Kitten, hyacinths, other stuff totally unrelated to ceramics

             I'm still here, honest! Maybe I need to institute a yearly blog hiatus every spring to take a break, since it seems to happen naturally anyway. I'm sure I'll post some more about ceramic-y things later this week, but for now, here is some fluff for your enjoyment.

             Warbear is about six months old now. Here she is pictured with some of her favorite toys - my boots. The laces are of particular interest: 

            She is a master at untying them now. When I purchased these boots and put them on for the first time in 2007, I tied those laces up with double-knotted bows. They remained tied for the next six years, despite slogging through snow and slush and mud every day. But Warbear would not take no for an answer, and one day recently I discovered that I had to re-tie my boots for the first time since I bought them. 

            She also has a strange affinity for grocery bags, which are apparently great to jump up and down on (with supervision). In fact, the list of Things Which Don't Appear to be Toys But Actually Are According to Warbear has gotten quite long. Some, but not all, of the things included are: walnuts (still in the shell so she can roll them across the floor), gloves, sponges of any kind (which are mercilessly shredded to bits), socks, paintbrushes, clay tools that are shiny (i.e. the metal ones), and porcelain. Yes, she tries to help me make pots. She's still working out what wedging is for, but it sure looks like fun! The result is usually that she gets clay on her nose and paws. So far, no pots have been harmed. Yet. 

            I've been having a new gardening adventure this year as well as a new kitten adventure. I am forcing hyacinth bulbs! Aren't they cute?

            One of the bulbs is in a vase - rather bulbous itself - that I made at Simon's Rock and fired in the wood kiln there.

            (Note: kittens/cats should not be allowed to hang out around bulbs unsupervised; they are very poisonous.)

            In late January or early February I took this picture... from inside the house. This is just the window of a stormdoor, though. Don't worry too much, the inside door keeps the frost out just fine. 

            You can see why the bulbs with their little green points make me happy! And, of course, the kitten. It's hard to beat having a fuzzy cuddlebeast around.

Sea monster vase

            This is a vase I've been working on. It's for a show in May at the Deer Isle Artists Association gallery. The show is being held alongside the Deer Isle birding celebration, "Wings, Waves, and Woods." I know, sea monsters aren't birds. But they swim in the waves! That counts as habitat-related, right? Especially since Deer Isle is, well, surrounded by water.
            I'm having a lot of fun thinking of subjects to carve on vases based on this theme. I've got a vase with pine trees and a big serpent-dragon, and a vase with fiddlehead ferns and tiny dragons - woods and wings! - in addition to the sea monster vase in this post. I'm considering actually carving a bird vase (gasp! a real animal that actually exists?!), but I don't have a design in mind. 
            Back to the vase above: The boat on the sea monster's back is the Leucothea. Leucothea was a Greek goddess of the sea, who was known for rescuing sailors. Here she has tamed the sea monster, which story is my own invention as far as I know.

Icy ledges

            The part of coastal Maine where Riverdragon Ceramics is located is a place where the bones of the earth stick out. Gardening here is an adventure, in large part because if you want to dig a hole big enough for a small bush, there's a good chance you'll encounter rocks in all the places you thought you wanted that bush to go. Rock ledges push out of the ground just about everywhere - in fact, the barn here rests directly on a ledge. (This is why the barn is, and likely always will be, a summertime studio.)
            I love the ledges. It might seem like big rocks would be static and dead, but this isn't at all the case. All sorts of neat things grow on the ledges. Here trees live with their roots embedded directly in the rock.

            There are lichens, too. They are like sponges when it rains, fluffy and green, but crispy and seemingly dead when it is dry. There are different lichens - I don't know how many kinds - but there are two very noticeable ones here: mint green stringy lichen that grows on sunny ledges, and dark green floppy lichens that hang from shaded rocks like weird mushrooms. These floppy lichens catch the water that runs down the ledge from above, and in the winter this means they catch the icicles, too.

