James and Tilla Waters Clay Culture: Blood Swept Lands Glaze: Cone 02 Crystalline, Cone 10 Soda

Cover: James and Tilla Waters Clay Culture: Blood Swept Lands Glaze: Cone 02 Crystalline, Cone 10 Soda

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Editorial [email protected] telephone: (614) 794-5869 fax: (614) 891-8960 editor Jessica Knapp associate editor Holly Goring assistant editor Forrest Sincoff Gard editorial support Jan Moloney editorial support Linda Stover technical editor Dave Finkelnburg Advertising/Classifieds [email protected] telephone: (614) 794-5834 fax: (614) 891-8960 classifi[email protected] telephone: (614) 794-5826 national sales director Mona Thiel advertising services Marianna Bracht Marketing telephone: (614) 794-5809 marketing manager Steve Hecker audience development manager Sandy Moening Subscriptions/Circulation customer service: (800) 342-3594 [email protected] Design/Production production associate Erin Pfeifer design Boismier John Design digital design specialist Melissa Bury Editorial and advertising offices 600 Cleveland Ave., Suite 210 Westerville, Ohio 43082 Publisher Charles Spahr Managing Director Sherman Hall Editorial Advisory Board Linda Arbuckle; Professor, Ceramics, Univ. of Florida Scott Bennett; Sculptor, Birmingham, Alabama Dick Lehman; Studio Potter, Indiana Meira Mathison; Director, Metchosin Art School, Canada Phil Rogers; Potter and Author, Wales Jan Schachter; Potter, California Mark Shapiro; Worthington, Massachusetts Susan York; Santa Fe, New Mexico Ceramics Monthly (ISSN 0009-0328) is published monthly, except July and August, by Ceramic Publications Company; a subsidiary of The American Ceramic Society, 600 Cleveland Ave., Suite 210, Westerville, Ohio 43082; www.ceramics.org. Periodicals postage paid at Westerville, Ohio, and additional mailing offices. Opinions expressed are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent those of the editors or The American Ceramic Society. The publisher makes no claim as to the food safety of published glaze recipes. Readers should refer to MSDS (material safety data sheets) for all raw materials, and should take all appropriate recommended safety measures, according to toxicity ratings. subscription rates: One year $34.95, two years $59.95, three years $89.95. Canada: One year $49, two years $89, three years $135. International: One year $60, two years $99, three years $145. back issues: When available, back issues are $7.50 each, plus $3 shipping/handling; $8 for expedited shipping (UPS 2-day air); and $9 for shipping outside North America. Allow 4–6 weeks for delivery. change of address: Please give us four weeks advance notice. Send the magazine address label as well as your new address to: Ceramics Monthly, Circulation Department, P.O. Box 15699, North Hollywood, CA 91615-5699. contributors: Writing and photographic guidelines are available online at www.ceramicsmonthly.org. indexing: Visit the Ceramics Monthly website at www.ceramicsmonthly.org to search an index of article titles and artists’ names. Feature articles are also indexed in the Art Index, daai (design and applied arts index). copies: Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use beyond the limits of Sections 107 or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law is granted by The American Ceramic Society, ISSN 0009-0328, provided that the appropriate fee is paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923, USA; (978) 750-8400; www.copyright.com. Prior to photocopying items for classroom use, please contact Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. This consent does not extend to copying items for general distribution, or for advertising or promotional purposes, or to republishing items in whole or in part in any work in any format. Please direct republication or special copying permission requests to the Publisher, The Ceramic Publications Company; a subsidiary of The American Ceramic Society, 600 Cleveland Ave., Suite 210, Westerville, Ohio 43082, USA. postmaster: Send address changes to Ceramics Monthly, P.O. Box 15699, North Hollywood, CA 91615-5699. Form 3579 requested. Copyright © 2015, The Ceramic Publications Company; a subsidiary of The American Ceramic Society. All rights reserved. www.ceramicsmonthly.org

6 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org Bailey has redefined the standards for excellence in electric kiln design. Not just by a little, but by a lot. Features: Shatter Proof Element Holders Emissivity Energy Efficient Coatings Built in UV Eye Protection Massive Long Life Elements Bailey Quick-Fix Brick System Bailey Quick-Change Element Holders Easy Fit Shelf Design Adjustable Door Seals 6” Compressed Fiber Roof System Stainless Steel Brick Edge Protectors Bailey Efficiency-Plus Radiant Heat Pattern Ventilated Exterior Frame Ventilated Spy Port Ventilated Door Seal Ventilated Interior Chamber

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Bailey Pottery Equipment Corporation www.baileypottery.com Professionals Know the Difference. (800) 431-6067www.ceramicsmonthly.org Direct: (845) february 2015339-37217 contentsfebruary 2015 volume 63, number 2

editorial

10 From the Editor Jessica Knapp 12 CM Interactive exposure 14 Images from Current and Upcoming Exhibitions reviews 50 Playing with Fire in Paris An exhibition of ceramic sculpture by eleven artists from around Europe was recently on view at Lefebvre et Fils in Paris, France. Reviewed by Lilianne Milgrom techno file

