Generous Artists

April 8, 2019 | Teresa Craighead

Ariel Bowman is an amazingly talented sculpture artist. You should really check out her work: arielbowman.com, follow her on Instagram: @ariel.bowman and attend one of her workshops if you can. I’m always grateful to those artists willing to share their techniques. Ariel so generously shared techniques she’s developed over the years, essentially gifting to us her years of hard-earned work.

Following her solid block carving technique, I am freeing this rhino from his clay dungeon.

By the end of the two-day workshop, held at Roadrunner Ceramics in San Antonio, my guy is almost free. We all get to go back in three weeks with bisqued ware when Ariel will return to share her glazing techniques with us. So generous!

Part of the solid block method is allowing the sculpture to get leather hard with the bottom support of the clay block — seen in this video. I won’t remove it until he is hard enough to cut in half and hollow out, along with the head support there under his chin. Oh! And he needs ears, and some legwork.

This artistic journey continues to surprise me! I’m so grateful to be on it.

Gaining Courage

February 3, 2015January 30, 2015 | Teresa Craighead

What is it about pushing our own boundaries that is so scary? I mean, who really cares whether the next pot I throw flops or works? Who cares if that next drawing I make is awful? Nobody but me will even see it. But … somehow … it feels as if the world depends upon me doing something perfectly, expertly, beautifully … what??

Too often I let fear inhibit, or even stop me, from doing something creative. What is that really about? I don’t even know. But I have found that joining with others in some sort of collective helps. I have taken a few online classes for pottery and drawing that have been of great benefit in helping me “just do it.”

Right now I am in an online porcelain class, offered by the extremely talented Antoinette Badenhorst, whose work in porcelain is absolutely stunning. Like this:

and this:

Seriously, this woman is talented! And she’s a great instructor, too — providing excellent guidance as well as personal encouragement in her classes. This is my second class with her, and frankly, I’ll sign up for ANYTHING she offers, because I have learned so much about porcelain and how to handle it from her. I highly recommend her classes! You can find them here: Porcelain By Antoinette, and her Facebook page is also amazing!

One more:

Creating a Porcelain Environment

January 30, 2015 | Teresa Craighead

Working with porcelain in the studio presents a handful of challenges — especially if you work with other clays as well in the same small space, like I do! I have to thoroughly clean my wheel and workspace when moving from my red stoneware to pure, pristine porcelain. In fact, some would say trying to work with both a red stoneware and porcelain in the same space is ridiculous because of the likelihood of contaminating the porcelain.

But I accidentally found a GREAT solution while at Lowe’s looking for a wooden board to lay across my table that I could use only when working with porcelain. I found this instead:

Using a kitchen counter segment from Lowe's — Using a kitchen counter segment from Lowe’s

And it works amazingly well! It’s a laminated kitchen counter segment, and it fits perfectly on top of my 6′ folding table that I use as a workspace. When I am ready to go back to red stoneware, I will box up all these porcelain tools and store the counter against the wall. I have duplicate tools for red stoneware, so there is no cross-contamination. I love discovering simple solutions!

We Are Explorers

January 23, 2015January 18, 2015 | Teresa Craighead

It seems that many potters I come across have developed their work around one specific clay body. I’m not sure this approach is for me!! I am just so drawn to different types of clays and what can be achieved with each.

I heard great another podcast by potter Ben Carter, this one featuring Sandi Pierantozzi and Neil Patterson (Podcast No. 86), and Sandi expressed for herself the way I feel about clay and ceramic expression: she defined herself as an “explorer.” This is a paraphrase of what she said: there are just so many things to try! As long as she feels engaged in the process, she has learned to be okay with not settling on just one thing.

Sandi Pierontozzi, sandiandneil.com — Sandi Pierantozzi, sandiandneil.com

It was helpful to hear such a successful and truly gifted potter express what I had been feeling … validation can be encouraging when one is venturing out into the unknown!

Here is more of Sandi’s gorgeous work!

Unfired Clay vs. Fired Clay

January 18, 2015 | Teresa Craighead

This picture shows the comparison of the same pot — unfired Cinco Rojo clay dipped in porcelain slip, and then glazed with a clear glaze and fired at cone 6 (which is 2269 degrees F). There is quite a difference in the color of the clay from unfired to fired–rich, deep red to a chocolate brown. The clear glaze actually seems to accentuate the speckling in the stoneware.