            The ledge looks very different in the winter, poking dark edges out of the bright white snow. The rocks here are grey, and I think in the summer I'd call them light grey. But when everything is snowy, they are the darkest thing around.
            Where in the summer there are little trickles of water, now there are little frozen waterfalls. In places the rocks seem to sparkle - like clay covered with glaze, the glossy ice catches the light and lends the rock beneath a different character.

            Then there are the icicles. I grew up in Virginia, where it's too warm to get racks of icicles like this most of the time. The college I attended is in Massachusetts, where I saw icicles taller than myself throughout the winter. This winter, we have periodically had days so warm that the icicles all melt away. So there aren't enormous sparkling columns that I became accustomed to during college, despite being another 500 miles or so northward. Nonetheless, these caught my eye as they spilled down the rock.

            Spring is a long way off. It will be another month before I start the tomato and cucumber seeds I'm planning to grow this year, because if I start them now they'll reach the limits of their pots before I can put them outside. For now, I'm enjoying the quiet and the changes in the landscape, and idly wondering what seeds to sow next to the ledge and below the windows when the ice recedes.

Thoughts on teapots

            I've been in the Teapot Zone this week. I have been making lids and spouts and pots, and trying to stick them all together before the smallest parts dry. I've concluded that it's best to make teapots one at a time, since there are so many pieces to chase around.
            In fact, I've been thinking about teapots a lot lately, since I'm working on the orders from the Kickstarter project. I was reluctant to start work on the teapots, but why? I like teapots. They're an interesting kind of pot to play with. Yet, I kept not wanting to get to work on them.
            It goes back to all those little pieces. I counted how many steps it takes for me to make a teapot: eight. It takes eight separate steps to make a teapot with carved decoration before I can dry and fire it. I have to: throw the body of the pot; trim it; throw lid(s); trim lid(s) (sometimes it takes more than one lid to make one that fits); throw spout(s); attach spout; make/attach a handle; then carve the decoration on after all previous steps. Wow! No wonder I can't work on more than one of those at a time without stressing out.
            This is also one of the reasons teapots are expensive for their size. It does take more time to make them than other pots. The maker also needs skill in a variety of areas: throwing and trimming a variety of shapes, hand building for making the handle and attaching the parts together. Only once I've accomplished all these smaller tasks do I get to the fun part - the decorating. (Others have enough fun just making the pot... I make the pot in anticipation of the carvings and colors I add.)
            With bowls, for example, I often spend more time carving an elaborate design into them than I spend throwing and trimming them. Carved bowls only take three steps: throw, trim, carve.With vases, I don't usually need to trim, so I can get right to the surface decoration. Two steps: throw, carve. But teapots take about as long to make as I spend decorating them, or possibly longer!
            Oh, but I do look forward to decorating these teapots. They will be beautiful. I get to carve unicorns and dragons on them! And I'm even going to be working on something new - insects. Yes, that's right - I'm going to put creepy-crawlies on a teapot. It's going to be great. Not any cute little butterflies and ladybugs, either. I'm going to find some awesome insect that doesn't get featured in art as much as it deserves. I'm excited for this custom order! I've gotta get back to work to make the teapot first, though.

Wednesday traveling dragons: kitten in the box!

            While I was photographing the small dragons from this firing, our new kitten climbed in the lightbox with the dragons. She wanted to know what I was playing with in there!

            She decided that they weren't edible, didn't make jingly or crinkly noises, and that if I was going to insist on playing with them, she'd just have to sit in the lightbox too so at least I'd pet her.

            The kitten's name is Warbear, and we just brought her home from the shelter three and a half weeks ago. She's about 3.5 months old. So far, she thinks porcelain is fun to stick her paws in, and is very polite about stepping around pots on tables.

Vases!

