More Plate-O-Matic

Proud of myself - I've been very busy making in the studio, even though I have no external pressure to do so. It's the oddest thing - I think I can honestly say that there's nothing I like better than working in clay, but sometimes it takes some extrinsic force to motivate me to do so. Maybe my mental work on discipline is having some effect. 

These pieces will be in the January firing; they will have glaze on the flat portion of the interior bottom, with contrasting glaze dots on the wide rims. The smaller ovals will be the February reward for Pot of the Month Club, the $60 level on Patreon. 

 
I've got a feeling I'm gonna hit the ground running in 2025.

Fat Bears 2024

 Inspired by the annual Fat Bear contest at Katmai National Park, I made chubby bears with my handbuilding class on Monday. 

These will be soda fired, hopefully a nice dark chocolate brown. Look for them in early October! 

Slab Built Coffee Pour Over Cone!

 

The necessary proportions for a slab built cone are the same as those for the  thrown version, but getting there obviously requires different steps & a different set of skills. I've got a new post up new post up for Patrons of my Patreon page detailing the process step-by-step. 

This one is for paid members, but there's lots of free content, too. Mosey over & check it outnull! 

Last Things before the Bisque!

Just before the bisque firing is when all the little stuff gets made: refrigerator magnets, button, ornaments, stuff like that, while I am waiting for the bigger items to dry enough to fire. Today it was soap dishes. These are fun & easy to make, and fit between big bowls to prevent wasted space in the kiln. 

I start with an oval ball of clay, like an oversized potato, then cut it in half with a curly wire - you know the kind, they are shaped like a stretched spring, and actually you can make one yourself by stretching a spring! But I got mine from Mudtools.  The wire leaves an undulating texture on the surface of the clay,'

I then stretch each half of the ball until it's about 3/8" thick, and pat in the sides to make them curve upward, giving it a bit of dish. 

You can see a video of this process (free!) at my Patreon page. Check it out! 

C is for Slab Building

I have some students who are exclusively slab builders, so I have been searching recently for new techniques to show them. Found this one described online, do I decided to give it a try.

It starts with a rolled slab, about 3/8s of an inch. I find a very common mistake among students is to roll their slabs too thin! In addition to being much harder to build with, an overly-thin slab results in a flimsy pot that chips easily and, to my mind, feels cheap. I can think of reasons why you would make a thinner pot - sometimes you can use daintiness in an aesthetic way, for special-occasion pots, in which the very fragility of the piece proclaims the specialness of the occasion, or makes clear that this is a decorative, not utilitarian, piece. But if you mean to use it regularly, give it a little substance!

But I digress. Where were we? Oh, yes, the slab. Once rolled and thoroughly compressed, cut two concentric circles. This will create a ring of clay, one circle being the outer diameter and the other the inner. The difference between the larger and the small of the two will be the height of the walls. The greater the difference, the harder this will be to build. To minimize any such difficulties, you want tgive this slab a little while to firm up. How long depends on the air conditions; 15 minutes is a good starting point but on the humid day I built mine that was not nearly enough. Building on a drywall board is helpful, too, as it allows the slab to dry from both directions.

Save the circle bit from the middle! It will become the bottom.

Now we're going to cut a wedge out of the ring, which will make a "C" shape. The wider the wedge, the more vertical the sides will be; a shallower bowl will be harder to build and may need to rest in or on a mold.

Like this one! This bowl is not especially shallow, but I lost
patience waiting for my slab to dry in our humidity. 

I found a wedge of at least a quarter of the ring made a good, useful shape.



Now we're going to bend the slab so that the edges overlap. There will be an opening in the middle.

Scoring & adding clay slurry (or magic water, or vinegar, or whatever your attachment preference) is going to be key in holding the seam together.

Now for the bottom. The circular bit that was cut out at the beginning is a little bit drier now, let's use that.

Optional, of course, but I like to put a texture on it.

This textured circle becomes the bottom - TWIST! - from the inside. Score, slip, etc, then:

There is, of course, a lot of smoothing, paddling, and other futzing - especially on the bottom! - to make it look nice. 

Pinch, Pinch, Slab

One advantage of a Maine winter is the joy of watching birds at the feeder. Not only do we get a greater variety, but they are more clearly visible against to backdrop of the snow. My morning routine involves a stop at the picture window to smile at my little friends, who have no idea or capacity to wonder who their benefactor is; they are the poster children for living in the moment.

I have two of those plastic tube type feeders - super cheap & functional, the birds love them - a thistle

Oops, thistle sock is empty!
We'll have to settle for sunflower seeds

seed sock that's always covered with finches, and a suet cage that the squirrels already know how to open. I have dedicated squirrel feeder as well but do they appreciate it? Noooooo.)

All those are fine, but lacking something in the aesthetic department. "You know what I'd love?" I asked myself. "A handmade feeder. But they are so expensive!"

D'oh.

Because they are cool and fun and always up for something new, I decided to do this as a project with my handbuilding class. This feeder is constructed of two pinch pots - the body, and the tray - and a slab roof. There's a hole through the bottom and the lid, through which a leather cord is threaded, allowing the feeder to hang, and allowing water to drain out so the seed doesn't rot.

