tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23074902024-03-14T02:49:10.805-05:00AgruArts CeramicsA day in the life of a ceramics artist who also happens to be a wife, mother and multiple pet owner. Check out the shop at agru.etsy.comaprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-84204742056829652012013-07-12T14:05:00.000-05:002013-07-12T14:06:51.256-05:00What to Do with SecondsWith a garden full of new landscaping/hardscaping and a bunch of
pottery seconds sitting in my house, I decided to take action and
enhance our new front patio.
Happily, on large trash
day, Avie found a discarded baker's rack, which we absconded with and
put up in front. Then I checked out my seconds, consisting of pieces I'd
made which had something I didn't like. I also took a trip to our aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-65084893338324924662013-03-16T10:51:00.001-05:002013-03-16T10:51:26.873-05:00Snowy Owl Mug: Resultsaprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-64801167077045063112013-03-16T10:48:00.000-05:002013-03-16T10:48:38.911-05:00NCECA is Coming Up Fast!This coming Wednesday I'll be driving out to Houston with at least two of my pottery friends to attend this year's NCECA (National Council on the Education for the Ceramic Arts) conference. It will be my second time attending and there will be lots to see and learn.
What am I most excited about? There are several things.
I'm delighted they're having a process room, with different presentations aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-89966317634689956892012-10-26T08:47:00.002-05:002012-10-26T08:47:41.208-05:00Of Nature and Inspiration: Snowy Owl ProjectInspiration can come from many places. In this case, it came from a
PBS show in the Nature series. This particular one was about Snowy Owls
-- my favorite bird, and one we were privileged to see on a birding trip
to Amherst Island in Ontario, Canada one February, many years ago.
The
Snowy Owl is one of the largest owls in the world. That, combined with
their striking white feathers and aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-89311448587793794542012-04-11T18:10:00.001-05:002012-04-11T18:11:25.920-05:00The Kitchen Sink: A Mini-Master Workshop at NCECAOne of the presentations I attended at NCECA last month was a Mini-Master Workshop in the K-12 education programming schedule. I got there early so I could be one of the first 40 people who got to work with the clay. Anyone after that quota was filled attended as an observer.
I'm sharing this because I think it was a fabulous exercise in creativity, and not just for kids. I would even do it at aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-69203855562547995462012-04-08T17:29:00.001-05:002012-04-08T17:30:06.365-05:00NCECA SeattleJust a short post with some photos from the 2012 NCECA (National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts) Conference in Seattle. It was a great opportunity to see and hear what's going on in the larger world of pottery and ceramic arts, visit a great city, do a little birding (see my other blog), and visit with my son, Dan.
Visiting the vendor's exhibition space was like stepping into the aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-79310958840290922392012-03-20T08:44:00.001-05:002012-03-20T08:44:14.697-05:00I've been working on an album via Picasa/Picaboo with as much family history as I can garner, including photos I have of family going back to my Great-grandparents on my grandmother's side. Let me tell you, genealogy can suck you in, usurping your time and brain cells.
My Great-grandmother Rivke Lea Scher
However, looking at all those names and dates and pondering all the generations that aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-6696835344707633682012-01-12T07:59:00.000-06:002012-01-12T07:59:41.063-06:00Happy New Year!
I'm back in the studio and one of the things I'm working on is another Passover set with an Elijah and a Miriam cup. I wanted to use something different on the Miriam cup this time and came across these lampwork beads from an Etsy Israeli Artist named Meital Plotnik:
Distant Seas
Their color is absolutely luscious, bringing in the azure blue of the sea and the wonderfully aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-77611542940291284852011-12-02T09:16:00.000-06:002011-12-02T09:16:01.577-06:00I know it's not even Chanukah yet -- but I believe in starting early, so I've been working on Passover these past few weeks.
Mostly, I've been intrigued by the new tradition of including a Miriam's Cup in the Seder ritual. The following is taken from a website dedicated to this new addition: "New rituals include the addition of "Miriam's cup," filled aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-32478637243832580422011-11-13T16:17:00.000-06:002011-11-13T16:17:56.089-06:00The standing lamp for our "new" living room is finished. We took all the pieces and, this afternoon, put them together. I made sure to document the process (beginning with an earlier post chronicling the part where I made the different pottery components). So, here it goes.
First, our list of supplies:
A standing lamp (which we disassembled by removing the electric cord)
Pottery pieces (enough aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-40666120869812567582011-10-30T10:25:00.000-05:002011-10-30T10:25:47.663-05:00My husband Avi and I are big coffee snobs. Morning coffee during the week involves the use of a Chemex coffee maker, a special filter, recently roasted beans which we grind ourselves, and water heated to exactly 195 degrees on an induction cooktop. All in all, the process takes about 20 minutes and yields an incredibly complex and smooth cup o' Joe.
The other day, our favorite high end coffee aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-77198132229083785232011-10-18T19:36:00.000-05:002011-10-18T19:36:56.203-05:00Time for an update on the standing lamp.
All the pieces have been through both the bisque firing, been glazed with "Hi Fire Clear" and fired up to cone 5. I brought them home, all excited about putting the lamp together this evening. Here are the pieces lined up on our coffee table:
Then we hit our first glitch. I knew we would be able to unscrew the lamp pole from the base; but I completely aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-87316469577992804982011-09-29T19:18:00.000-05:002011-09-29T19:18:14.442-05:00You've seen the home side of the new living room project. Now I'll show you what's happening in the studio.