60 Spodumene by Dave Finkelnburg Overcome the challenges of using spodumene and discover how to lower glaze melting temperatures and dramatically brighten such colors as cobalt blues. tips and tools

62 Ring Slump Molds by Nancy Gallagher The next time you’re making plates or platters, try using lightweight, hard foam rings (typically used in wreath making) as simple slump molds. resources 77 Call for Entries Information on submitting work for exhibitions, fairs, and festivals. 78 Classifieds Looking to buy? Looking to sell? Look no further. 79 Index to Advertisers spotlight 80 Making It Work Robert Briscoe discusses what it takes to make a living as a potter.

8 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org clay culture

22 Blood Swept Lands by Holly Goring The Tower of London’s dry moat was recently flooded again, this time with 888,246 ceramic poppies. Check out Paul Cummins and Tom Piper’s epic installation commemorating those who served and perished in an epic war.

24 Magnetic Clay by April Gocha, Ph.D. Jólan van der Wiel creates gravity-defying sculptures made from clay powder mixed with metal fibers and water, and shaped using a strong magnet. studio visit 26 Leslie-Ann Hoets, Sedgefield, South Africa Maintaining a ceramic business, a teaching workshop, and a personal studio can be very demanding. Doing it in the lush countryside of South Africa certainly makes the pressure easier to handle. features

30 Linda Sikora: Aesthetics and Agency by Glen R. Brown Throughout her career Sikora has combined an interest in ceramic art history—from Tang Dynasty sancai ware to Syrian three-colored ware and 18th-century Wieldon wares—with a dedication to making highly functional pots with varying degrees of complexity in terms of surface and form.

36 James and Tilla Waters: Enigmatic Tableware by Paul McAllister Two painters who chose careers as potters work together to create functional tableware pieces that are minimal in form, and surfaces that investigate both bold and subtle color combinations.

40 Movement and Tranquility: The Work of Cathi Jefferson by Katey Schultz For the past 40 years, Cathi Jefferson’s biggest influence has been her surroundings and a belief that nature connects us to what’s really important. Her functional and sculptural series of salt-and-soda fired pieces celebrate and extend this sense of connection to the people who see and live with her work.

44 Cary Esser: A Vital Geometry by Glen R. Brown Cary Esser has worked with tile since the 1970s, both in architectural settings and as freestanding sculptures. Her interest in the mass and physicality of clay is an important connecting thread throughout all of the work she’s made. monthly method Tile Molds with Flexible Dimensions by Cary Esser

54 Scaling it Down by Liz Zlot Summerfield The size of a pot is often determined by what it’s intended use is, but subconsciously, maybe other factors are also involved—the size of your own body and the things you surround yourself with. Take a look and discover a connection. glaze

64 Recipes for Salt and Soda Firings by Cathi Jefferson

66 Cone 02 Crystal and Satin Matte Recipes by Cary Esser 44

cover: James and Tilla Waters’ Orange Tipped Vases, wheel-thrown porcelain, slip, glaze, high fired, 2010.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 9 from the editor respond to [email protected]

There are many artists working who have notch skills, both in the studio and in terms courage you to listen to Davis’ lecture, which made innumerable contributions to our field of their perceptions and analysis of their own NCECA has made available as a podcast and are considered masters in clay. Ceramic functional, sculptural, and architectural pieces. (http://blog.nceca.net/podcast12) to experi- artists are a generous group, and the technical I can still remember being in the presence ence it for yourself. nature of our material fosters the importance of some of the luminaries in our field. While When I first met Linda Arbuckle, I was of sharing knowledge, and a sense of indebt- attending a workshop at Anderson Ranch immediately impressed by her enthusiasm for edness to both those who came before us, as Arts Center, I had the opportunity to go to research, her generosity, her support of both well as our current community. Paul Soldner’s house in Aspen along with all current and former students and colleagues, These artists research, invent, improvise, of the other students and faculty who were at and her amazing memory for details, on top build on techniques, and view the objects they the Ranch during that session. I remember of already admiring her skill as an artist. make with clarity. Aside from their disciplined listening to him talk to the other artists and These individuals, and many others like and aesthetically influential studio practice, students in the room, and his amused expres- them are masters not only due to their skills they have a long-lasting impact on others in the sion at how starstruck I was. I learned about and physical artwork, but their ability to con- field, in no small part due to their overwhelm- Soldner’s friendship with Jerry Rothman as I nect with others and help them to develop a ing generosity and ability to spark creativity admired one of Rothman’s Sky Pots from the sense of curiosity, creativity, and drive. in others. These artists share what they learn; 1960s that was displayed on his sideboard. I Through my work at Ceramics Monthly, I they inspire others to make great work; and got to walk around his circular gallery show- also have the privilege of talking to and cor- they help students, apprentices, workshop room that housed a number of his large smoky responding with a number of artists who have participants, colleagues, and many other artists gray low-fire salt pedestal pieces made with built significant legacies in the field of studio they meet on an informal basis to develop top- raw, roughly geometric slabs of clay that canti- ceramics. We started covering some of these levered out at impossible artists in a deliberate way in our March 2014 angles. The experience issue, and have included several articles on was energizing. masters in the field in subsequent issues over I was also energized the past year. In this issue we continue that by Malcolm Davis’ lec- focus as we talk to Robert Briscoe about life as ture, “How did I end a potter in our Spotlight department, and fea- up here?” at the 2010 ture the work of Cary Esser, Cathi Jefferson, National Council on and Linda Sikora. Each of these artists have Education for the Ce- impressive careers as studio artists, teachers, ramic Arts (NCECA) and mentors, and share practical studio tips, conference in Philadel- recipes, and techniques with us. phia, Pennsylvania, in In addition to this focus, we have a feature which he gave us all per- on the quietly powerful functional work of mission to be artists. He UK artists James and Tilla Waters, along with included everyone, no Liz Zlot Summerfield’s in-depth article on matter their experience handbuilding techniques. We also visit the level or background, in studio of Leslie-Ann Hoets from Sedgefield, a way that was both a South Africa, who has built a long career gift and an empowering making both one of a kind raku vessels and challenge. I would en- large fireplaces.

