Meet the Potters of the 2024 Maine Pottery Tour!

PINCHED at Maine Craft Portland

 I missed this opening, but the show is still up for the rest of the month. Ingrid is a friend - I met her when I worked at Watershed - and a rare professional pinch potter. CHeck it out! 

New Teaching Studio: Work in Progress

 

I am often asked if I teach classes at my studio. The answer is no, I don't - I'm really not set up for that - but I do teach at Portland Pottery. That's an hour away for folks in Central Maine, so I often direct people to Kennebec Clay Works. Their membership rolls are almost full, though, but now we have a new option! 

Work in Progress in Lisbon opened in May. The owner - my friend & the longtime studio assistant at Portland Pottery - is Teresa Pennington. WiP is offering memberships, one-on-one instruction, and beginning to intermediate classes. There's also a little gallery that sells Teresa's work. 

Check it out next time you're in Lisbon! 

Coffee Pour Over Cone

 I've resisted making these for a long time, because I figured like lots of specific-use items, there were some specs I didn't know, & wouldn't know until I went to use it. I didn't (& don't) have time right now to do the experimenting that would be necessary to make coffee pour-over cones that work well. 
But, then I got a jump start from my colleague at Portland Pottery: fellow instructor Brian Buckland. Brian had drawn this image on the whiteboard in our shared classroom: 

Brian makes these a lot - you can purchase one of his here & here, if you've been wanting one! or visit his studio in Buxton during the Maine Pottery Tour. Anyway, Brian is incredible generous with knowledge & information, & he filled in the last 2 pieces I needed: how much clay to start with (2 pounds) , & how big is the hole in the bottom (1/4 inch.) 

Here's my first attempt: 

I took a slightly different approach to the base - I gave the tray a little upward curve, thinking it would seat itself better on a wider range of mug widths. I think I will leave the outer surface of the try unglazed, to create a little more friction so it won't slip around while in use. I also made a more conventional one, with a flat tray at the bottom, but that still needs to be trimmed. Looking forward to testing out both of them, & maybe making more if they work out well - hopefully I will have one or two in the kiln I unload during the pottery tour. 

We get by with a little help from our friends! 

8 Weeks Out

On Leap Day I saw a crocus. Not blooming, yet; just the pale tip of growth poking through the frozen earth. A sign of spring! It seems far off, still, but in truth it will be here before we know it.

In fact there are only 8 weeks left before the Maine Pottery Tour! I organize the tour every year (well, mostly) so I know: that is a very short amount of time for all the stuff that needs to be done! We have 50 studios on the tour this year - more than ever! - and there are postcards to order, maps to create, and signs to distribute. That's in addtion to my own studio event to plan - I'll be doing a kiln opening Saturday morning May 2, have plates available for people to paint, and a tabletop potter's wheel if anyone wants to give it a whirl, so to speak - not to mention making pots for the sale part of the event.

Whew.

I don't have full maps ready yet, but if you are looking to plan your pottery road trip, we do have several new studios on the tour this year. Here's a list, with web links, if you want to check them out:

Common Street Arts - Waterville
Top of the Hill Pottery- Augusta
Jeffrey Lipton Pottery - Litchfield
Dragon's Breath Pottery - Warren
Maine-ly Pottery - Belfast
Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts - Newcastle
EC Ceramics - Blue Hill
Tim Christensen Porcelain - Portland
Adrian King Pottery - Portland
Bentley Pottery - Portland
Heather Abt - Portland
Muddy Toes Pottery- New Gloucester
MEC Pottery - Cape Neddick

Some Things Never Change

This month archaeologists made an intriguing discovery at a dig near the Israeli city of Yavne: a site of an unusual number of kilns, and at the mouth of one of the, a small jug containing seven gold coins:

A hoard of seven ancient gold coins was found hidden inside a small clay juglet during a dig in the area of Yavne, in the central region of the country, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Sunday.The coins date back to the Earlier Islamic period of the seventh-ninth centuries CE. They were found last week at the entrance to a kiln at the site.“This may be a potter’s personal savings,” the IAA said in a statement. The jug, which was partially broken, “may have been a piggy bank,” it said.

Seven coins. Sounds about right! My own personal clay bank contains more than seven coins, but not many, and none of them are gold; still the parallel remains. Part of my interest in ancient clay is the reminder that in so many ways, people are just people: so much in common even across millenia. 

The coins in Yavne were still in the bank; I hope this means the potter lived their whole life secure in the knowledge that they were there if needed, and yet they were never needed. Across the temporal distance between us, I wish that potter well

And you, too! Happy New Year!

