As often happens when online, I clicked through a series of interesting links and today they brought me to BlogHer and then to SheKnows, both of which were unknown to me.
Here's how I got here: I just got a new FitBit One step tracking device over my inner child's objections to being monitored this way for fear that my OCD might kick in and I'll have her walking like she's never walked before just to watch my numbers go up. (I promise to do my best NOT to walk so much that I wind up hating my FitBit One and jumping up and down on it, which is, of course, a form of exercise, but not the kind I have in mind. But I digress . . . )
The online FitBit dashboard has the option to join a like minded community and I joined one for people who are watching their carbs. The community had links to low carb recipes and the first link I checked out brought me to BlogHer and I was impressed with the quality of the content on that blog and began to look around.
One of the first things I noticed was the BlogHer logo and I was immediately drawn to its femininist-centric aspect. I then read a few of the FAQs, noticed that there was a parent site called SheKnows. The name SheKnows has a special pottery connection for me and so I was even more interested and found myself thinking that I might like to sign up with both SheKnows and BlogHer.
The name SheKnows brought back fond memories of having named a pottery glaze I created more than 10 years ago and called She Knows as it was based on the famously beautiful and organic wood fired glaze type called "Shino".
For anyone interested in knowing what a Shino glaze looks like, here's a nice example of a Shino glaze that was fired in a wood kiln:
The traditional Japanese Shino glaze only works when fired in either the traditional brick wood-fired kiln or in a gas fired kiln as both of those consume all available oxygen during the firing and once it's gone the atmosphere of the kiln changes the chemistry of the glazes and the result is often unique textures and beautiful colors with random flashing effects that are highly prized.
Most potters do not have access to either wood fired or gas fired kilns which are much more expensive, require a lot more space, skill, time, energy and money to fire. Electric kilns, on the other hand, are relatively inexpense and easy to learn how to use and maintain so they are the kiln of choice for hobby potters like myself but it can often be a real challenge to develop glazes with more complex surface effects like those seen from other types of kilns.
Here's an example of how flat an electric kiln fired glaze can sometimes look as compared with the complex finish on the Shino glazed bowl above:
Sometime this flat effect is desired but as a hobby potter practices with glazing their pots, they discover that they can achieve some interesting results by combining two or more glazes on the same pot, being careful not to overlap them so much that the extra glaze runs down the pot during the firing thereby damaging the pot, the kiln shelf and surrounding pots and pots below it in the firing.
Here is an example where two rather plain glazes (Cinnabar and Blue Surf) come together in the center of the plate and where they overlapped it created a strip of lovely nuanced color:
I have little to no real understanding of the chemistry of glaze composition but I came across both a book and software titled Mastering Cone 6 Glazes by John Hesselberth and Ron Roy that were very good at explaining the process so I took the plunge and tried to create a glaze that might have some Shino type effects such as breaking and pooling around texture and showing nuanced color changes. Here is the cover of the book I used showing one of the lovely nuanced glazes the authors created. The glaze on the cover of the book is of a single glaze that on its own managed to develop all kinds of color nuances, flows and pooling that enhanced the pots texture (instead of what often happens with opaque glazes, which tend to obscure any but the deepest texture) and this kind of glaze is what many electric kiln potters desire to have in their repertorie of glazes:
With the help of both the book and the software of the same name, I was able to develop what I would consider a Faux Shino -- with an emphasis on Faux as it is impossible to replicate a finish like the prized and traditional Shino in an oxidazing atmosphere like that of electric kilns -- and I called it my brand new glaze recipe She Knows . I was rather pleased with how it turned out as it gave my electric kiln fired pots a bit more visual interest. Here is an example of a bowl I made that is glazed with a single long dip of She Knows:
I learned to throw various types of pots (bowls, plates, vases, etc.) and to hand build pottery (sculpture, boxes, coil work, etc.) at a local teaching studio. Once I got the hang of throwing ( it took more than six months of daily practice) and developed some skill to reliably center and throw tall pots that did not collapse I eventually became bored with the constant symmetry of classic wheel thrown shapes as they all started looking the same to me and set about personalizing my pots by altering their shapes.