The floral and striped pail by Liz Zlot Summerfield I’m holding in this photo was a Ceramic Arts Daily purchase award we received from an exhibition earlier this year at the Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio. Summerfield discusses her handbuilding and decorating processes on page 54. She also discusses the importance of scale in her work, and how different the scale can look in images versus real life. Compare the image above with the image on page 58 to see for yourself.

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Letters If you’d like to see videos of Cathi Jeffer- of their work with us on Facebook and Insta- I have been enjoying CM for years and I have son’s salt-glazing process, Liz Zlot Summer- gram using the hashtag #MastersInTheField. all the back issues to prove it. I have noticed field’s slab-building techniques, or Jólan van As we were putting this issue together, the that when you print glaze recipes you do not der Wiel’s setup for working with magnetic editorial staff created Pinterest boards with always indicate the atmosphere, oxidation, clay, check out the digital edition! work by Liz Zlot Summerfield, Linda Sikora, or reduction. Yes, I might be able to find it if Want to get a true sense of the scale of the and Cathi Jefferson, along with more images I reread the article but it would be so much Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red installation of the Blood Swept Lands... installation, and more convenient to always have it included by Paul Cummins? Check out the link to the we also collected some glaze recipes that use along with the firing temperature. I am always video that shows how the project came together. spodumene as a flux. looking for cone 6 oxidation recipes and find it For more information on both Jefferson and Corrections Zlot Summerfield, see the digital edition for is not always obvious which ones are oxidation. In the “Ceramic Growlers” article from the articles on their work from the May 2001 and Nancy Scilipote, Northford, Connecticut January 2015 issue, Portland Growler Company April 2009 issues of CM, respectively. co-owners Nick Vietor and Jonathan Langston’s Great suggestion! We’re now including the To further explore the Techno File discus- names were misspelled. Our apologies! We atmosphere next to the cone designation.—Eds. sion on spodumene, see the archive article from also reported that all of the owners worked at the December 1995 issue on clay bodies that Expanded Content Mudshark Studios, however Vietor was an inde- use spodumene to decrease thermal expansion. Check out the digital edition of this issue at pendent contractor at the time the company was www.ceramicsmonthly.org for extra images of #SocialSharing formed. Several of the owners, including Vietor, work by Leslie-Ann Hoets, Cathi Jefferson, Want to suggest a master in the field that we Langston, and Brett Binford met at Oregon Linda Sikora, and James and Tilla Waters. should consider covering in CM? Share images College of Art and Craft, not at Mudshark.

12 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 13 exposure for complete calendar listings see www.ceramicsmonthly.org

1 Rebekah Strickland’s Anemone Teapot, 7½ in. (19 cm) in length, porcelain, soda-fired to cone 7, 2013. 2 Matthew Mitros’ Pre-Columbian Rave, 2 12 in. (30 cm) in height, ceramic, 2013. 3 Carolyn Watkins’ Arbitrary Indignation, 24 in. (61 cm) in height, stoneware, 2014. “Beyond the Brickyard,” at Archie Bray Foundation (www.archiebray.org), in Helena, Montana, through March 7.

14 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org Alfred University chooses Bailey Wheels

At the 2014 NCECA conference, a team from the Division of Ceramic Art at Alfred University were on a mission to determine which brand of wheel they would select to outfit the university. They were looking at all aspects of power, construction, durability, ease of service, value, and ergo- nomic design.

