Rememberance and exploration...

An Interview with Toshiko Takaezu from D.B.Long on Vimeo.

On March 9th another big clay influence in my life passed away. This year has taken Paul Soldner from us and now Toshiko Takaezu. If you see my work, it may be hard to draw parallels from me to her or even Soldner for that matter. But it isn't their physical work that I draw from, its their sense of exploration and personal philosophies. I do love their work and have admired it since I got into clay in the late eighties. It was people like these two and Volkous and Arneson that got my juices flowing back then. I came to ceramics searching for expression and a more tactile approach to art making than painting was giving me. Toshiko's large voluminous forms were very attractive to me and I felt they held a lot of quiet strength. The idea that these were essentially 3-d canvases to be glazed in an abstract painterly way further hit home for me. The surface of the work has always been one of my main concerns...wanting to be a painter in ceramics. The marks and colors of glaze and how they change in different atmospheres or in direct reaction to flames still holds great interest for me but these days so does the use of fragmented images. It is this kind of pairing that I am still seeking in the utilitarian work I have been doing this winter.

It is great to hear Toshiko talk in this video of "finding her own identity" and exploration. It is just those things that I am drawn to and continue to struggle with in my own work. Not "knowing" is frustrating but it keeps you looking for the answers. Right now I am not sure about some of these pots I have been making and I am continuing to push the surfaces further. But, I am suffering kiln issues at the moment...the electric kiln at Stoke Hole is firing a solid cone under and I need to now re-fire a load...urgh. Somebody needs Santa to bring some new elements. I will be schlepping my stuff from there over to the university's ceramic studio today to fire a good 04 in one of their electric kilns. While there, I will say hello to Nancy Smeltzer while she is firing the soda kiln there with everybody's bowls(including my dozen) for the Empty Bowls event scheduled for this coming Tuesday, 3/15, from 11 - 2 ...lobby in front of the Common Place Coffee Shop...Indiana, PA...if your around, please stop by.

So below are some shots of a few pieces that I am now re-firing...and then these and the rest will be getting another firing...018. I have wavered back and forth on the finish for these guys...that tends to happen to me after seeing the glaze. Does this happen to you ever? Seduced by the silky glaze, I wonder if I should fire again and again. It sure would be easy to just stop now and

say...done, here's a nice mug...but that's not what I am after. Then I wondered if, after the 04 decal firing with the addition of accent glazes, I was done...and I still say ...no, not yet. I have recently purchased an obscene amount of 018 super-cheese kitschy bling...commercial decals. They will be my finishing touch...and maybe a little luster too. Well then, with some trepidation, forward I go...risking it...maybe it will work out...maybe it won't...listening to those that made remarkable work, like Toshiko Takaezu, and knowing that the world will miss her.

Taking a break...sorta...

Howdy.

For the last week I have been on Spring Break. The funny thing is that the phrase "spring break" still conjures visions of the past...time off school...sunshine and partying...yes, still...I'm an early 20 something 40 something... even as a teacher /adjunct professor sucking the higher ed teet. C'mon...everybody loves Spring Break! I am definitely one of those people, its just that to be technical...my break still happens in the Winter. Having an early spring break(2nd week in March) in the foothills of western PA kinda sucks. I made no plans to scamper off anywhere as my wife and daughter both have breaks later on and also not at the same times. So I stayed home and made it studio time...day and night. I did get a lot of my work mostly finished and I am popping open the electric kiln later this afternoon. So in the mean time, I thought I would stretch my jammie time this morning/afternoon by telling you about my week and showing off some of Birch Frew's and Cathy Bizousky's gorgeous wood fired pots from the recent firing.

That's one of Cathy's at the top of this post.

So let me start at the top...this past weekend came in with rain and wind...not too bad temperatures and then...the snow. I started the weekend checking out all the new growth happening in my garden beds...see below.

Then it was over and this happened.

Now we are back to just the rain and wind again but pardon me...this sure don't feel like the Spring Break of yor. Whatever...at least I wasn't running back and forth from my office this week and a little down time from some faces is probably a good thing. So in the free time this week I also did a fun workshop/presentation on decals for Christy Culp's high school art class. Christy is a potter friend from the area, she makes great majolica work, click here for the link to her blog. She teaches at a nice school near Pittsburgh with the best high school ceramic studio I have ever seen. It was a little extra dough and she gave me a great mug too! Check it out below...
Today, I was shooting images for the good folks at Stoke Hole Pottery and thought I would toss a few images out on my ol' blog because the work looks so damn good! The link above will take you to their etsy shop and you can click here for their facebook site. Here are some images of a few Birch Frew mugs...

