Hana's ninth class

This was our last class in the classroom. Our last class will be at Gary's house, doing a large pit firing. So, today was the last day to glaze and prepare our pit fire pieces.

First, I wandered around looking for all my bisque-fired pieces. I will take a moment to describe a scene from "Ozma of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. As summarized by Wikipedia:

The expedition journeys to the underground kingdom of the Nomes, where the Nome King reveals that he's turned the royal family into ornaments around his palace. The Oz people can guess which ornaments they are (he doesn't reveal that they are royal purple ones), but if they fail, they will also become ornaments. [When they are ready to guess, they touch the ornament and say "Oz".] Ozma, the twenty-seven soldiers of the Royal Army of Oz, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Tik-Tok all suffer this fate (Dorothy escapes it only by touching a purple ornament in one of her guesses).

Every time I'm confronted by a wall of bisque-fired pots, I think of this scene in the book. I scan the shelves, and hesitantly pick up one piece to check the signature on the bottom. I sometimes even think the word "Oz" to myself. It's silly.

Anyway, I found the four pieces I had bisque fired a long time ago, and then set out to find all the ones I'd finished in the eighth class. I only found 5. How many did I make? I feel like I didn't find them all, but I didn't remember what I had finished.

Then I went into the glazing room to do my first glazing of the quarter. I really don't like glazing. I don't feel very creative in that step, and it's so easy to mess a piece up. If you're unfamiliar with the studio's glazes, you don't know how thick to do it, how much it will run, etc. Oh well! I just dove in and dipped my pieces in various buckets. We'll see how they come out. I did two of my spherical pots in black, a couple in copper green, a couple in "maria's blue" (seems like a nice blue-green shiny one), a piece in the mottled brown with green flecks, and one in a dark blue. I did layering on two pieces. The wonky piece (the attempted round piece that squooshed on the wheel) has a base of I think blue and then maybe green around the rim and running down one side so that it pools in the wonkiness. I did another round piece in brown with black around the rim and running down the sides in three kind-of stripes.

Unfortunately, the first piece I tried to glaze, one of my first mugs, really came out poorly. The glaze was really lumpy and not very deep in the bucket, so it really stuck to the pot and looked awful. I decided to scrape a bunch of the glaze off (particularly the clumps, which could run badly) and then do a coating glaze in clear. Well, after that it never dried much, and then I made the bad mistake of setting it upside down to clean the bottom, and all the glaze came off the rim. Between that and the finger smudges and the likelihood of it not drying in time to try again, and it being the last class, I ended up just throwing the cup away in frustration.

Finally, I prepared my two pieces for the pit fire. They came out of the bisque looking really nice, though not nearly as shiny as some other people's. We were supposed to coat them sith stuff, and wrap them up in flammables, but I wasn't very energetic at this point. I put a bunch of powdery random things inside one (tea grounds, some spices) and then wrapped copper wire around the outside. The other I brushed a glue/water slip over it and sprinkled some herbs all over the outside. I then wrapped it with corn husk and a small branch of pine needles, and wrapped the whole thing in newspaper to keep it together. Now I just have to remember to take them to next week's pit fire at Gary's.

I got home feeling worn out and kind of frustrated. I love throwing on the wheel so much, but some of the other steps just feel like work.

j's fourth open lab

I didn't have soccer on Tuesday last week, so I went out to pottery from 6-8:30pm with an agenda I HAD to succeed with.

I trimmed 6 tiny cups, 2 small sake pitchers, 1 bottle-shaped thingie, 1 bud vase, 2 small goblets, and 1 mug, and assembled a goblet, and attached a handle to the mug in that amount of time successfully... just by the hairs of my chinny chin chin.

Man that was a busy open lab.

I will probably show up to the open lab tonight to move items from the class shelves to the bisque cart now that they are dry. The bisque firing deadline for this semester was 9pm tonight.

j's 8th class (hey look, my pottery!)

I showed up ON TIME this class. Whoah!

And, on the shelves there were a bunch of finished pottery, so I rooted through them and found my test tiles, and all the pieces I've glazed to date! Reduction firing is SO COOL. I love the way everything turned out.

Here are the 2 bowls and the wonky hand-built cup I made on day 1:






And here are the "five handled pieces" I made:










neato.

After this, I found that the handles on the mugs that I attached last week had cracked. Zach suggested I take mac10 clay dust and use that with vinegar water to patch it up. I did as he suggested and it appeared to work. Then I went ahead and trimmed the cup part of the little goblet I was working on in open lab this last week... and then slipped, scored, and attached that to the conical base.