They already had individual histories from owning the major brands of wheels, including Bailey. After their evaluation, they chose Bailey Wheels. Alfred now has 75 Bailey ST-XL wheels in their Bailey ST-XL department. with optional counter

More Power Bailey has upgraded the drive system to deliver more power to the wheel head. With the STXL wheel running at a slow speed of 60 rpms, we asked the Alfred team to try and stop the wheel head (while wear- ing gloves) by applying resistance inwardly on the circumference of the wheel head. They couldn’t stop the wheel from spinning. The XL has very impressive power!

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1 Forrest Sincoff Gard’s Built To Play: The Collector’s Edition, each 9 in. (23 cm) in length, slip-cast porcelain, underglaze, fired in an electric kiln to cone 6, 2014. 2 Robbie Heidinger’s Viennese Change-Up, 15 in. (38 cm) in height, stoneware, soda fired, 2014. 3 Carol Synder’s Tyndall Trees, 8 in. (20 cm) in diameter, porcelain, fired to cone 10, 2014. 4 John Utgaard’s Ebb, 17 in. (43 cm) in length, earthenware, glaze, 2013. “Beyond the Brickyard,” at Archie Bray Foundation (www.archiebray.org), in Helena, Montana, through March 7.

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1 Park Young Sook’s Buncheong Inlaid Bowls with Lid, stoneware, stamped and slip- inlaid decoration, 2000–2003. Courtesy: Asian Art Museum, Gift of the Artist. 2 Lee Kang Hyo’s A Wind Flower, stoneware, white slip, ash glaze, 2012. Courtesy: Mindy Solomon Gallery. 3 Yeesookyung’s Translated Vases, ceramic shards, epoxy, 24k gold leaf, 2014. Courtesy: Locks Gallery. 1–3 Photos: SFO Museum. “Dual Natures in Ceramics: Eight Contemporary Artists from Korea,” at the San Francisco International Airport by SFO Museum (www.flysfo.com/museum), San Francisco, California, through February 22. 4 Ralph Bacerra’s Vessel/Violet, 22 in. (56 cm) in height, whiteware, 1988. Courtesy: ASU Art Museum collection; gift of the Stéphane Janssen Art Foundation. 5 Anders Ruhwald’s You Are Here, This Is It, 3.4 ft. (1 m) in length, earthenware, painted steel, piping, rubber caps, 2006. Courtesy: ASU Art Museum collection; gift of the artist. “Fusion: Three Views/One Collection,” at the ASU 5 Art Museum (www.asuartmuseum.asu.edu), Tempe, Arizona, through February 28.

18 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 19 exposure

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1 Nao Matsunaga’s Too Tight for Light 1, 29½ in. (75 cm) in length, ceramic, wood, acrylic paint, 2014. Photo: Lauren Mclean. “Nao Matsunaga,” at Marsden Woo Gallery (www.marsdenwoo.com), London, England, February 18–March 21. 2 Charlotte Jones’ Seaweed Lines Vessel, 5¾ in. (13 cm) in height, wheel-thrown and burnished gabbroic clay and white stoneware, high fired. “Charlotte Jones Show,” at Craft Centre Leeds (www.craftcentreleeds.co.uk), in Leeds, England, through April 30. 3 Jessica Putnam Phillips’ Semper Fi (lilac M4), earthenware, mishima, underglaze, glaze, 2013. 4 Jesse Albrecht’s Get Some, ceramic, 2014. “Jesse Albrecht and Jessica Putnam-Phillips,” at The Clay Studio (www.theclaystudio.org), in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 6–March 7. 5 Lois Harbaugh’s Scholar’s Wed, to 8¼ in. (21 cm) in height, cone 10 Southern Ice Porcelain, wire, gas fired, 2013. 6 Jennifer Holt’s An Act of Futility, 32 in. (81 cm) in length, porcelain, oxidation fired in a gas kiln, tumbleweed, hardware, 2014. “All about Porcelain,” at The Clay Studio of Missoula (www.theclaystudioofmissoula.org), in Missoula, Montana, February 6–27.

20 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 21 clay culture

blood swept lands by Holly Goring Artist Paul Cummins, the man behind the recent flooding of red-glazed ceramic poppies at the Tower of London landmark, said he was inspired by a single line from the will of a Derbyshire serviceman: “the blood swept lands and seas of red, where angels fear to tread.”