One important feature are small slabs attached on the interior above the openings through which the seed falls. Without these the seed will just flow out, like a bucket with a hole in it! The feeder is of an unglazed brown stoneware, brushed with red iron oxide - fully mature stoneware does not need glaze to make it impervious to water. 

I think I will add a version of this piece to my spring line. My next step is to work out this design as a thrown form. I think it would need to be 3 parts: tray, body, and lid. I could throw the tray and body as one piece, but that would make cutting the seed holes harder. 

I'll try it both ways.

Also, not sure the leather cord is the best solution. It looks nice, especially with the iron-brown surface, but might it rot, or fray? This is, of course, the purpose of a prototype, to get the bugs out. Though hopefully there aren't any bugs in there, yuck. Another advantage of winter, I suppose: at least there's no bugs. 

Today is mean to be a cleaning day - and boy does my house need it! - but I feel this new design calling me into the studio. 

Resistance is futile.* 

*J/K Resistance is not futile. Never.

Flexible Flyer Platter Molds

While visiting my friend, Malley Weber, at her new teaching studio, I saw the greatest idea! Check this out:

That's plaster, in a Flexible Flyer! What a great way to make a large platter mold. Alternatively, if you aren't into plaster in the studio, you could use the Flyer itself, with some cooking spray or a length of fabric, as a slump mold.

As it turns out, this form will be used to make wall pieces for an upcoming show at the Harlow Gallery - practically right across the street from Malley's new space. Which, BTW, is an absolutely fabulous studio. This is me right now:

LITTLE JELLIES

Students glazing

Check it out:

If you are looking for pottery classes in the Augusta/ Hallowell area, Hallowell Clayworks is the place to be. Click here for more info, or check out the Facebook page.

In the meantime, Flexible Flyers are easy to find this time of year! Time to start cranking our some slab-built platters. (Building that large, remember to obsessively compress! Sorry, it's automatic, couldn't stop myself.)

Malley, mixing glazes

Hanging the sign

The fabulous space!

Tutorial: Slab with Contrasting Clay Pattern

I had occasion recently to spend some time at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts. If you ever get a chance to do a residency at Watershed, take it; it's a magical place. I was running a soda firing workshop - their soda kiln - not to mention their glazing area! - is much larger than mine at home, so works better for group firings.

Firing, as you may know, is a lot of waiting around, punctuated by fifteen seconds work every so once in a while. In the meantime, there's lots to explore at Watershed: woodland paths, the sculptural contributions of previous residents, sheep and pigs to coo at. (Not me. Well, I like the sheep. Pigs creep me out. I admit it's irrational, but I lived in Iowa, and read too many stories of pet pigs killing their incapacitated owners. Hey, some people don't like clowns! With me it's pigs.

But I digress.)

In the main house, there's a small sales area. While checking that out, I saw a really wonderful butterdish The construction was just folded slab but they were made of unglazed porcelain with an inlaid contrasting pattern. The inside was just the white of the clay. I couldn't tell who made it, or I'd happily credit the artist here. I set out to see if I could duplicate the clay-inlay technique.

I didn't want to use porcelain, because I didn't want the extra steps of (purchasing and) adding in mason stain, or screwing around with babying the piece along to keep the porcelain from warping and cracking. I used instead two contrasting stoneware bodies. If you attempt this, the claybodies will need to fire to the same temperature (thanks, Captain Obvious) and have approximately the same shrinkage rate. the claybodies I used are Laguna's 910 (brown) & 510(white), both ^10 bodies with shrinkage of about 14%.

I started with a thick slab. It needs to be thick to begin with because I will need to roll the holy heck out of it in the next steps. Then I set it aside while I made the pieces to inlay.

The inlay pattern is create by a millefiore technique. If you've ever played around with Sculpey, you may have used it to make buttons or beads. I rolled out two thin strips, one of white clay and one of brown. I spread water (not slurry) on the white one and place the brown on top of it, then rolled the rolling pin over the two together.

Starting on a long edge, I rolled the two like a jelly roll. You can roll from the short edge also, which is easier but gives you a more irregular spiral pattern on the finished piece. I roll the coil a little thinner to compress the two together, then...

Slice! I use a flexible metal rib to do this; the edge is thinner and therefore distorts the design less.There may be an air pocket in the spiral - this is no problem.

Now I brush some water on the thick slab and stick the slices on.

I move the slab + slices onto a piece of plastic, the lay another on top of that. You can roll harder this way, without the slab sticking to the rolling pin. I am wishing right now I had one of those heavy maple rolling pins, which are just great as objects but also better tools than puny kitchen rolling pins.

Keep rolling, flipping over occasionally.

Keep rolling, until there are no visible seams between the original slab and the added slices.

Peel off the plastic, and give it a couple of rolls with the pin, to compress the surface and remove the plastic texture.

Now we've got a slab to build with. I let it breathe for a while to firm up, then just made a simple cylinder with a folded bottom, but you could make a platter or a butter dish or anything that you could make with a plain slab. Have fun, and if you try this send me photos!

I'll be building a mug with this slab, so I cut it to an oblong rectangle 5" wide by 13" long. Part 2, coming up!

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