We Have Always Been Artists

I have sometimes told myself a little story of how people discovered ceramics: a grass cooking basket (this actually works as long as the fire stays below the water level), lined with clay to hold water better, catches fire maybe with some, I dunno, mammoth fat or something in it that would burn hot. Afterward the cook discovers something amazing: the lining of the basket is changed, is now solid and permanent in shape, and impervious (well, sort of) to water. (I have a similar story I tell myself about soap, involving fat, & lye-filled wood-ashes.)

Firing, of course, is only half the story of clay, and perhaps not even the large half. Before we learned to fire, we longed to form: to reify images in our minds.

Or so goes the story I tell myself. In fact, we can't know what our prehistoric ancestors were thinking, but we can see some of the things that they made, and some of those things were made of clay. 14000 years ago, in the cave of Tuc Audoubert, an artist sculpted these bison from the clay of the cave walls. They aren't fired, but the cave has protected them from the weather all these millennia, and though they have cracked - as a clay artist myself, familiar with all the technical things that can go wrong in the process - I'd be willing to bet most of those cracks happened in the lifetime of the artist. Yet they remain, the marks of the artist's hands still clearly visible. 

It is a shivery feeling, to imagine those moments of making, when an artist - just like you! - knelt on the cave floor, patting and prodding the clay into the desired shape. His or her life was so so different from yours, and yet inside, the same, in at least this one way.

This discovery was made in 1912 by three French brothers. Read more about it at this link!

Christmas Sweater Ornament Party!

Friday, December 6
6 - 7:30 pm
Drop-in event at Hallowell Clay Works
157 Water St, Hallowell

It's fun cooking up ideas with my clay buddy Malley Webber, of Hallowell Clay Works fame. Mostly because I happen to have the appropriate cookie cutter, I suggested we do an Ugly Christmas Sweater Ornament party!

Like everything I do, it's more work that I thought it would be...rolling & cutting the clay is only the beginning. I realized once I started that people are going to need images & help getting started - most people need a little priming to get their creative juices flowing. To help out, I've been doing web searches for "ugly christmas sweater" images.

That phrase has changed with the popularity of Ugly Christmas Sweater parties, as now there is a whole genre of "utterly repulsive Christmas sweaters," including Santa's-ass, reindeer-face-as-boob, humping-reindeer, elves-on-the-toilet, and profanity-laced-holiday greeting. These are pretty far from the original idea of ugly christmas sweaters, which were originally just sort of tacky & over-decorated. I'm sure such low comedy has its place at parties, but they aren't quite what I am looking for.
I had better luck searching for "Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookies," the designs for which are largely based on the classic ugly Christmas sweaters. Downside: now I want a cookie! I found lots of good designs, though:

In addition to not being repulsive, the cookie designs have the advantage of being already simplified. 

I will be printing out some sweater outlines for people to draw out their designs first - so many people who are not artists forget this step! You get a better result if you plan what you are doing before you begin. 

This is gonna be so much fun! I hope you can join us. 

Thursday Inspiration: Noelle Hoover

 

I haven't done a Thursday Inspiration for a while, on the advice of Mr. Business Guy, who pointed out how much time I was spending on business activities that do not, in fact, generate any income, while neglecting others that would. I couldn't resist this one, though - Noelle Hoover, a potter I discovered via Pinterest in a show at AKAR that is all handmade butter dishes.
 I gotta say, these butter dishes are WAY underpriced, IMHO. $60! And the gallery takes half, so $30 for all that work. Now, they are slip cast, so the cost on labor is amortized over many pieces - but she still had to do the finish work on the castings, assemble, glaze, and fire these pieces.
Unsurprisingly, they all sold out of that show.
Here are a few more works:

Check out more of Nicole's amazing work at her website.

The Neighborhood Potter #5: Clay & Art Therapy

My friend Liz hosting my friend Malley on Liz's show, The Neighborhood Potter, on Vimeo! The Neighborhood Potter #5 - Clay and Art Therapy from LCTV on Vimeo.

Karen Makes a Textured Vase

One of the many things I love about the clay community - our community - is the enormous generosity of my fellow potters. When we learn something, we don't hoard it; we are excited to share with others. Case in point: my student Karen Carpenter recently demonstrated for the class a technique she learned from another potter, to make an evenly textured surface on a curved vertical vase.

The roller she uses here is from MKM Tools.

Did you find this post valuable? Buy me a coffee!

