Pottery, Sculpture (and a few poems): 2016

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Collage, Cypress Gallery Fall Show

This is a collage I entered in the Fall Show at the Cypress Gallery here in Lompoc.
It got the blue ribbon in the 3-D category. (have to admit-there were not very many entries in that category this time). The title of the piece is "Under The Sun". To me, it shows commonality co-existing with diversity: unique content, all encircled. Never mind, philosophy aside, it was fun to put together, using odds and ends I'd saved. The size is 24x24 inches- a friend gave me the frame. It has glass-there are reflections in the right hand corner. There is just half an inch clearance for the items.

Drip Tests

These 4 pictures show a test I did in a glaze firing. I made 2 pots, bisqued them and applied a glaze after waxing the bottoms and top rims. They were fired in the position of the pot on the right, showing dried glaze flakes in 3 colors, intended to melt during the firing.

This one worked fine, Looks like I held the kiln temp. for about the right amount of time for the glaze to run down all the way. Notice the little bumps of glaze on the drip ring, where they solidified when the heat was lowered.

This one had a problem: some of the holes in the drip ring were too close to the edge of the pot, and glaze had glued it to the pot. So this picture shows how I set it up to refire, expecting the drip ring to drop onto the round clay slab, as the glaze re-melted.

It worked! the drip ring dropped down. However, the glazes now ran the opposite way, and too far- past the foot of the pot. I want to keep them, however, so will make some kind of a base for the pot. Meanwhile, this glass ashtray supports the pot as a temporary base.

Saturday, September 03, 2016

AUGUST 2016 FIRINGS

These pots are from 2 glaze firings done in late August. I'm back to claywork after a long hiatus, and loving it! I have a lot of things on my "Make" list.