100 Mugs in 100 Hours

Holy cow, tomorrow is March 1! My dedicated stretch of playing is at an end. Not that there won't be plenty of playing going on in the studio, but I do have to get busy with production.
And what do I always, always need more of? Why mugs, of course! To kick off my shift in focus, I am planning to spin out 100 mugs in the 100 hours between 8 am Thursday and 12 noon on Monday. Unlike the original 100 mugs challenge, I will not be trying to make each of these unique, not more than the natural variations of the process. I have 4 designs in mind, although I will feel free to veer off plan as the mood strikes me. I'd like to start today, but I really need to grind, sort, price, pack, etc, all the work from last week's firing.

It doesn't sound like much: I know potters who can make 500 mugs in a day, but I am not one of them. On the other hand it will definitely be a challenge to my discipline more than to my skill. Like a weight-loss program, making this resolve public provides additional motivation.

It's a Wrap!

I'm delighted to report that the show went well! We had a good turnout -- and that was at 9 o'clock in the morning. I have my students and friends to thank, because many of them made a special effort to be there. A full gallery draws more people, while an empty gallery discourages. I still have about forty-five mugs (guessing), which will now make their way to various other outlets.

I learned a few things:

1. Context matters. While I was pricing, $20 or $30 seemed like a crazy price for a mug. It would be, at KRA. In the formal, gallery setting, it seemed more than reasonable. I could get used to that!
   
2. Context part 2: Several of the mugs were wonky: functional but functionally and aesthetically challenging. These I fully expected to still be in possession of at the end of this event. I was proud of myself for not being influenced by what would sell, and making pots true to the original spirit of the project. Surprise! The funky mugs are almost all gone. That would not have happened at a retail store, where people seem to prefer handmade things that almost look mass-produced. My theory is that folks are unconsciously choosing work that they are comfortable with; pieces that look like what they are accustomed to. It can be uncomfortable to have your aesthetic challenged with your morning coffee. It takes a certain kind of person to welcome that. Those people are in greater proportion, apparently, in a gallery than a store. 

I haven't really got time to rest and reflect, as I am rolling right into spring and the stores need inventory. I was up late glazing to load today & fire tomorrow. As a result I missed another event I meant to enjoy: The  Portland Pottery Teapot show! I hope it went well. I did have a teapot in the show, although it was NFS due to leaking. .jpg">

One More Day!

The show is all set up, ready and waiting. I have a few more things to take care of. 

To do for show:

• Get bags and packing materials
• Get $$ change
• Bring sugar/creamer set & platter for treats
• Tuesday AM: pick up treats & meet Canteen guys to set up coffee

It is fair to say I am a nervous wreck, convinced I am going to forget something crucial. I know from past experience that once the event actually starts, I will enjoy myself, but for the next 27 hours I will be thinking, "Why did I get myself into this?"

Nevertheless, my worst fear -- that no one will show up  at all -- seems remote. Many thanks to my students for guaranteeing that I won't be standing in an empty gallery for three hours!

One last time, a show announcement:

100 Mugs in 100 Days

Tuesday, April 28th, 9 am to 12 noon

June Fitzpatrick Gallery

522 Congress St

Portland Maine

100 Mugs

Three days 'til set-up, five days 'til the opening. I still have to:

• Price & pack pots;
• Make up a table sign thanking Canteen for donating the coffee;
• June's suggestion: a sign clarifying the concept. Some people may not realize the mugs are for sale!

One thing I didn't have to worry about was the mugs looking too diverse; turns out, no matter what I do, I don't stop being me. 

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Still No Camera

I'd love to upload photos of the 100 Mugs, which did, blessedly all get done within the 100-day timeframe. But I can't because my camera has not yet come home from its in-patient stay at Camera Hospital.
I was organizind CDs (well, organizing is a strong work for what i was doing. I was actually just picking out the empty cases, and matching them up with the loose CDs) when I found a couple of discs of photos. I opened them to see what was there and found, among other things, my old booth shot. Makes me nostalgic, and it makes me want to take another look at doing art fairs again; how and if I could make that happen. That was fun.

Picnik and GIMP

I found two very useful tools that I wanted to share. Both are photo manipulation tools , along the lines of Photoshop, but have the advantage over Photoshop, in that they are free! 

My new-old iMac came with iPhoto, the standard package that Macintosh gives you when you purchase a computer. Like all comes-with software, it is barely adequate: I can crop a photo, or lighten/darken it, and that's about all. So I went in search of some better options. 

The first thing I found was GIMP, a free photo manipulation software to download. I wish I could personally vouch for GIMP, but I was not able to download it, because my version of Mac's operating system is too old. I've got 10.3.9, and I need 10.a million. Or something. But it sounds really cool, and it would be convenient to have to software. Convenient but not crucial, because the next thing I found was Picnik! Picnik is a website that allows you to upload photos, do your manipulation online, and then download them or export them to sites like Facebook and Flickr.