The monumental art installation, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of The poppy became known as a flower of remembrance because Red, was created to mark the 100-year anniversary of the first full of those men who died fighting in the trenches in the poppy fields day of Britain’s involvement in World War I. It filled the Tower of of Flanders. In the UK (and numerous other countries), artificial London’s famous moat from July 17 to November 11, 2014. The poppies are commonly worn on November 11, known as Armistice project, conceived by English artist Paul Cummins and put together Day, which marks the anniversary of the end of the Great War. with the help of stage designer Tom Piper, consisted of 888,246 ceramic poppies, each individually created by a team of volunteers. Poppy Production Each poppy represented a British military fatality during the war. Each poppy was handmade and individually shaped by a team of The ceramic poppies cascaded in a symbolic outpouring, sup- local workers in Derby, England, making each flower unique. ported by a metal armature, out of a window of the Tower and into Cummins spoke with the Rod McPhee of the Mirror in London, the now dry moat. about the poppy production: terra-cotta clay was cut into sections, Cummins’ noted to BBC news, “I approached the Tower as the rolled into large flat slabs, and cut with a metal stamp, similar to a ideal setting as its strong large cookie cutter, into military links seemed to petal-shaped patterns (1). resonate. The installa- Two stamped pieces were tion is transient, I found then layered one on top this poignant and reflec- of the other in opposing tive of human life, like directions to form six those who lost their lives overlapping petals (2). during the first World Each petal was in- War. I wanted to find a dividually crimped and fitting way to remember folded to create a three- them.” According to dimensional flower (3– BBC News, he came up 4), then placed on drying with the idea of creat- racks built from plywood ing a sea of poppies two sheets and bricks (5). years ago, and pitched A bright red glaze was the idea to the Tower of applied to the bisque- London with the help fired poppies before they of Piper. Cummins has A British soldier walking among the nearly 900,000 ceramic poppies placed in the 16-acre were glaze fired (6). Fol- Tower of London moat. The last poppy was placed on Armistice Day, November 11, 2014. experience working with Photo: Neil Hall, Reuters. lowing the firing, a two- historic buildings and foot-long metal stem was over the last three years he has been commissioned to create large- assembled and welded around each poppy (7). scale installations for the Duke of Devonshire’s Chatsworth House, Several metal armatures were built for the installation at another Royal Derby Hospital, Althorp Estate, and Blenheim Palace. site in Plymouth, England (8). These cascading structures were built to flow out of the high tower windows, down the wall, and onto History the grounds (9). A separate armature was built to continue the sea Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, with thousands of poppies up and over the moat’s bridge. of soldiers engaged in the bloodiest conflict the world had known The immense task of creating the ceramic poppies fell to a team until a truce was signed on November 11, 1918. of volunteers in a factory 130 miles away on an industrial estate in The Tower of London has traditionally been one of the city’s Derby. The production line ran for 23 hours a day, seven days a more foreboding landmarks, serving as a prison from 1100 until week, reported McPhee. A staff of 52 people worked overlapping 1952. It was also where more than 1600 men swore an oath to the shifts and produced over 7000 flowers a day in order to meet the crown after enlisting for war. The tower was used as a military depot, six-figure target. The entire project spanned eleven months from the as a ceremonial setting-off point for regiments who had been sta- first poppy made in January of 2014 to when the last poppy was tioned there, and as the execution location for eleven German spies. placed in the 16-acre moat on Armistice Day, November 11, 2014.

22 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org Charity De-installation The poppies were removed throughout the daytime hours over the After their removal, several thousand poppies went on tour before course of a couple of weeks. The window and bridge segments of being permanently installed at the Imperial War Museums, in Lon- the installation (those built on the armatures) were the last sections don and Manchester, England, reported BBC news. The remainder to be removed and remained on view until the end of November. of the poppies were sold for £25 ($39) each, with 10 percent of The Tower of London reported nearly five million visitors viewed the proceeds to benefit six different charities: the Confederation of the artwork. Huge demand from the public sparked a campaign Service Charities, Combat Stress, Coming Home, Help for Heroes, to keep the installation in place for longer but Cummins said he the Royal British Legion, and the SSAFA. never intended the installation to be permanent as it was meant It took approximately 17,500 volunteers to plant the poppies and to symbolize those who had come into our lives and were then so an entire second team of about 8000 volunteers to dismantle them. tragically take away.

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1 Clay slabs were rolled by hand and cut into petal shapes with a metal stamp. 2–4 Petal shapes are placed on top of each other before they are crimped together. 5 Poppies drying in single layers on makeshift shelving in Paul Cummins’ Derby workshop before they were bisque fired. Approximately 7000 poppies were made each day. 6 (overall and detail) A bright red glaze was applied to the bisque-fired poppies before they were returned to the kiln for the second and final firing. 7 Two-foot-long stems were welded to each ceramic poppy. Photo: Guy Channing. 8 The metal armature, designed to swoop out the tower window, over walls, and along the ground was created in Plymouth, England, before being brought to London and installed. Photo: Brendan Cusak. 9 The finished installation included 888,246 handmade ceramic poppies. Photos 1–6, 9: Historic Royal Palaces.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 23 clay culture

magnetic clay by April Gocha, Ph.D. Dutch designer Jólan van der Wiel creates unusual ceramic sculptures using the attraction between metallic clay and magnets. The possibilities for this process are irresistible.