The other images are of a couple bowl sets and a small squared off vase by Cathy Bizousky. Be looking for these sweeties soon on their etsy shop.

Speaking of bowls...Nancy Smeltzer and Harmony Ritchie have organized another "Empty Bowls" event that will happen March 15. I will be donating a meager dozen that will be soda fired by Nancy at IUP's ceramic studio and I have volunteered to serve up soup for that afternoon at one of the stations...come and say hi! I have been very happy to be involved with this event for the past several years. Each year we raise several thousand dollars for our local food bank by doing this nationally recognized event. Nancy and Harmony always do a great job getting great tasting soups and great looking bowls to eat from! If your in the area, I hope to see you...11-2 in the lobby area in front of The Common Place Coffee House...Grant Street...same as the last few years! But for now, I need to go out and trudge around in my lovely "Spring".

A little bit of sunshine...

I just wanted to share a little ray of sunshine with everybody today...

If you know me you know I'm a chatty person and love meeting and talking with art folk or "interested in" art folk. I used to love doing festivals back in the late nineties because I got to gab about my work all day. These days however, there is a strange sense of anonymity with selling my work online as well as blogging about it. This can be a good thing, but honestly, it can be pretty non-personal too. I miss the chit-chat and actually seeing the person with whom I'm dealing with so I make a point to be open and communicative to all who want to communicate with me. Selling my work online does have its advatages, like being able to collapse the space between us all and reach so many people in so many places...its why I continue to blog. Although sometimes the blog seems like a real one way road but the stats tell me different. So it sure brightens my day to get a note like the one below instead of simply the invoice from an anonymous buyer(which I don't really mind either)...but thanks Kelly...hope you dont mind but Im just spreadin' the love! Wishing you a speedy recovery!

Dear Kyle,

Just a short note to catch up a little. I purchased your tray and pu pu bottle just before Christmas and want you to know that I just couldn't be happier with either purchase. I enjoyed our communication so very much and regret that I have not been around etsy, or even on line for that matter as I had been suffering badly with my back, and have just recently been recovering from long needed spinal surgery. Somehow sitting at my computer chair seems to be one of the most painful things I can do at this point!

I really do love your work, however and happened to find your excellent menu mug. Adored the blue button tankard when I saw it previously, and now, absolutely love them together. I look very much forward to receiving additional pieces of your work and keeping in touch with you in the near future. Keeping my eyes open for the yellow electric kiln work you previously mentioned.

I hope all is well in your no doubt snowy world, and that you and your family are all well and warm.

Warmest blessings from your fan,

:^) Kelly"

LOVED it, send more people like that my way...and by the way, I almost forgot to tell you guys...I got juried into the Red Lodge Clay Center's National Juried Exhibition, "Craftsmanship:Concept:Innovation"...it will be in May 6 - May 29. I am very pleased to have a piece accepted into this exhibition. I heard there was a whole lot of submissions. Its the pic on the top of this post..."Seasonal"

Hope all this puts a warm feeling in your tummies.

Show and Tell...

Winter is still kicking around up my way. It gets really interesting this time of year...a lot of ups and downs in the weather. Last week all of our snow melted and we could see the grass for the first time in a real long time...the temps climbed up to the 50's and one might have thought Spring was in sight. Then a few days later we got a wild and windy snowstorm that dumped just about 10 inches of wet snow on us again. Now we are back to temps above freezing and just crappy rain. Here Winter dies like a really bad actor...coughing and sputtering and just when you think its done...he's back...and then gone again...and then back...urgh.

In better news, I have finished off a handful of pieces and have come to the realization that this is and has been a great learning experience. I fully plan to continue this mid-range line of work through the Spring and Summer. I have been diligent about working out my ideas with these pieces and pushing myself to try new things. Continued research into surface techniques has become a real interest and will be the basis for my course that I am teaching here at IUP...10 weeks of beginning ceramics. I have had successes and disappointments with this batch of work and I will show you both here today.(not so thrilled about my red decal spots, age issue with the gold) I am very happy with the glazes and understand that I need an additional color to break up the surface. I have been mostly disappointed with the Hazelnut brown clay body that I bought from Standard here in Pittsburgh. Although I love working with it...it does not reach a darker brown color until it really hits cone 6. I am firing very close to that but the temperature difference for the clay body needs to be higher. This being said, Standard happily swapped me out a 100 pounds for one of their darker brown bodies...even at cone 4 its darker than the hazelnut body. Julie, their tech was helpful, cool and highly informative. So all in all, I'm treating the 50 mugs and cups and various other forms as experiments. That took me a while to get through my thick skull but now I accept it and feel good about the growth I am seeing while exploring this range of firing. I have a lot more pieces that will be fired in the next few days. I spent 5 and half hours doing the decal dance yesterday and will be adding extra glazes for this 04 firing. That was the "tell" part and below is the "show" part...pics can be clicked on to enlarge. Feel free to comment on these pieces...feedback is always appreciated and often needed.