Then I set to work making balls out of my reclaimed mac10 clay to throw with. Today was my last day to "begin new wet clay projects." I went ahead and started goofing off (no agenda really), and created some kind of bottle-shape which reminds me of the old genesis smoothie bottles they used to sell at Reed. After this I made a second squat conical base and another goblet cup (I was pretty impressed how my attached little goblet was looking, so I decided to try a second one), and then, with my last bit of clay I slowly attempted a tall skinny cylinder, which I then transformed into another cone. I was starting to have issues with the cone and Zach came over and helped me get it back under control... now it's like a little 6" tall bud vase. Kinda cute.

I was out of ready-clay, but not out of class time, so I went ahead and went into my bag of reclaimed mac10 clay that I thought was too dry to use, and kneaded it thoroughly with the really wet clay I took off of the wheel until it was all a consistent good-wetness. I made one last ball.

At the wheel, I used this to make a tall cylinder, and then used a wooden rib to help angle the walls outwards, but as straight as I could manage. The form is REALLY controlled, and I couldn't believe I had made it (granted it did take me a long time). I thought the form would make an exciting coffee mug.

After this I cleaned up my wheel.
I've got like a load of things to trim, attach, and finish up at the open lab on Tuesday evening now. But I can move all the bone-dry items on to the bisque cart on Monday (Nov 26) evening before the final bisque firing of the semester. After that it's GLAZE MANIA!

hana's 8th class

Only two classes left after this! Next class will be glazing, and the last class will be the pit fire at Gary's house. That means this was the last class to prepare stuff for the last bisque firing! Also, it was the class for preparing the pieces for the pit fire, which is actually pretty complicated it turns out. I had a lot of work to do.

First things first, I had to trim the pieces I wanted to pit fire before I could further prepare them. I set myself up at a wheel. I tried a new wheel this time since most of them were free, and lo, the one I used was completely silent! Halleluiah! Plus, the foot pedal was smooth, so I didn't have to use my hand on the manual speed control.

Trimming was pretty easy to do. I had created three round forms last time I was in class, and they were all really round, so it was easy to center them again and trim the bottoms. I picked the best two of the three forms and set them in the warm kiln to dry a bit more.

Then I set out to trim some of my other pieces. I had lots of pieces at this stage actually, I think 7 total. I started trimming my square bowl. I set it down on the wheel upside down and just stared at it for a while. How does one trim something that's not round? Plus the base was all squooshed from when I had to yank it off the wheel when I made it. After a couple tips from a neighbor, I tried to just ignore the whole square part and just focus on the wonky round part at the very bottom (now top). I had to treat my arm as a lathe, by trying to keep it still out in space and just trimming the outer most stuff off first. I had a good inch or so of junk to take off, since part of the wonkiness was caused by a large indent I had made with my thumb when yanking it off the wheel. I had to trim all the way in to the bottom of that indent.

About half way through, I took a break to start preparing my pit fire pieces. So, what I had to do was "burnish" the pieces. You brush terra sigillata onto the piece, let it sit for a moment to dry, then you rub it in. You can use a variety of tools to rub it in, but apparently the most popular in my class was a crumpled up plastic bag. So you rub it in all over, and then do it again. Each layer takes about 10 minutes to coat, dry, and rub, and we were recommended to do 6 layers or more. Some people did 10 or 15 layers. The more layers, the shinier your piece gets until finally some people's pieces looked like polished marble. It was amazing. My pieces developed a smooth luster, but didn't get shiny since I had to keep going back to the wheel and trimming another piece.

For the rest of the night, I alternated with trimming a piece and then doing another layer of terra sig. I eventually trimmed my square bowl down to a nice foot. Hurrah! I wasn't sure that was going to make it. When I finished I did notice that the bottom got pretty thin, I'm lucky I stopped when I did and didn't trim through the bottom.

I also trimmed my weird piece that collapsed when I was trying to make a round form. It got a couple of appreciative comments from people, so I'm glad I kept it. It really does look strange.

I also trimmed my one tall piece (I didn't do the two layers like we were shown, but even with the one layer it got taller than anything else I've thrown). That was pretty easy to trim since it had dried out a bit. If it was wetter I was worried the height would be a problem, maybe causing it to collapse on itself.