I was able to create the strip collages at the top of this post using the free version. I like it so much that I, the world's cheapest human, am considering upgrading to the pro version, which costs $25 a year. The downside of Picnik is that it loads and responds quite slowly, but that may be just my elderly computer, the one which was deemed too stupid to handle GIMP.  

Got My Photos Back

..from Jay. I've only got time to post the one -- IPTOG today, you know.

I'm baaa....aaaack!

I often get ideas for mugs while I am at the IPTOG. I just sketch them out on sticky notes, and slap them on the cabinet.

My new old computer arrived today, and I am still tweaking it into shape. New computers are like new shoes -- you gotta break them in. I want to get this posted before Blogger's "scheduled outage," so I'll keep it short, but I have tons of things to post, from my recent firing (two new glazes and a new sig, all the bees' knees) to Etsy to building a light box. Visit again soon!

Rats!

The ominous noises my old iMac was making on Thursday were indeed portents: the hard drive gave up the ghost yesterday. I am at a borrowed computer for this post but I will probably be absent from my blogs for a while! (not to mention my new fling, Etsy!) I was lucky to get the warning two days in advance, as my hubby was able to back up everything we needed, so nothing was lost, except, you know, the computer. Oh, well, I really need to be glazing: more than 70 of the 100 Mugs will be in the firing that I'm loading on Thursday. This should be a very exciting firing: I'm also using two new glazes and a new sig.

I once read a potter (forget who, sorry) who wrote that we ought to test a new glaze in every firing, and I thought, "yeah, right, like I feel like adding one more thing to the pre-firing to-do list." But he was right, for two reasons: 1)If you don't test glazes when you are firing, when will you do it? When you aren't firing? How's that gonna work? 2)Having an unknown factor in the firing makes it much more intriguing. Here's a thought: if the kiln sits cool but full for longer than it needs to -- in other words, if I am not rushing to unload -- it's time to change things up. 

I can get a used iMac for around $80, plus a whole boatload of shipping costs. Not too bad...it'll just take a while. See you then!

Surface Testing

I am mixing up a new glaze and a new terra sigillata today, to test in the firing scheduled to load 3/19. Gotta have some new surfaces for those 100 mugs!

Wax White Glaze

41   Custer Spar

12   Gerstley Borate

  7   Dolomite

15   Talc

  5   Tennesee Ball Clay

20   Silica

Add: Zircopax, 5%

Lipton Terra Sig

This came from Jeff Lipton, a winter resident at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts. 

1300 Ball Clay

  200 Red Art

Jeff suggested 14 cups of water, but that seemed too thick to me. I've always applied sig in a very thin layer. So, I almost doubled the water. I may live to regret that. 

Sweetheart Mugs

I swore I would not get distracted this weekend, but there are more important things than pottery, after all. My nephew, Sawyer Francis Keenan was born yesterday morning. Sawyer was a month early but all - mother, baby, and father (my kid brother!) - are doing well.

At almost the same time, a friend of ours was found dead in his home, of unknown causes. He was 48.

So naturally I have not been in the studio much. I did manage to finish the last two mugs(above). 

Mugs 85, 86, 87,88, & 89

I haven't a clue what those mason stains (in a b-mix slip) will do at Cone 10, or how they will react to soda. They were just some that I'd had around the studio for years. Guess I am going to find out!

Wetwork Again

After the firing(and all the random distractions) knocked me out of my groove, I think I lost my nerve a bit. I made the first seventy-five, boom-boom-boom, one idea suggesting the next; but when I came back to the wet end of the cycle, I found I was having trouble coming up with different mugs. I put it off for a little while, but finally decided the only way to do it was to do it, and risk making a few redundant or bad mugs, in order to get back in the groove. I also decided it was time to get (funnily enough) way out of my comfort zone, and make some mugs which were plain, with no alteration, stamping, carving, or slip-trailing. These I will plan to do some brushwork on, with glazes; not my forte. My hero in that skill is Carl Erikson, of North Main Studios in Stillwater, Minnesota. Here are a few of Carl's pots:

I have no illusions of creating anything quite so impressive, but again, this excercise is pushing me into territories where I wouldn'nt normally stray.