Next time I fire this clay, I think I will take it only up to cone 5 (which is 2205 degrees F — a difference of only 64 degrees.) BigCeramicStore.com has this very useful chart that shows the correlation of temperature to cone number, and also which type of clay “matures” at what temperature. According to this chart, firing this red clay that additional 64 degrees took it beyond its melting point, which could account for the change in color. Not that it isn’t lovely as a chocolate speckled stoneware. It’s just not what I wanted to see.

The Unexpected Dresser

November 8, 2014 | Teresa Craighead

“… and besides, he had a box of tools and a pair of intelligent hands.” from the short story “The Sea of Lost Time” by Gabriel García Márquez

My multi-talented husband is a corporate man by day, working in e-commerce and marketing, but his real talents are in his hands, and his box of tools, and his brilliant imagination. He builds furniture and turns crusty motorcycles into rowdy works of art. These pictures are of his latest creation. I call it the Unexpected Dresser, because it has many hidden surprises.

John Britt’s New Glaze Book

November 6, 2014 | Teresa Craighead

I just ordered John Britt’s new glaze book for Cone 4-7, The Complete Guide to Mid-Range Glazes. John has an extensive YouTube channel of great videos for the self-taught, or really for anyone. I have learned a lot from him over the last couple of years. You can order a signed copy from his website (free shipping!) www.JohnBrittPottery.com.

One reason I love John’s videos is that he usually ends them with some saying like, “Now go make 25 of those and I’ll see you in the morning.” Because he knows that effortlessness requires lots and lots of effort! I am excited to get the book and learn more about glaze-making.

Calling All Self-Taught Potters …

August 28, 2014August 28, 2014 | Teresa Craighead

Linda Fahey has a great formula for the self-taught potter: Have a curious mind, and attend a million workshops! But sometimes workshops are expensive, or too far away. With that in mind, I want to recommend Diana Fayt’s online course, called The Clayer. You can take this class from the comfort of your own home at a GREAT price!

Diana is a marvelously talented potter who has created a couple of online classes, sharing her knowledge and expertise in surfacing techniques. I have taken both of Diana’s courses, and highly recommend them! She shares so much of herself, and her vast knowledge and experience. PLUS, she’s a great teacher.

I had been wanting to make some plaster molds for awhile, but was too intimidated to do it on my own. In Diana’s course, she walked us through it step by step, and now I’ve made several, and am at ease working with plaster. Sometimes you just need a little push in the right direction! This course also covers the water abrasion surface technique, along with carving and using paper stencils. It’s truly a fabulous bargain for all the techniques you will learn!

Take a look at some of Diana’s work. You can also listen to her interview with Ben Carter on Tales of a Red Clay Rambler, his podcast. Don’t you want to learn from a potter who can make this beautiful work??

Linda Fahey on Being Self-Taught

August 17, 2014 | Teresa Craighead

Potter Ben Carter produces a wonderful podcast series titled “Tales of a Red Clay Rambler,” where he produces thoughtful and interesting interviews with potters and other artists. This past week, he interviewed Linda Fahey, whose work is wonderful and imaginative. Linda is a self-taught potter living and working in the Bay Area, where she also runs a a fabulous shop called Yonder. The shop is located in Pacifica, about 15 minutes south of San Francisco (find it online at Yondershop.com).

In the interview, Linda talks about her journey of becoming a potter and full-time artist–and her new role now as shop-owner of Yonder. (The tag line of her store is “discover beautiful things every day.” Indeed!) The whole interview is great, but I was particularly struck by her words about being self-taught. I am also on a self-taught journey, so I find her words (and work) very inspiring:

34: 54 I’m not confident enough to think I’ve arrived, ever. it is what fuels me to get better. We talked earlier on going through an academic program and what that entails, versus someone like myself, who is essentially self-taught, worked under people, but self-taught. There are gaps there that you have to find and then you have to figure out how to make it better. The academic environment is designed for you to not have a lot of blank spots. You are going to come out of that program and be pretty tight, right?… So this over here, me, working in the dark sort of, I mean I’ve gone to a million workshops and I have a very curious mind so I’m out there trying to find the information, but I don’t know what I don’t know. I still have a long way to go.

Though Linda may feel that to be true (that she still has a long way to go), it’s clear by her body of work that she is quite accomplished at making the world a more beautiful place:

In Ben Carter’s podcast, she also talks about what she’s learned from working with Anthropologie, being a store owner, incorporating her environment into her work, and her future goals. Play her interview while you are in the studio–it’s wonderful inspiration. You can read her blog and see her new work here.

The Spinning Universe

art, clay and some universal truth

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