Finally, I trimmed a little piece I threw I think the first day and never went back to. I was going to make a little pot with lid, but I never made a lid, and it was too late now. So I trimmed off the lip I had made for the lid to turn it just into a little bowl/cup thing (something to put random little stuff in!).

The last half hour I spend frantically cleaning my wheel and getting as many more layers on my pit fire pieces as I could. I think I ended up with about 6 layers on each piece, which isn't too shabby.

Next time (not next week, due to Thanksgiving) we will glaze all remaining items, and also bring stuff to wrap our pit fire pieces in. Gary suggested experimenting by bringing anything in that burns. Seaweed (the salt is especially good), sticks of lavender, pine cones, grass, weeds, whatever. Also copper wire, if anyone has any. I guess that will leave nice lines of green on the piece. Exciting! I'm going to have to go collecting.

j's third open lab

Ok, I showed up around 7pm... still can't find any finished fired pieces. It's so strange that everything is missing. I hope nothing went wrong with the cone10 firing.

I went ahead and kneaded 2 balls and sat down to do more of the same at the wheel. I managed 3 more little cups (total of 6 now), and then made 2 small sake pitcher kind of vessels. It was the first time I've EVER made a collared vessel with a neck much smaller than the rest. The first one surprised me when it looked correct! It's pretty exciting that I was able to make them!

That was about all I had time for this open lab. Technically the 19th was the last day to "start" wet clay pieces.... so I guess that's it for all the pieces I get to work with. If I'm lucky tho, I might be able to work a little on the wheel on Saturday class.... Zach has said that he wouldn't stop us if we wanted to keep working on new stuff, and anything we don't completely finish this class we can take home and finish in another ceramics class.

j's second open lab

There is a notice on the chalk board in the ceramic's lab that the last day to begin wet-clay projects is this Friday, Nov 16. This shocked me into taking as much advantage of the open labs as I could. I'm not done making stuff yet!!

I went to Tuesday open lab from 6-8:30pm and worked on kneading balls of reclaimed Mac10 clay that I have been keeping. I made 3 balls and sat down at a wheel.

I went ahead and centered, but then worked off the hump to do basically hana's group project from her class. I was making little sake cups. It's kinda rough working that small, and way too easy to initially open the form too hard and immediately make the rim too small. It took some control, but I got 3 small cups out of my efforts. Ball #2 was refusing to center for me even to the point that I could work off the hump, so I scrapped that attempt (I'm blaming not-enough kneading).

The other things I attempted were the components to a clay goblet. A small one mind you, but I was able to successfully form a conic "stem" form, and nice little cup shape that I'll try attaching to one another. I'm seeing if I can make a little chalice or whatever.

I also attempted a small sake pitcher dealie bob, but things weren't working out so well in that attempt, so I abandoned it. That was about all the time I had before needing to clean up the wheel. 2.5 hours isn't long enough for a pottery class IMHO.

I'm probably going to also attend the next open lab to continue my attemps at these 2 projects.

j's 7th class (handles and glazing)

I showed up about 45 minutes late again, with coffee.

I initially found my 5 pieces in the glaze room and continued glazing them. I believe I glazed all of them and put them on the reduction cart. The cart was empty, but the pieces that were on there before weren't out on the shelves yet, my only guess is that they are in the kiln cooling down still.

none of the things I had placed on the bisque cart on thursday were done yet (altho also missing). Probably likewise stuck in a cooling down kiln.

I went ahead and finished attaching the feet on my second tray-box thing. They both came out well. I spent some time cleaning up their edges, and then I painted green engobe on the inside, and left it out on the shelf to dry out.

Finally I spend a long time trimming the 3 cups (2 with newly reattached bottoms) I had left. I'm pretty happy how they all came out. Then I went ahead and put their handles on. They are now loosely wrapped in plastic back on the shelves drying out slowly. By this time it was once again very near 3:30pm, and I was the last one in the studio besides zach. I cleaned up my wheel and table, and helped him put all the chairs up. That was about it.

There was a notice on the chalk board that the final bisque firing of the semester was happening on Nov 26. With no class on the 24th, that gives me 2 weeks to finish any other piece I want to work on before the class is over. I'll have to take advantage of any open lab I can make I suppose if there is a couple other things I want to make... huh.

So, yeah, no finished pieces yet, and um, alot in progress I suppose.

j's first open lab!

ok, while hana was skipping class, I went to a 2.5 hour open lab.