Dutch artist Jólan van der Wiel is creating attractive art. Inspired by the push and pull between magnetic fields and gravity, van der Wiel’s Dragonstone project fabricates intricate ceramic structures from magnetic clay under the influence of a magnetic field. The resulting structures—architectural, dynamic, and somewhat dangerous-looking—cozy up to the blurry divide between art and science. “By being curious, you can think about anything in the world in your own way and redevelop it for yourself by thinking about how it works,” van der Wiel says in an article about his design approach that was written by 1 Richard Prime and published on the website Cool Hunting (www.coolhunting.com). In the article, van der Wiel says that the way Dutch designers are educated had a strong influence on his style: “It’s based on experience and hands-on doing, plus encouraging a curiosity in the way things work.” Created from a clay powder containing metal fibers, the material is extruded from a syringe and pulled with a magnet to create some unique shapes. The interesting structures are created in an additive manufacturing style, with layers built up to allow the material to cure and strengthen into a super- strong ceramic. Van der Wiel hopes that his technique and art will transcend beyond aesthetics, though. Because the concept also

works for cement, he says the idea “could well be applied to 2 architecture and constructions on a large scale, with a designer or architect actively building structures or amending them on site,” according to the article. Van der Wiel explains, “Unlike a regular concrete, the metal and magnets can be used to hold a form in shape while cooling, so you don’t need a mold.” To see more of van der Wiel’s design projects, visit http://jolanvanderwiel.com. the author April Gocha, Ph.D is an Associate Editor for The American Ceramic Society Bulletin, our sister pub- lication for society members and the science field and also writes for the science division’s blog, Ceramic Tech Today 3 4 (http://ceramics.org/ctt). 1 Three Dragonstone forms made using a clay mixed with metal powder. 2 The vessels are shaped on a banding wheel set up under a strong magnet. The clay is built up using a syringe to extrude the slip into coils. Watch Jólan van der Wiel’s unique process for 3 Dragonstone sculptural form made by combining two pieces together. building forms in the digital version of the issue 4 A complete Dragonstone vessel. All photos: Jólan van der Wiel. Dragonstone is made possible by Sundaymorning@EKWC & Creative online at www.ceramicsmonthly.org. Industries Fund NL.

24 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org “In three years, I have run 35 tons of beautifully blended clay through this amazing mixer-pugmill.” Paul Latos, Linn Pottery using the Bailey MSV25 Mixer-Pugmill

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Toll Free: 800-431-6067 or 845-339-3721 Fax: 845-339-5530 www.BaileyPottery.com Email: [email protected] february 2015 25 studio visit Lesley-Ann Hoets Sedgefield, South Africa

Just the Facts Studio Clay My studio is located just east of Sedgefield, a village in the garden route of the southern Cape local earthenware with a very high-iron outside of Cape Town, South Africa. A veritable paradise of forests, beaches, mountains, 1 content, mixed with about ⁄3 white rivers, lakes, and fynbos, which is a unique flora famous to the Cape, with the most sym- stoneware and grog pathetic climate imaginable. My teaching and handbuilding studio is a converted four-car Primary forming method garage. Adjacent to the garage, I have an L-shaped fireplace manufacturing workshop (a pinching, coiling, and paddling business I started with my ex-husband 20 years ago and I now run alone called Hot Art), Primary decorating method slip trailing on the fireplaces which is open on both ends and roughly the same size as the studio. The workshop leads Primary firing method to our outdoor display of fireplaces, the raku kiln, and the sawdust pit. raku I fire in a raku kiln which is my preferred method, as I am a lover of reduction, the Favorite surface treatment obvious transformation by fire, and a touch of the unexpected. I love the way the blue burnishing and texture bricking of the carbonized clay body and the silvery sheens from the iron’s heavy reduction Favorite tools contrasts with crackle and color. I like to achieve textures reminiscent of metal and leather. wooden paddle made from a piece of The kiln is a stainless-steel, top-hat drum, insulated with three layers of ceramic fiber. It driftwood picked up off Hout Bay beach is about three feet high, two feet in diameter, and is on a pulley system. This kiln hangs in 1975 and plastic credit cards, which alongside a sawdust pit, used to achieve crackle effects and carbonization of the unglazed are cheap as chips but worth their body, resulting in multiple shades of black. I also have a dormant Olsen fast-fire wood weight in gold for their versatility kiln outside, where I once fired functional domestic ware. On the other side of house and studio (they are adjoined), are the clay prep sheds, where I keep my raw materials, a dough mixer, blunger, baths, drying bats, and a pug mill. Below that I have a packing shed for boxes for transportation, as well as storage for accessories for fireplace installations—pipes, stands, screens etc.