As I said in the previous post, I'm working on making a standing lamp from ceramics. The idea is to throw the lamp in sections. My forms are made so the bottom opening will sit just over the rim of the top opening, locking the pieces in place. They're thrown to fit around a two inch pvc (aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-8609144167456519542011-09-26T17:56:00.000-05:002011-09-26T17:56:13.743-05:00The "Cascade Effect" has hit my house. We decided to redo the formal living room, which has now spread to the family room AND the kitchen. Upholstered furniture has been purchased, but I HAVE to leave my mark on things. So, I have several projects in the mix -- one of them even involving clay!
The non-pottery designs are a coffee table and end tables featuring wonderful Chinese silk embroidery aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-80417146026944730772011-07-01T10:10:00.000-05:002011-07-01T10:10:37.285-05:00Last night I did a workshop in our studio on layered underglaze/colored slip surface decoration. It's a technique I learned when I attended The Surface Decoration workshop through the Potter's Guild in Temple, TX a couple of months ago.
I've been playing with the technique all week and have become incredibly inspired by the process. I'll walk you through the workshop so you might become inspiredaprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-60759590941002204702011-05-31T09:22:00.000-05:002011-05-31T09:22:40.147-05:00This is a bit more of the pieces I saw at the Ceramics Museum in Havana. This next group begins to give a feel for the lack of "things" in Cuba. Many ceramic artists have little or no access to the basic chemicals (not the lack of glazes on these pieces). As a result, many of them use oxides and firing methods to color their work.
A future post will deal with an artist I met at her studio in aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-62199081142395308452011-05-08T17:51:00.000-05:002011-05-08T17:51:53.892-05:00And yet some more wonderful pieces from the Ceramics Museum in Havana.
A wonderful altered and cut piece.
As a birder, I love this clever piece with two owls sitting atop it.
A closer look at the two owls. Texture is sometimes a key element in design.
The next two photos are "sets". I always find it interesting how an artist can create different pieces that have the same aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-33458466967234482742011-05-04T18:47:00.000-05:002011-05-04T18:47:04.374-05:00Let's see some more from the Ceramics Museum in Havana, shall we?
Over the years I've come to appreciate how surface treatment/decoration can elevate even the simplest piece.
Don't you love how the decoration works to elongate the above bottle shape?
And how about the modernization of a dragon theme?
This "book" was wonderful. I marveled at how thin the artist was able to get the "pages".aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-87149076601726092092011-03-17T21:51:00.002-05:002011-03-17T21:53:58.616-05:00Just got back from a ten day trip to Cuba. It was a trip concentrated on birding -- but I was fortunate enough to visit an artist who lives in Camaguey, as well as the Ceramics Museum in Havana. So, over the next few weeks I'll be slowly posting photos of some of the work I saw.
Let's start with wall hangings and murals. This first one is a tiled fish at the Ceramics Museum in Old Havana (Habanaaprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-90909063443883522252010-11-07T09:24:00.003-06:002010-11-07T09:29:39.199-06:00My recent labor of love, the Representational Seder Set is done and it is, if I may say so with the greatest of humility, wonderful! I know this is true because my husband, Avi, says so!
Here are the pieces and a bit of the thought behind them. The photo precedes the explanations for the pieces.:
Charoset - Charoset symbolizes the mortar with which the Israelites bonded bricks when they aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-17633105048236111182010-10-29T09:39:00.002-05:002010-10-29T09:41:38.528-05:00Avi and I are on a road trip through the Southwest (we’ve named it our Southwest Boogie and you can check it out at my other blog: Deep in the Heart… While we were waiting for our tour to begin, we came upon an incredible piece of pottery by an Acoma Pueblo indian named Marilyn Ray. It was several sculpted pieces creating a tableau – an Acoma grandfather storyteller and all the children who have aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-47937163828457652332010-10-22T08:43:00.002-05:002010-10-22T08:46:38.044-05:00I've just finished three teapots. Count them, THREE! Why three? I received a commission for a teapot to match a pair of Saba and Savta (grandpa and grandma) mugs. We agreed on a 3-4 cup capacity. While throwing I ended up with the Three Bears.
The first teapot was way too big. But the owner of my studio loved the size and asked if I could finish it for her as a gift. So I threw a lid and a spoutaprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-74819480122119730962010-09-30T09:59:00.001-05:002010-09-30T10:00:42.412-05:00As we approach the end of this year's High Holiday cycle with the celebration of Shemini Atzeret and Simchas Torah, I've turned my creative eye to Passover. I've recently sold the Seder Set in my shop, leaving an open spot for a new design.
I've always liked the deconstructed Seder Sets and have decided to turn in that direction and create a Representational Seder Set, with pieces designed to aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-48556418276080885782010-08-13T16:29:00.001-05:002010-08-14T08:48:01.162-05:00Well, true to my predictions, I've become underglaze crazy. In fact, I'm trying to switch from my Mason Stains in slip to Amaco Velvet Underglazes for most of my work calling for that type of application. But this switch has not been without its issues.
For one thing, I still get some fading with many of the colors. I've now printed out a color variations chart for them, indicating what they aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2307490.post-79156717477134933592010-03-18T08:48:00.000-05:002010-03-18T08:48:19.596-05:00The baby plate in my previous tutorial is finished.
It was bisque fired to cone 06. Then I brushed on a thin coat of clear glaze. I brushed on the glaze rather than dipping the plate in it because there are very few true clear glazes. Most of them have some sort of color where they are a bit thicker. By brushing it on I have better control over how thickly I want the glaze applied over aprilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601211275667261022noreply@blogger.com0