Debra Fritts' Class

The clay class downstairs is being taught by Debra Fritts.  Here are just a few images of student work in progress.  I was down there today and it looks like the figures are getting larger.  I'll get some more images tomorrow, and also try to make it out to visit some other studios.

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From Around the School

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Today's Exercise

Today's exercise was to find an object to serve a powdered doughnut on.  We were to consider the texture, color, feeling etc, of both the doughnut and the object. Here are some of the things we came up with.  We had a great discussion about food, serving, making specific things for specific purposes as well as how to  make a move to get hand made ware into the hands and on the tables of local caters, restaurants, food shows, etc.

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I would love to start thinking about having a meal at a local resturant in Shelby with all the food prepared by a local chef or cook using as much local ingrediants as possible.  Guests would pay to come to have a meal. I'd design all the tableware, serving dishes etc.
My pal Jen Mecca did something similar to this for her thesis in grad. school.  I think it would be a fun event.

Tuesday Evening

Yesterday we took a walk down to Cynthia Bringle's studio and showroom.  As always there was an amazing array of work.  Cynthia opened up the studio for everyone at the school to come down and have a visit.  C.B. is a keystone in the Penland community.  It was great to visit w. her.





Ayumi showed a 10 minute slide presentation to the school last night.  She rocked it out!!!!  She had the video up and the music pumping for the last 2 minutes.

Michael Kline came out to the slide show and afterwords visited w. us in the studio.

Drawing Exercise

We did a drawing exercise today.  We each had 20 tiles.  Ayumi called out what to draw and we had 2 mins to draw.  Below are a few grouping from the exercise.

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It was funny b/c she called out "clothesline" and a bit later "robot" and I was like "Wait a minute she's been looking at my imagery."  I don't think that was the case though.  Just a couincidence.

Afterwords we talked about which drawings "worked" and why.

Food!

The food is amazing here!

Breakfast...

Lunch...

Dinner...

Doing Great.

This building is called The Pines.  The Dining Hall is here, the coffee shop and some housing.   This was shot from the porch on the clay studio.  Its a great day here today, not too hot, nice and sunny.

Ayumi did a wet throwing demo of mugs and teapots (w. parts).  She's got a cool system for making lids.  I'll try and get some pics of it this evening.  I forgot to take pics of the dry throwing demo yesterday but she'll be doing more so I'll be sure and snap a few.

This is Dave from Detroit.  He sits beside me in the studio. Cool guy, he's a mechanical engineer by day working on safety systems for GM.  He knows all the crash test dummies!

As you can see we are high tech here in the clay studio!

I feel good today.  I've found some direction and have ideas about what I want to think about/work on while here.  It's sort of easy to put pressure on myself to make some sort of breakthough while here or something.  What I realized this morning was that I just need to pay attention, slow down, and work.  And Look.  And pay attention.  And ask myself questions. And have Fun.  No problem!

More later......

Some of Day 1

Day one has been good.  We are all getting settled into the studio and getting to know one another.  I think we have about 12 people in this class.  Ayumi is great.  We did an exercise this morning of making teapot parts and then assembling them all 7 times all different ways over 3 minute intervals.   That was fun.  Ayumi did a dry throwing demo after lunch and below are my first attempts at some small bowls.

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I haven't documented too much yet.  I'll be getting more in as the days progress, so check back in.  I'm going to spent a few hours in the studio tonight making some dishes.

(PS  I'm having a GREAT time!!!!!)

I'm Here

This is the view as I came up the road yesterday.  I tried to post as soon as I got here but had trouble connecting.

More on the way.

New Plates

A  few new dinner plates and images of the footrings so you can see how I am now putting drawings on the backsides.

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I'm heading out in a bit for my class at Penland.  I'll be posting as I can through the week.  See ya!

Getting Ready

I'm getting all my tools together.  I mainly use just a few things when I make pots, a sponge, 3 main ribs, and a stick.  I have 2 trimming tools I use most, also  a regular cut off wire and a twisted one.  That said I'm taking way more than I'll use.  Since we are going to be doing some dry throwing  I am taking a larger selection of ribs and trimming tools.

I love the Sherrill Mudtools, esp the rubber ribs.  I mainly use a green one and a yellow one.  However, I have been using some metal ribs lately and I like the surface they leave on the pots.

So that's the easy packing done. Now I have to go see if I have enough boxers and tee shirts to last two weeks. (of course I only need half as many as I can turn them inside and get double use!!)

Quiet Time

The rain is coming down this morning.  I love the sound of it on our tin roof and the muted noise it makes echoing in through the open windows.  There's one bird off in the woods putting up a racket.

Oolong in Brandon's cup to get me started.  I'll be getting all my tools and such packed up today to go to Penland.  I fired a glaze kiln yesterday, hopefully I'll share a few pots in the morning.