Couple of quick, unrelated notes:

• I have largely been successful at re-ordering my priorities so that I can spend more time in the studio; I now spend at least five hours a week more making stuff. Having a goal and a deadline really motivates me. 
• In a hopefully unrelated development, I now find I have a constant slight pain in my lower back. This started a month or more ago; I noticed I was being very careful when I bent down to feed the cats first thing in the morning. I attributed it to my winter inertia, and figured it would clear itself when the weather improved and I became more active again. That still could be the cause, I don't know, but unfortunately it's no longer just in the morning, but all day, and it's a constant tweak threatening to turn into a sharp pain. Like a lot of artists, I don't have health insurance, so I plan to address it with some half-assed and homemade yoga and stretching, and prayer. 

Mug Progress

Here are three more. With 43 days left to go, I have twenty finished mugs and around sixty in the green state. The one on the bottom came from The Firing That Wouldn't End, which finally ended with spanking clean shelves this morning; the other two came out of Portland Pottery's stoneware kiln.

Enough Navel Gazing...

...let's see some pots!

Here are the pots from the firing that wouldn't end. It isn't over yet, either -- still have to finish grinding and washing the shelves. There were the expected sacrificial pieces from the exploding kiln pack, and a couple more will need attention due to soda globs -- I used about 50% more this time. But all in all I'm very pleased with the results, and see no ill effects due to sitting, loaded but cold for several days. A couple close up:

This mug is one of the 100, and that great rarity: a pot that emerges from the kiln exactly as I pictured it when I was making it.

I couldn't resist a shot of the interior of the port. So beautiful!

Some Mugs Out of the BIsque

I once heard a quote attributed to Toshiko Takaezu saying something to the effect that she feels pots are alive when they go into the bisque, and dead when they come out; and it's her job to bring them back to life with glaze and fire. I understand how she feels. I've always hated the bisque stage. I hate the horrid pinky color (even the slight pink of white claybodies) and the feeling of it is like a tactile version of fingernails on a chalkboard.
Nevertheless, these are the first of the 100 mugs, out of the bisque, dead and awaiting reincarnation. I am surprisingly hesitant about glazing these pieces; I feel like my beginning students, whose pots are still so precious to them that they can barely stand to consign them to the glaze and fire, with its uncertain results. Of course, half the issue for them is unfamiliarity with glazes and application; you wouldn't think I'd have that problem. No, in this case, it's that I so want these mugs to be something special. that my standard palette of glazes seems...I don't know...insufficient, somehow. Between the flu and the IPTOG, I haven't had time to test new glazes, and now the firing is upon me. In addition, I have a friend's 40th birthday to attend tomorrow, and in-laws coming to visit on Saturday, the same day I am loading the soda...Arrrgh! My head is going to explode. Better go glaze before that happens.

One Mug

I must admit I've gone off mugs a bit, temporarily. I only made a few this week; here's one I was pleased with. I've been doing what I do in the studio when I don't feel especially creative: waxing bottoms, loading a bisque, mixing up glaze tests.
I've lost count, now. I know I am over fifty...

Something New

The little smiley stickers have a shiny, plasticized surface, which makes them work better as resist than, say, yard-sale price stickers. I'm also working on using stickers as reverse-resist: brushing cold wax over the, on bisqueware, and then peeling off the stickers before glazing. I'll post those when I get back into the glazing/firing part of the making cycle.

Numbers 42 & 43

As you can see, I've veered off into the sculptural a bit, but still perfectly functional mugs.

100 Mugs: Unity within Variety

I'm delighted to say that the 100 Mugs show has a time, date, and location: The June Fitzpatrick Gallery, at 522 Congress St., Portland, Maine, will host the show on April 28th, from 9 AM to noon. Anybody out there in the Portland area, I would so love to see you there! June has been very gracious and enthusiastic about this project, which in turn makes me feel encouraged.

I have done the wetwork on about 40 mugs now, and having a definte date set has, surprisingly, changed my mindset slightly. I am still thinking of it as a developmental exercise intended to push me into exploring new forms and surfaces; but now I also think of The Hundred as a body of work, and the show as a kind of meta-artwork. One thought that has occurred to me looking at the pieces so far, is that they are so various that they could almost have been made by different hands. I would really not like the exhibit to resemble a rummage sale, so I need to find a means of visually unifying the mugs. The trick is to make them sufficiently different as to fulfill the mission of the project, yet similar enough to seem all to belong together.

Since I use a lot of pattern anyway, I am thinking of dots as a unifying motif. I could change the scale, prominence, and method; some would be slip or added clay, some glaze, some a wax resist-subtractive technique. There could be very few dots on some pieces (or one dot; that might be amusing), while others would be peppered. I think I can make this work, but I am still brewing ideas.

I find that when I am in my cubicle, working away at my inconvenient part-time office gig (IPTOG, for short) I'll get ideas for mugs. I'll then sketch the thought on a post-it not, and hang it on the wall. One cabinet is papered with them.

I am away from my camera at the moment but will post photos of the latest pots when I am able.