26 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org My space is very conducive for making all of my pots and those which allows me to get almost double the number of firings for for the business too—peaceful and wind free. The weather is mostly the same size of tank fuel. sunny and mild and I have undulating forested hills flowing to the The fireplace production studio, my teaching and handbuild- horizon. I am truly blessed. ing studio, and office, are shared with two employees. Because the My favorite thing about the studio is its location and that I studios are adjoined, my employees can work on the press-molded don’t have to use keys. My house is always unlocked, and yet very fireplaces right there and I can check up on production while I am secure. I do have two beautiful Australian Cattle dogs who are my decorating, glazing, and firing. The same kilns are used for bisque security and I don’t choose to live in fear. firing studio pots and fireplaces. My least favorite thing is having to rely on so much plastic; although it’s convenient, I still don’t like it. I also wish the electric- Paying Dues (and Bills) ity was free. That would be lovely. I manufacture the ceramic fireplaces by press molding a clay body I love the sparse Japanese style studio, but it doesn't fit my that is designed to have 0% thermal expansion, which took two working habits. Two of my older brothers have always had beau- years to get right. I have manufactured 5300 to date and I decorate tiful studios that inspire me. My studio space falls short of their about 50% of them. Business hours are between 8:30 am and 4 standards, however I have an amazing location to make up for it. pm, and this is when the Hot Art office is open and my employees I’m also inspired by the many potteries I have visited especially are in the fireplace production studio. those at La Borne in France. Because I have always worked at home, my studio is open 24/7. Energy conservation is very important to me. I catch rainwater, I teach pottery classes in three-hour sessions every week in my which is very clean, so deep in the country. I recycle and I also handbuilding studio. I have recently cut down from three classes a have an earthworm farm that supports my vegetable gardens and week to just one, so that I can spend more time on my own studio fruit trees. I fire my raku kiln with propane instead of natural gas, pots, as it’s very distracting running a business at the same time.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 27 Body I am primarily influenced by nature and I try to be in the right frame of mind for inspiration. I know that I just need to get started I took a big step back in terms of time spent in the studio after my divorce in 1998, as I was running Hot Art alone. When I got and do what I know I can do if I’m feeling blocked, such as start sick twelve years ago with being underweight, extreme sciatica, and to wedge some clay and make a few pots, not to plan or worry a sinister breast-lump diagnosis, I channelled all my energy into how they come out, rather do my best in the moment and watch alternative healing methods and am very happy to say I’m alive to see what comes about. and still very much with us (no medical treatment). I call it cancel. Those mental roadblocks are what it’s all about for me, teaching me to stop thinking my way out and start feeling my way out—to Mind get out of my own head! Inspiration hits when I am relaxed and At the moment I’m waiting for my next good book. The last was receptive and not when I’m wracking my brain. It’s important for Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, which completely absorbed me! I lis- me to just keep my hands busy; to be an obedient servant to the ten to a huge range of music saved on playlists on my computer— process of creativity, which is an expression of life. old favorites from the flower children revolution, classical music, My approach to pots—I personalize pots that are already vessels as well as all the music we listened to as teenagers, and beyond. with feet, bellies, shoulders, mouths, lips, ears, and attitude! I do My present favorite listening pleasure is Mattafix. not plan, so as the mood takes me, I start to dig into the clay bin

28 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org and when it feels right, I start to wedge and I start to pinch the clay. people who ordinarily might have no special interest in ceramics, Then, I rely on the fact that my body does the math and physics, but because of their interest in the fireplace, are using a work of so I try not to think. I just wait for the picture of the finished piece art that functions. There is a Facebook page for Hot Art where to flash across my mind as I work. Through experience, I know the you can see a video of me and my studio, and hear my philosophy. idea for the final form comes from the process. Essentially trial by My immediate plans are to get my work abroad. South Africa fire in the raku kiln completes the vessel and imparts unexpected has such a small population and during the Apartheid era, due to gifts, more than anything the mind can dream up. the boycott on the country, no-one was interested in work made by a white woman from South Africa! And thus we developed Marketing pretty much in isolation. Up until now I have exhibited at local galleries and the annual regional and national exhibitions of the South African Ceramics Best Advice Association. I haven’t tried marketing online, but we do have a Hot Don’t over plan your work and have no expectations. Art website, and I am in the process of reconstructing it to better represent my personal vision. Word of mouth for the fireplaces www.hotart.co.za is our best advertising, and it feels good to get appreciation from www.facebook.com/hotartfireplaces

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 29 Linda Sikora

Aesthetics by Glen R. Brown and Agency

30 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org 2 3

1 Yellow ware group, 28 in. (71 cm) in width, porcelain, monochrome glaze, oxidation firing, 2014. 2 Jar and teapot, jar: 10 in. (25 cm) in height, teapot: 9½ in. (25 cm) in width, porcelain, polychrome glaze, wood/oil/salt fired, 2007. 3 Teapot with bail handle, 7½ in. (20 cm) in width, porcelain, polychrome glaze, wood/oil/salt fired, 2005. 4 Covered jar, stoneware, 12 in. (31 cm) in height, 2011. Collection: Everson Museum. 1–4 Photos: Brian Oglesbee.

