a big project to focus on, which will serve the function that the 100 Mugs show did last spring: to keep me excited and motivated to be in the studio. Excited to create a successful event, motivated to outrace the looming spectre of failure. A bit of carrot-and-stick seems to work for me.

 I have two potential projects in mind, which I will explore in later posts. 

Pulling Handles

A small platoon of mugs with their handle blanks attached, waiting to be pulled. I like to attach first, then go back and pull them (maybe with a blog post in between!), because even the few minutes it takes to finish the board of pots and go back to the first one allows for a stronger attachment and fewer handles pulling free while I am making them.
One take-away from the 100 Mugs project: some of my favorite pieces were the simpler, less busy mugs. To that end I tried to minimize the stamped decoration on these, to leave room for the sig and soda to work their magic without distraction. Not that I am giving up stamping any time soon; I am just too enamoured of the tension between the mechanical qualities the wheel imparts and the soft squishiness of clay, as recorded and made evident by stamping. This group of mugs was preceded by another bunch that sport what I call "outies:" the stamps are concave, so I have to push outward on the wall of the pot to make the clay bulge out to take the impression.

More Pots from the Last Firing

I was too lazy to do the whole photo set up, when I just wanted to record a couple of pieces before I (ahem) sell them. The top bowl is the one I shot unfired two posts ago; as you can see, it looked better prior to firing! Oh, well, sometimes that happens. I like to tell my students, "If you aren't failing, you aren't trying."
I am pleased with the large red platter, and the little test cat dish, too.

Meh

When I was a student, a single really good pot was enough to make me pleased with a firing. By that standard, this was a spectacular firing; there were about four pots in it that I am really excited about. Which means there were about thirty pots in it that I am not excited about. Oh, they are good enough - I didn't have any real stinkers in the bunch, except a small vase that had technical difficulties. But...meh. Not much to make me stand up and go "WOW!" It's my own fault (Of course. Who else's fault might it be, Santa Claus? Madonna? Maybe Bobcat Goldthwaite?) I got distracted during the firing and didn't get it into body reduction until 012 was well and truly flat. Given that, I am lucky it was as good as it was. And, I got four successful platters out - a biggie, because it seems like some damn thing is always happening to platters. They crack, they warp, they get little hunks of kiln debris in them, yadda-yadda-yadda.

The photo above is a detail of the glaze-into-glaze trailing that I was testing. This was a double "meh" as I had high hopes that didn't pan out. I've also included one of the fatties: a little bud vase in Owen Oribe with Satin Matte Black dots. 

Glaze Trailing, White Over Black

In my last two firings, one soda, one stoneware, I've been experimenting with glaze-into-glaze trailing (as opposed to glaze-onto raw clay, which is also fun.) Specicifally I am interested in a white-on-black look. I've had two successes, each using This glaze as the black base:

Satin Matt Black

6500 Alberta Slip
1500 Neph Sy
1000 Strontium Carb
1000 Talc
Colorants:
1% Chrome
2% Red Iron Ox.
2% Manganese Diox

This began as the Cushing Satin Doll Black from the Watershed Glaze Book, with two substitutions: where the recipe calls for Albany Slip, I've substituted Alberta, one-for-one; and where to recipe calls for Barium Carbonate, I've substituted Strontium Carb, in a one-for-two ratio, i.e., half as much. (I don't keep barium on hand, for all the reasons.)

My first effort was trailing Coilles Clear (recipe below) over top. What I really expected was a shiny-over-matte effect, but all black. Surprisingly, the Coilles turns a cool white. I enjoyed that effect, so I tried an actual white glaze (recipe below.) This was a very clean, graphic, white-on-black effect. I was surprised how well each glaze held its shape, even on verticals, but so far I have only done small dots. Possibly these heavier lines will be more affected by gravity in the kiln, and therefore more distorted. I am open to the possibility that a distorted pattern, especially if it is unevenly distorted, may be better still!

Coilles Clear (from the Watershed Glaze Book)
500 EPK
7900 Cornwall Stone
700 Zinc Ox
900 Whiting

Waxy White (not sure the origin, but I got it at Portland Pottery)

4100 Custer Spar
1200 Gerstley Borate
700 Dolomite
1500 Talc
500 EPK
2000 Silica

Our Lady of Sorrows

It's pretty obvious why I can never get my list finished. Here's what I've got going on today:

1) Mix Old Yellow Glaze

2) Straighten up studio

3) Purchase mop

4) 1 hour Home Blessing (a term I got from FlyLady.net; what normal people call housecleaning.)

5) Walk dog & mail bills

6) Wax & Glaze pots

7) Buy materials to install dryer vent

7) Starch pots for packing

and, last but definitely not least:

8) Our Lady of Sorrows, a performance art event tonight at 7 pm at the Harlow Gallery My friend Malley Weber, of Hallowell Clayworks is one of the creators of this event. Perfect ending to a busy day.

Regretsy

I've sort of soured on Etsy (more on that later.) I know some people do very well there, but for me it has turned out to be a ton of work for s few small sales, amd I've decided if I am going to be promoting my bum off it might as well be my own site I am promoting. Also, while there are TONS of good artists on Etsy, and there are an especial lot of fine potters, the site is starting to take on a cutesy sort of aesthetic which just is not me.  And it's fair to say that there are an equal number of poorly executed works there. Don't even try to suggest that the site might benefit from jurying, in the Etsy forums; people there value the openness, even at the cost of a reputation for some pretty bad art. 

But I had to laugh when someone directed me to Regretsy. It's mean, and some of the works posted there are not deserving of ridicule. (For example, I rather like the silk rag necklace, and might purchase it myself if I had that kind of money.) But it's funny, too, and on the grounds that any publicity is good publicity, I thought I'd pass on the link.It's better if you don't read the captions and just look at the works.