Lessee... I showed up, moved my bone-dry finished pieces to the bisque cart, and rolled out 2 large slabs of DWS (hand building) clay. The fellow openlab mates did not like my method of making slabs though. I've decided that the slab-roller slabs aren't really as ready-to-go as hand-made ones. I believe if you take the time to make a proper slab by hand, it's less likely to shrink in a weird, unexpected way. Anyway, "my way" involves slapping the clay alot by hand, and it's kinda distracting I suppose if the radio is cutting out for 30 seconds at a time due to bad transmission, and ofcourse no one else is talking, so it was uncomfortably quiet besides my hands slapping on my clay. :P

I also found the 5 pieces already bisque fired.

I began the class letting the slab harden up, and going into the glaze room and considering the 5 pieces newly bisqued. I went ahead and used a stain wash on the mouse I had carved out of my cat mug. After washing off the extra stain with water, I decided it'd take longer than I had remaining in open lab that night to dry out for glazing. In the mean time I went ahead and glazed a bowl in teadust glaze, a cup in 2nd cousin celadon, and a 1st coat of many of a bowl in shino glossy. I need to do more to these pieces before they will be ready to fire again tho. Next class I'll get to them.

Back in the main room, I went ahead and began hand-building 2 box-like trays w/ 2" walls. I was able to put together all of them besides the feet on the second tray. I wrapped the entire thing in plastic and sprayed it w/ water before leaving. I think its a good start for some additional good pieces.

I didn't approach the wheel cause I didn't want to spend the time cleaning the wheel.

Anyway, I think I made some good progress during this open lab. Only a couple more classes left!!! gah!

Hana's seventh class

I was naughty, and skipped class this time. Honestly, I just wasn't up to it after having cramps and a mild headache and a bit of advil-induced grogginess. For example, I went to feed the cat, and I poured his kibble right into his water dish. I didn't notice until I heard the sploosh sound instead of the tinkle sound of dry kibble hitting the plate. After that, I didn't really want to expose my pottery to myself. I had been planning on doing a bunch of trimming, and I didn't want to break my pots. So that's that. Sadly, I still have a bit of a headache this morning. Oh well.

j's 6th class (pinching and whatnot)

Let's see, it was a couple days ago so I'll have to remember specifically what happened...

I believe I showed up about 30 minutes late this time, with coffee ofcourse. There was 1 other classmate there setting up, so no worries. I found Zach and asked him if he had any cardboard I could use. After scrounging around a bit, I scored a box the clay comes in. It was perfect. He asked me what I was going to use it for, and I told him for a template. I also asked Zach about attaching bottoms to things I've thrown on a wheel and then cut through. He suggested I continually spray the cylinders with water and cover with plastic to rehydrate, and also roll out the slab of Mac10 (throwing) clay to slowly dry out. The idea is to attach them when they approach the same level of hydration and hardness. I rolled out a slab. Then he watched me curiously as I cut out a horseshoe shaped template from the cardboard, and rolled a slab out with the DWS (hand building) clay.

After I was done with that, I went to the wheel with my "nice" cylinder that I didn't have time to trim last class, and sat there for a long while working on it. It had dried out a touch too much for the trimming to be easy, plus I had thrown and wired it off of the hump, and the wire tool had done some funky things to the bottom that I was trying to level out. After a long stuggle against the slightly too dry clay, Zach suggested I try spraying it with water as I trim. I started trying that, and by gum it worked like a charm. huh. I trimmed the cylinder to my satisfaction. Then I rolled out a rope of some Mac10 clay to harden up a bit for a handle for this cup before shaping and attaching later and sprayed and wrapped the trimmed cylinder for attach.

After this, I asked Zach about the correct technique for pinch pots. He seemed surprised, but I told him I'd never done a pinch pot before, so he happily got a lump of clay, sat across the table from me, and showed me how to pinch a small pot while I worked on making a couple things out of my DWS slab. He seemed totally amused that I showed up with an agenda of things to make. It was a short list, but I was determined. He even seemed surprised what I used the template for (I won't say here cause it is something for Hana and I'd like to keep up the appearance of surprise).

Finally I was able to get to the pinch pot, and I sat there pinching away. It's more delicate a process than I thought it would be. It's really easy to pinch too hard and make a section too thin, and there is no way to get the volume back in that area. I happily pinched out 2 little pots that nest one inside the other, and the inside pot with a little grip tab. See, I was making a place to put used tea bags! I asked Zach how to punch out holes, and that I've never done that before, and he laughed and said it seemed I was doing a lot of "firsts" today. He didn't even hesitate, and went to get his little hole punchers from his bucket of tools, told me I could use whichever I wanted.