Sweet Eats and Sneak Peeks...

So I thought I would combine two of my favorite things together in one post...pots and food...and also give you a sneaky little peek at some of the work I just fired. Now, the work is not finished and right now I don't want to show the pieces completely. I intended for them to all have decals and 04 glaze accents too, but they do look kinda purty right now. These are the cone 5 electric fired pieces that I have been working on this winter. The clay body didn't get as brown as I would have liked at cone 5 but the glazes sure look good. So check them out below and above...

Now while your looking at these few pieces(especially the mugs) start thinking red accents here and there...maybe a purple-ish/maroon...and even a semi transparent brown. While your visualizing those colors appearing on a mug or two...think very ornate vintage wall paper. There you go. Now we are talkin'! Come tomorrow morning, I will be sitting in the studio at Stoke Hole Pottery snipping away and applying my 20 new sheets of images and patterns to the work...and keepin' an eye out for that bear. He's still there, hunkered down under some old hay bails about 50 yards from the studio.

Here's the other part of my post tonight. Good grub. This winter I have been very diligent and disciplined not only with getting work made while dealing with other demands on my time but for once, eating better. Right now I'm emerging from this winter 5-6 pounds lighter and feeling a good deal healthier. Here in the Houser household we committed to simply eating healthier foods, cutting out bad stuff and adding mucho more leafy greens and veggies. I have discovered so many really good recipes. I'm the primary grocery shopper and cook so it was up to me to keep the "diet" interesting. I am very fond of curry and Asian cuisine so there has been a lot of variations on those for sure, but I would love to share a couple faves of late. The first one is a take on a hearty winter chicken soup.

Curried Chicken and Rice Soup with Edamame...here's the link, I found it on the food network site. I also used fat free/low sodium chicken broth...margarine instead of butter...and I added the edamame near the end when I add the herbs. I pre-cooked the edamame so that they just needed a bit of a simmer. This was damn good too. Thick and rich with a nice hint of curry...and packed with protein. Here it is in one of my own wood fired bowls.

My other treat came about because of a gift we received at Christmas. We were given a very attractive grouping of stacked boxes...inside were an assortment of English muffins. These were some serious English muffins...big, thick, soft...and an assortment of flavors. They can be ordered from a site called Wolferman's. I saw this egg and muffin creation on the main page and instantly fell in love...or lust more honestly. I made mine with a sweet harvest wheat muffin. You spoon out a pocket in the center...not all the way through...cook the bacon so that its not crisp...wrap it around the divet and crack an egg in the middle. Then cook the sexy beast in the oven at 400 for 15-17 minutes. I couldn't help but sprinkle a little bit of cheese over it as it was coming out of the oven. Bacon can be substituted with Canadian bacon...either way its absolutely delicious and really nice looking too. I suggest the Wolferman's English muffins because they were the thickest, softest and tastiest English muffins I ever saw...and you need the thickness to nest the egg in. Here it is below with a hot cup of Sumatra in a good looking wood fired mug by my friend Dan Kuhn. Someday soon I will have to tell you about my Fiesta ware collection...but thats another story.

The next thing I'm cooking up is a kiln full of finished pots...stay tuned and bon appetite!

Pretty pictures...

Here we go folks...pictures. Whats the ol' blog without pictures?! Wordy word words...

So, I finally finished glazing and loaded the kiln today. Its now firing to cone 5 with a hold programed at the end. I am very eager to see the results but I also know that they will need at least one more firing to cone 04 once they are out. So bring it on...I'm ready baby...that image at the beginning of the last post was a sample of some of my new pattern decals. Here is a couple shots of my glaze scheme before I popped them in today...dig the scalloped edge over the belly...I highlighted that as well as the waxed lines with a black overglaze. Click to enlarge.