Some of the techniques I used were of folding over the soft rims while the pot was still wet and turning on the wheel, and, when the clay was at the cheese hard stage, by various manipulations of the clay: pushing in the sides with my hands (to create a boxier shape), gently tapping it with a textured wooden paddle to further alter the shape and add texture or irregular impressions, pinching, carving into the clay to create texture or by adding small bits of clay to to surace to create various shapes.
Hopefully, one day, I will find the time to again get creative with clay. After all, even though I live in a tiny New York City apartment with absolutely no room for a kiln, I did manage to set up a mini throwing studio with a potter's wheel in my hall closet (my pottery friends starting calling me The Closet Potter and whenever they saw me the running joke was "Glad to see you've finally come out of the closet." Ba-dum-pump chsh! ;)
Here is a photo of my little "Pottery Studio in a Closet":
And, finally, here are a few more photos of my pottery -- both thrown pots that are altered and hand built sculpture:
The bowl above was thrown, it's shape altered, carved at the cheese hard stage and glazed with my She Knows glaze.
The bowls above and below are glazed on the inside with another one of the glazes I created (there were only two) and this one I called Juicy Turquoise. Each firing seemed to bring out different variations in the glaze depending on the type of clay, the thickness of the glaze applicaton and the walls of the piece, etc. (that almost always happens with any glaze so opening up a kiln loaded with newly glazed pots feel a bit like Christmas every single time). The bowl below is made from a speckled clay and that changed the color and look of the glaze from a smooth turquoise to more of a light green with speckled variations.
Here is my small, 4-inch, sculpture inspired by the ancient Greek Cycladic sculptures (which, while the Cycladic sculptures of ancient Greece are ancient, when I look at them they bring to mind so-called Modern sculpture). I used a rich reddish brown earthy clay and left it unglazed:
A lidded vase that was altered and carved to look like a curvaceous woman. (In another photo where the lid was placed alongside the pot instead of on top, the image title I gave it is Pot Head) :)))
A 2-inch square pendant where I scratched an image of a child's face (I don't really know how to draw so it is very basic) and added some gold leaf to the "frame" after it was fired:
I took a class in handbuilding once I'd gained some skill on the wheel so that I could both learn to personalize my thrown pots by altering them in various ways with tools and also so that I could learn how to use other methods of forming such as slabwork, coils, pinching, etc.
This small 4-inch cat sculpture was the very first sculpture I ever made. I made it in class during a lesson on how to form a solid sculpture, slice it in half, remove the interior clay (to prevent air pockets that might cause it to blow up on the firing which would not only destroy it but potentially damage nearby pots and the kiln elements or brick) and seal it closed again.
I've always loved the grace and elegants of cats not to mention everything else about them (well, shedding on my clothes and hairballs on my carpet, not so much), so, of course, the first sculpture that presented itself to me was of a cat. I glazed it lightly in a verdigris-like glaze and polished it with bronze cream to give it a bit of a metallic effect.
The photo below is of my second and last sculpture. It's done using a gritty white clay. It was thrown on the wheel and started life out as a simple vase (this is a good way to create a structured form that is hollow on the interior that one could then alter in shape and add texture or formed clay pieces in order to quickly create a sculpture). Once it had hardened to cheese dry, the shape was altered, a thin textured slab was loosly placed over and around the sides to give the effect of a headscarf and small pieces of clay were added to the body of the vase to give the effect of a face. This is unglazed.
Now that I've taken a trip down memory lane and looked at my pottery from perhaps two decades ago, I am feeling drawn to the idea of creating pottery again and hope that feeling grows into an irrestible force as I'd sure love to be in the creative flow again. Creative self expression is very rewarding in so many ways that I don't understand how I ever allowed the rest of my life to so completely crowd it out. I hope to be adding new thrown and sculptural work in the very near future so if you like watching the progress of an intermittant clay hobbyist then watch this space . . .