^^LOL if anyone does this for *this* post I'm gonna have to buy Karen a coffee!

NCECA Loot

As usual I wanted to buy allllll the pots & alllll the tools. As usual I kept my spending in pretty close check. I came home with three new pots. (These photo are distinctly half-assed! Just wanted to something posted.

A Willem Gebben mug to replace one my husband Doug (aka "Buster") broke years ago...

A Linda Christiansen mug, DITTO. (Buster has been forbidden to use these. We have dozens of mugs, most of which are seconds of mine! Break those, instead, Buster!)

And a lovely little tray made by my dear friend Mary Jo Schmith of Front Avenue Pottery and Tile.

As for tools, I got myself an unglamorous shelf grinder, made of the same material my Advancer kiln shelves are made of. I do most of my shelf clean up with an angle grinder, but it's awkward for edges, and sometimes I just need a quick spiffy-up, and it's a pain to drag out the power tool & extension cord when a little scrub from an abrasive tool will do. I've had the one with the red plastic handles before, but they cost as much as a diamond cup for the grinder & really don't last long. We'll see how this performs.

What did I almost buy, you ask?
I was pretty interested in the Slab Mats. I meant to order some new kiln shelves while I was there but it didn't happen.

Also, allll the pots.

But, as they say, the real NCECA loot is the friends we see along the way! (Oh, what's that? Nobody says that? Well, they do now.) I spent time with dear friends I only see at NCECA, and others I haven't seen since I moved away from Minnesota in 2001. (Poverty is a rough bitch on friendships!)

Quiz: In which of these images was I mildly intoxicated?
If you guessed ALL OF THEM, you are correct!

Next year is Richmond, Virgina; after that, Cleveland (I think?) Will I make it to those? Hard tellin not knowin, as we say in Maine. 

A Jumble of Pots

Went to three openings last night - the Northern Clay Center, the Vine Arts Center (which is, in fact, covered in vines!) and the Potters of the St Croix Valley. I didn't take a lot of photos - there were too many people - but I took some. I should probably have carefully documented who each artist was, etc, but maybe this way is better - it gives a sense of the swirl of wonderful pots & potters all around, far too many to hold all the names in your head.

Cryptid Crafts

I have a new favorite Etsy shop! Check out these fun embroidered cryptid critters, made by my beloved niece:

Cryptid Crafts Co. 

What's a cryptid, you ask? According to Wikipedia,

Entities that may be considered cryptids by cryptozoologists include Bigfoot, the chupacabra, or Mokele-mbembe. Related pseudosciences include Young Earth creationism, ghost hunting, and ufology. Some dictionaries and encyclopedias define the term "cryptid" as an animal whose existence is unsubstantiated.

 Nessie, Yeti, and Mothman are currently on offer at Cryptid Crafts.

RIP Warren MacKenzie

Just read that Warren MacKenzie passed away this morning. He was and will continue to be a great inspiration to thousands of potters and ceramic artists, and a towering example of a life well lived.

Rest well, giant.

SCORE!!!

Like most of you, the last thing I need is more pottery. Also like most of you, I adore using other potters' work! On Thursday - opening night of Portland Pottery's annual Holiday Show & Sale, I became enchanted with a mug & just couldn't resist. The potter is Janna Dewan (follow her on Instagram at @JannaLikeBanana ), the clay is earthenware, the vibe is....melancholy circus? Minor-key carnival? Can't quite describe it but it's that tension that appeals to me, the rollicking, busy decorative marks, toned down with a somber wash of black underglaze.

Merry Christmas to me. And to you.

Apple Green Conversion

It's been a couple of years since I expanded my glaze palette. Mixing glazes is not my favorite thing to do (if it's yours, please let me know! 😄 You might be utterly unique.) The glaze kitchen tends to get cluttered up with bikes and gardening equipment, so I have to clear it out before I even begin. Every firing seems to be pushed against a time limit (and whose fault is that?) so adding an additional task - mixing a test glaze - isn't feasible. But! I am starting to get antsy for new colors & surfaces. The green in currently have I rarely use - it's a little dark for the candy-coated vibe of my ware. This, though: this promises apple green! That would be right up my alley.