Have a good Friday.
Quack, quack

Catherine White

I had the pleasure of meeting Catherine White several years ago.  She and her husband Warren make pottery in Virginia.  I love their pots and hope to own one someday.  I don't have the words to describe the pots they make, I wouldn't do them justice, so I hope you'll see for yourself HERE and HERE.

Catherine does a countdown to the summer and winter solstice each year.  You can sign up to get the posts HERE. She is only 3 days into the countdown so you can catch up easily.

When I met Catherine she had some of her journals with her and allowed me to look through them.  They were so inspiring and I tried for a while to work in the way that she does with paper and drawings.  If you scroll down through her Blog you'll see what I mean.

Enjoy.

Email List

Notice that I've put up an Email Sign Up form on my side bar.  I can't believe it took me so long to do that.  Any how please sign up if you would like to get a notice when I post new pots to the Etsy shop or when I'm having a sale or exhibition.   These will be in the form of an email and all your information will be kept in my data base and never sold or used for purposes other than stated above.  You'll also be able to opt out if you choose to do so when you get an email.

Thanks.
Ron

Skint

New do.  Well I don't think it qualifies as a 'do' as there's not that much to do to it.

I went to the barber shop this morning.  There was a big man in his 60's in the chair ahead of me.  He had on Pointer Brand overalls, sneakers, AND he had a mohawk!  That's right.  Now it was a short one, but still this guy was doing his own thing.  Gray hair and a nice gray goatee to boot.  Pretty weird around here I'm telling ya.  I opted for my clipper cut, nice and cool for the summer time heat.

So I've got a bisque cooling.  Just a few pots to finish before I head out for my trip.

Also I finally got my gallery packets together and sent out 9 yesterday.  A few went to galleries in NC but most went out across the country.  Now that I have everything in order it will be easy to send out another round when I need to.

Speaking of galleries, Donna, from Southern Pottery came by Monday and picked up a nice selection of pots.  If you are in the Columbia, SC area be sure to go by and visit Southern Pottery in it's new location on 3105 Devine Street.

Back On!

Thank God, my modem came this morning!  Yippee!

How embarrassing is it to have someone pull up beside you while you're sitting out in your hot car checking your email using someones wireless in an apartment in town?  Pretty embarrassing, but I am over it now! Ha.

I have been wanting to deepen the footrings on my plates for a while now so I could slip that area and have a little surprise drawing.  Yesterday I made a few modifying my technique a bit, making sure to leave plenty of clay there to cut away.  Worked great!  I'm also adding surprise images under lids and even on the bottoms of some jars and such.  Sure it's more work but it also makes it all more ME.

Finished the third coat of sealer on the stained concrete this morning.  Looks amazing!
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At the Library

Since I'm here at the library I need to pick up a couple books.  I just finished Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys.  A great read.  Gaiman wrote Coraline, which came out as an animated movie last year.  I think he is best know for his Sandman series of graphic novels, which I've not read. The Graveyard Book is a good one too.

Found this

Really great illustrations.

I'm sort of itching for some Anne Lamott I think.  She's one of my favorite writers, esp. her non-fiction.  Okay, well off I go.  Happy Monday everyone.

Still No Modem

It's been weird not having the internet all weekend at home.  I'm still waiting for the new modem to arrive  so I'm at the library again today.  At one point on Saturday I drove up to a Senior Living Apartment complex a mile up the highway from home.  I sat in the parking lot and checked my email.  Luckily no one's grandmother ran out and asked me what I was doing.

Sarah and I worked all day Sat. on various projects.  We got the concrete on the porch stained.  If you weren't around for the last staining project you can visit that post HERE.  We use iron sulfate, sold by Hi Yield as Copperas, to stain the slab.  Sarah likes to add a bit of strongly brewed coffee to the mix.  We use 1 lb of Copperas to one gallon of water plus about 1.5 cups of strongly brewed coffee.  Spray this mixer on the slab (you can wet the slab down first)  Let dry and hose off (or mop if indoors).  A second coat can be applied if it's not dark enough or you can use more iron sulfate.  I'll put the sealer on this soon and it will look much darker.

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Sarah said if we worked this hard every Saturday our place would be amazing.  Yep.

This time next week I'll be at Penland!!!!  Yea!!!

I've got lots of blogs to catch up on.  Hopefully I'll be online from home by tomorrow.  Thanks for checking in.

'lectricity is some powerful stuff

I'm at the library because my DSL modem at home got fried in an electrical storm yesterday.  It will probably be Monday before the replacement arrives.

I'm sitting at a table across from a young man wearing a Larry the Cable Guy tee shirt.  Of course it says, "Git er Done".  Ha!  Life in Shelby.  I bet ole Larry would have something to say about 'lectricity.    (Use your imaginati0n) (And your best, southern redneck accent)

Okay, well here are a few images of decoration in progress.  Click for larger images.

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Birthday Wishes

I'd like to send out warm birthday wishes to my good friend, fellow potter, and super woman, Jennifer Mecca, today.

Jen has a great blog that is updated regularly so CLICK on over there and wish her a Happy Birthday and see what she's been up to.