Also, while I was busy filling the electric kiln today, Birch Frew was busy firing the wood kiln. The studio at Stoke Hole Pottery has been buzzing all week with all the preparations for firing: glazing, grinding, wadding, loading, and minor adjustments to the kiln itself. But the big news at the studio today was that there was a large black bear hanging out in the meadow in front of the pottery compound last night. Guess what... he never left. Birch said it looks as though he burrowed in under some old hay bails about 50 yards or less from the kiln shed. We are all hoping that he went back to a very deep hibernating sleep for the duration of the winter. I hope Lucy, Birch's great dane, will be hanging out with them while they fire the kiln through the night. Below are images of Birch and Cathy Bizousky from this morning's snowy start.

Speaking of Stoke Hole Pottery, you can now find them on etsy as well as their own page on everybody's favorite social media site...click those links!!! LIKE, LIKE! Hopefully I will have some more pretty pictures for you all next week...

Trepidation, Frustration and the J-O-B.

Like I said in my previous post, I'm making a bunch of new work. The problem is I have yet to fire any of it out. Not even a decent glaze test, thanks to a lame test kiln over at the university's ceramic studio. The cone setter dropped too early, barely bending any of the cone 6 at all. My clay body didn't get as brown as it was supposed to get and the glazes are not quite what they should be either. It is the clay body that freaks me out the most. I even went and double checked my boxes to make sure I got what I ordered. I bought a nice hazelnut brown clay from Standard Ceramic Supply here in Pittsburgh. It is really nice to throw and visually looks like a close 2nd or so to the deep brown clay I was making in the Bluebird mixer this summer...or so I thought. Now I'm nervous about its color and unwilling to throw any more until I fire my first load... and to add insult to injury my Pittsburgh Steelers failed to climb the stairway to seven.

Currently I have 50 mugs, cups, and tumblers, a few vases, a handful of batter bowls, and a couple pitchers waiting in the wings and I am desperate to fire them. BUT, I have been hit hard recently with other demands on my time. You see gentle reader, I also lead a second life...not really a secret life, but definitely a second. I have made comment about it in the past and even posted about some cool stuff regarding my J-O-B. Now don't get me wrong, I have it pretty good as the gallery director for a small state university's art department. I direct almost all aspects of both of our galleries as well as get to curate exhibitions and work with really interesting artists. I teach 101 courses here and there and also work in art ed. when they are in need...like right now. Hey, Im even teaching beginning ceramics this summer here. Sounds great right...well...it is to an extant. Some might say Im stuck in adjunct hell and I might agree...depending on the day.

Admittedly I'm a crack monkey for my higher ed. life. It provides pretty good money(although that can fluctuate)and offers a very stimulating, often challenging, creative environment...but the best part about it is the schedule. I can work part time for the university and have time(usually) to get into the studio and make work. Unfortunately, I am a little overrun with university work at the moment and frustrated about not getting in to the studio to get my pieces glaze fired.

But these are the choices that I made for myself. Having a J-O-B allowed me to pursue a more active studio life. Although it made me become very measured with my time and forces me to work double time mostly but the steady paychecks come in and allow me to buy the materials and tools I need to make what I want. On the other hand, sales of my work are very helpful too and are a great supplement to my income. And at this point in my life I do understand that if I could make more work I could certainly sell more work. So there's the crux. Will I be forever working to transition from one thing to another...I dunno...and do I want to? I have never committed to the life of a full time artist and I admire those that have and understand the dedication and sacrifice that goes along with that life, but there is a certain duality to my path that challenges me and makes me keep pushing.

Mentally though I am always in the studio, and even when Im home after work at the university Im tapping away on the keys of my laptop...keeping my head in the game...posting on my blog...working on images for new decals...and checking out other folk's work(lets call it research). So in the mean time while Im struggling to eek out some time to finish glazing and loading a kiln, let me paint you a typed out picture of what Im thinking:: Abstraction over image... Lines...from wax resist showing the (hopefully) brown body, layered with black over glaze lines mimicking those, a new orange speckled glaze(that also didn't fire out right in the test kiln) for accent color here and there. The second firing will be for 04 decals and a rich 04 red accent. These pieces are strictly about fragmented pattern, decoration, utility and a tweaked out sophistication.

I'm not sure if you, my readers...my peeps, are in similar situations...work four jobs?...or maybe just feels like it...pump out the work non-stop?...or are you lucky to get something done in a month's time? I know I'm a freakish extrovert that enjoys this blog broadcast, but feel free to chime in here and let folks know how you get by...how you squeeze out the work from your brains and studio spaces where ever they may be.

Thanks for listening and I promise pictures soon!