Now, I just happened to remember when my needle tool broke earlier this semester, and he was REALLY reluctant to let me borrow a tool from him for the class period, I thought that was a funny turn around for him. I guess he had to get to know me a bit better before he trusted me with his tools.

Anyway, I finished that project and was able to attach the new bottoms to those 2 cylinders, and the handle to that one. Zach suggested I loosely wrap the handle in plastic so it dries a bit slower than the rest of the clay in the cup since it was a little thinner. Also he had me place the two new re-attached bottom cups upside down on the wheel and apply pressure via a rib to the bottom to help the attach of the slabs (he sat on the wheel next to me and worked on the same piece I was working on, it was kinda cool). After all this, Zach looked at me expectantly and asked, "what next?"

It was funny. I think he was disappointed that I didn't have any specific projects after all this. I put the new bottomed cylinders wrapped in plastic on the shelf to trim during the next class, and everything else on the shelf to dry out for bisque firing.

Following this (since I had about an hour before needing to clean up) I went ahead and kneaded out 3 balls for throwing. The first attempt was a BEAUTIFUL cylinder. The second was a sad melting effect that I ended up reclaiming after there was a bad result following trying to trim the rim to make it even. I was running out of time, so I decided to bag the third ball and start cleaning up. Around this time I noticed I was the last person left in the room. Some other students had come in for the open lab, but had finished and already left, I think this was around 3:20pm. Open lab goes until 4pm. I mentioned, "wait, am I the last one here?!?" and Zach replied "yes." in a mock-unhappy tone. It was funny.

Anyway, I cleaned up, and called it a day. Oh, by the way, I had moved the 5 pieces to the bisque cart first thing when I got there... the ones with handles.

hana's sixth (!) class

Today's class was absolutely awesome. It was the best, most productive class of possibly my entire career as a potter hobbiest.

I took today off work for "mental health" (ie, not sick but pretty low energy). I went for a run/walk (way more walking than I had hoped), and by the end of the day was feeling slightly better.

Last Saturday I went to a pottery store, the first one I've ever been to actually. It was amazing, and I bought two 25lb bags of clay, one brown and one red. I took the brown one in to class, and it's a beauty to work with. It's a little soft, so it took a bit to realize I had to be quite a bit gentler with it than my other clay, especially after considering last week's wrestling match. Once I got to know it a little though, I could make almost anything.

I started throwing as soon as I got to class, and managed to throw quite a large bowl while everyone else was settling in and Gary started discussing what our schedule will be like for the rest of the quarter. We're going to go to his house and do a pit fire on the last class! That should be fun. The large bowl kept my hands occupied as I listened. When I was ready to take it off the wheel, it really didn't want to come off, and finally I got frustrated and just yanked it off, pretty badly morphing it in the process. Oh well, I just set it aside for now.

Gary was then giving a demo on how to throw round pots (as in nearly spherical, not just cylinders). These are the pots it's best to put in a pit fire. I've thrown pretty round before, so the demo wasn't too enlightening, but I did learn some good tips. It's good to keep reminding your clay that you intend to go round as opposed to out for a bowl, so there were several times where he'd choke the top to get it back in line. He also showed how to push your outside thumb into the clay at the very bottom and then raise your thumb to force a wave of clay up the pot. If you do it right, the wave travels all the way up and becomes the new rim. If you do it wrong, the wave gets to the top and comes off in one separate ring. That kept happening to me. Annoying.

Anyway, I totally messed up the first sphere I attempted. I got it to a cylinder but as I began stretching out the walls, I guess I went too far, and it basically collapsed on itself. Gary walked by just then and said, "Wow! You should keep that! It's totally George Ohr!" I was all, "uh?" and he told me to look him up. I haven't found a lot of images in the Web yet, but I intend to do a little further research. I have to admit the piece does look kind of cool.

I then threw three increasingly successful spheres. I was happy with them. Then I cleaned up my wheel and brought everything to my table. I looked at the messed up bowl, and decided to play with it a little... and was able to pinch it into a decent square bowl! Whoa! It's pretty cool actually if it comes out. I still need to trim it and all, so we'll see.

Then I went about trying to find places to put everything on the shelves and put my name on them so I don't lose them. I still haven't glazed anything. Sigh.