            Here are a couple of vases that came out of the kiln last week. This one has a jellyfish:

            And waves on the back:

            This jellyfish vase is porcelain. I brushed green slip over it, then carved the waves and jellyfish through the slip so that they appear white. Then when the vase was bisque fired, I brushed blue stain on the waves and partially sponged it off. This vase will be available in my Etsy shop this week!
            And this vase has cuttlefish! (This one has already been claimed; it will not be in my Etsy shop.)

 

            These vases are both glazed with a new glaze I mixed for this firing. It's the zinc-free clear with 4% Delphinium blue Mason stain added. I chose this blue because it is bright, and tilted just a bit toward purple. At this percentage, it makes a typical saturated blue. I'm planning to try it at 2% or less to see if I can make it more pale. I'm also considering mixing this blue stain with a green stain to see what happens. I like blue, but I tend to favor less intense shades (I'm a fan of celadon blues/greens, for instance).

Serving dishes

            Here are some serving dishes that came out of the kiln on Wednesday! I am very pleased with all of these. The first two will be available in my Etsy shop in a few days. The last one is already spoken for.
            First up is a shallow serving dish in red and white with dragons and swirls:

            I was a little worried that the red glaze would leave droplets on the white glaze, since in the last firing it kinda spattered all over the place. Not this time, though - perhaps the changes I made to the firing schedule magically solved the problem? In any case, I'm pleased that the white areas remained white. I noticed that where I accidentally brushed a bit of the red over the white on the rim, it made a lovely pale blush color. I may use this on other pots in the future intentionally for subtle effects.

            And this bowl has three dragons on it. I took close ups of all three. I like them very much! I think I may work with this red and white theme some more in the future. It seems like a good color combination for dragons and phoenixes. Maybe other magical critters, too... any ideas?

            This next piece is red stoneware with clear glaze just on the food surface.

            The clear glaze looks cloudy here because it has teensy bubbles in it. The bubbles interfere with the light passing through to the clay surface under the glaze. Over red stoneware, this makes the glaze look white. Over porcelain (like the previous serving dish), it adds some depth to the surface, but since the porcelain is white and the glaze is clear/white, it doesn't appear to change the color.

 

            This red stoneware is the Hawaiian Red I mentioned in this post. It's very much a rusty orange, and I do like the color. The things I don't like about this clay are that it feels like sandpaper to throw, and it comes from far away - this box of clay took a month on special order to arrive at my semi-local pottery supply. Although it is half the price of the porcelain I use!
            I think when I am close to the end of this box of red clay I will try a different, more local clay. I'd rather use clay that is nearer me anyway so that it doesn't have to use up gas all the way across the country to get here.
            And here is the last serving bowl for this post. As mentioned above, this bowl has been claimed already. The two above, however, will be available on Etsy. So if you like them, keep an eye out on my Etsy shop!

            This bowls is glazed only on the inside. The texture on the outside was created when I trimmed the bowl; the grog in the clay gets dragged across the surface by the trimming tool as I work. I like the effect in this case, but I'd rather have clay with less grog - it's abrasive to my hands, and wears down my tools quickly.

             I'm very happy with the glazing on this bowl! The dark brown glaze is actually the Mottled Spice from this post. What happened? It's much thinner here, and where this glaze is thin, it's this dark brown that reminds me of coffee beans or dark chocolate. Also when it's thin it doesn't run off the pot and get cemented to my kiln shelves!
            I've now tested the two extremes of this glaze - super thin and super thick - and there's a good bit of wiggle room in between. As I continue to use it I'll get a better idea of how it will look at different thickness of application. I think this glaze is very nice. I like it when it's this coffee bean color, and I like the appearance of texture it creates when it's thicker. It allows me to have one glaze that can be used many different ways. This is good, because I don't really want to keep too many glazes in my studio, but I do want to have a lot of variety of surface on my pots and sculptures. 
            Here is a close up of the inside. You can tell the glaze is thin because you can see the texture of the pot through it.