It's not currently chemically quite right for soda; and I will want to do a ^6 conversion on it also, to have both possibilities. I am doing a lot less ^6 these days - I find the soda glass itself is just not quite as luscious, somehow, so I've been unwilling to quit ^10 entirely. Keeping two sets of glazes and two sets of claybodies is actually something of a strain on the space limitations of my studio, in addition to the ever-present risk of getting a piece or a glaze in the wrong firing, with results either disappointing or disastrous, depending on which way it goes. Right now I fire to ^6 for a couple of orders, both of which have more glazed ares and less bare clay or flashing slip. It works well for these,but one of the questions I need to answer in the new year is whether it's worth the storage space & the risks.

I look forward to the Week of Reflection to decide this and other questions.

The easier conversion, obviously, is the one to make this glaze (hopefully!) appropriate for soda firing. It has the necessary percentage of whiting, so I would only need to replace some of the silica with boron. There's a goodly amount of silica in this recipe, too: 28%. I am thinking to switch out 3% of it with boron and run it up the flagpole. ETA: NOPE

Which is to say, run it through the glaze calculation software & see what  it turns up.

Here's the recipe as-is, which I got from Claybucket. 

COLEMAN APPLE GREEN CELADON*

Coleman Apple Green

Cone: 9 – 10

Color: transparent green

Surface: glossy

Firing: reduction

Recipe:    (percent)

Whiting …………… 17.95

Custer Feldspar …. 43.59

EPK …………………. 10.26

Flint …………………. 28.20

Totals:        100 %

Also add:

Chrome Oxide ………  0.25

Red Iron Oxide ……… 0.77

Here's how it looks when Elaine Coleman uses it over porcelain:

Here's the recipe with the alteration I hope will adapt it for soda, with the changes highlighted:

Apple Green for soda

Cone: 9 – 10

Color: transparent green

Surface: glossy

Firing: reduction

Recipe:    (percent)

Whiting …………… 16
Gerstley Borate............1.95

Custer Feldspar …. 42.59

EPK …………………. 11.26

Flint …………………. 28.20

Totals:        100 %

Also add:

Chrome Oxide ………  0.25

Red Iron Oxide ……… 0.77

Now, this recipe also has a large percentage of potash feldspar (Custer Spar) at 43%. It's probably worth trying a 1-for-1 substitution of Custer for Neph Sy - that might be enough (again, GlazeMaster might have something to say about it.) If that doesn't do the trick itself, I'll have to remind myself which frits are best for these colorants and for soda.

The first mix is on my to-do list for today; I'll be testing it in my own kiln next week and in the Portland Pottery stoneware kiln as well, so I can see how it performs without the influence of soda.
Photos next week!
After all this, I decided it would be smart to mix it as-is first, because every now & then a glaze surprises me & does just fine in soda. 

*Why why why doesn't spellcheck know the word "celadon?" I mean "tenmoku" & "shino" I get but celadon is just the name of a color. 😕

One Thing I Love About Potters

We are endlessly resourceful! When I arrived at Hallowell Clay Works yesterday to teach my Beginning Throwers, I found that Malley had devised an ingenious solution to thoroughly mixing her terra sigilata overnight:

😃

A Workshop Adventure!

Just wanted to offer a heads' up about what looks like an amazing workshop featuring Maine's own Tim Christensen in Palermo, Sicily!

In this exciting and multifaceted class, participants will learn two different, though related, media and techniques: Black and white sgraffito on porcelain, and dry point etching on PET resin. We will focus on the skies and sea of Sicily, working outside as much as possible to capture the light drenched and ever-shifting natural beauty of this enchanted place. Artists will leave with bisque-fired porcelain pieces suitable for display or further firing, and stabilized for travel, as well as a number of plates for printing. If time allows, artists will learn to wipe and pull prints from their plates. Artists should expect to be able to make one completed sgraffito piece or etched plate per day of class. All tools and materials will be provided, and of course bring your own tools if you have favorites! This will be a fun exploration of technique, with a special focus on strengthening visual memory skills.

The venue, Casa Pergola, is owned by two friends of mine, Paul Mahoney and David Henderson, both artists and American ex-pats. I watched long distance as they transformed the former olive mill into a beautiful destination villa with handcrafted details in every corner. Paul & David are fun & funny, charming & talented, and their company a,one would make the trip worthwhile.

I so so wish I could attend this workshop...but next best thing would be you going & coming back to tell us all about it.

Meet the Artists of the Maine Pottery Tour

It's 9° outside, with a bitter wind. We still have most of the accumulation of snow from our three major storms in the past two weeks. Despite all that, spring is on its way! As is the Maine Pottery Tour, an event I put together every year to promote and celebrate ceramic arts in Maine.

This year the tour includes 43 studios, including 14 new participants. Start planning your pottery road trip!