Spanning a pair of tables placed end to end, unfired stoneware plates extend in orderly rows beneath thirty feet of rolled-out synthetic vellum still wound at one end around the roller, as if ready to spread itself over as many plates as one might choose to make. The translucent surface of the vellum bears in pencil a complex pattern of tear shapes and spirals that echoes the organic evocations of brocade fabric. Into the gray faces of the plates below, a motif—extracted from the continuity and repetition of the pattern—is incised through white slip, making each plate a reminiscence of a larger whole as well as an independent composition in which the formal elements, repeated in quadrants, create a pattern of their own. This implic- itly conceptual work—Linda Sikora’s Unititled Drawing Table (2013)—is, in the manner of all effective abstractions, a revelation through reduction. Through its simple juxtaposition of two and three dimensions it condenses and expresses an aesthetic dynamic that has extended through Sikora’s art since her days of undergraduate study at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (now NSCAD University) and graduate school work at the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities. At NSCAD in the late 1980s the influence of Walter Ostrom, a staunch advocate of education in ceramics history, led Sikora to explore glazes and wax-resist techniques that recalled Chinese Tang-dynasty sancai (three- colored glaze) and all of the variants—from Syrian three-colored to Staf- fordshire tortoiseshell wares—that it inspired as it worked its influence westward over time. Characteristic of such wares can be the appearance of

1 www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 31 thin veils of colors clinging to surfaces like variegated skin. It is Sikora’s Untitled Drawing Table is most intelligible in light of no coincidence that, at the height of Modernist formalist influ- her education first in surface and then largely in three-dimensional ence in painting in the 1950s, when artist Morris Louis sought traits and of the way in which she has sought to reconcile these two to emphasize the essential two-dimensionality of his medium, he formal aspects in the porcelain and stoneware vessels that she has poured paint down the canvas, producing the streaky effect of produced over the past two decades. If the aesthetic goal has been Tang sancai or 18th-century Whieldon wares. This appearance a harmony of two- and three-dimensional elements, this harmony appealed to Sikora as well, but she did not succumb entirely to has not arisen through a perfect balance. On the contrary, it has the spell of surfaces, however attractive they might have been. At emerged as a relationship of primacy and support in which surface the University of Minnesota, where she completed her MFA in has sometimes played the dominant role while at other times the 1992, the influence of Mark Pharis led her to favor altered and three-dimensional properties of vessels have taken precedence. constructed vessels that achieved aesthetic impact largely through For Sikora, resolution of formal problems in the ceramic work three-dimensional properties of form. has always involved arbitration between simplicity and complexity that unfolds in the relationship between surface and three-dimensional form. “I came up through the school of cut and paste—making shapes by cutting, altering, and constructing,” Sikora explains. “A significant aspect of my education lay in pursuing that degree of complexity in a pot. After graduate school, I lost enthusiasm for these types of pots and the work changed dramatically. I began to make unaltered wheel-generated pieces. The acuity necessary to work in this manner provided productive challenges and evident progress. I was looking for another sense of interior space and looking to get closer to the essential, familiar quality of roundness—in life, culture, and in the historic pottery I am enchanted by. The expanse of the unaltered fields left room for pattern making and polychrome glazing. I see that 5 it has always been necessary for there to be a certain level of complexity in the work. When it retreated from the forms it appeared on the surface.” The complexity of Sikora’s glazed surfaces has been produced primarily through two separate strategies—treating the surfaces as single fields in which the elements of pattern are small and similar in size or dividing the surfaces into blocks that define discrete fields. The former treatment produces an effect of contrast and continuity between myriad small organic units, each slightly different yet consistent in kind, like plumage on the breast of a quail or petals in an orchard blanketing the ground after a windstorm. This kind of pattern lies as taut against the surface as fabric on a tabletop. In contrast, the second means of adding complexity to surfaces involves articulating space into larger shapes, like the division of a turtle’s carapace into organic hexagonal and pentagonal scutes. In Sikora’s work these shapes—or as she prefers to call them, reserves—are often themselves uniform, al- 6 most blank, but the borders between them undulate 5 Two jars, 15 in. (38 cm) in height, 11½ in. (29 cm) in width, porcelain, polychrome glaze, and drip in liquid acquiescence to gravity, or bleed wood/oil/salt fired, 2012. Photo: Brian Oglesbee. 6 Crockery group, to 28 in. (71 cm) in height, stoneware, porcelain, polychrome glaze (faux-wood pattern), wood/oil/salt fired, into wispy transitions that recall an animal’s fur or 2012–14. Photo: Brian Oglesbee. the edge of a turning leaf in the fall. The effect of

32 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org 7 8 9 10

11 12 13

7 Drawings of teapot forms from Sikora’s sketchbook. 8 Bisque-fired handle shapes and pattern and design ideas hung up on the wall, paper templates, additional handle and spout shapes, and bisque-fired prototypes that Sikora references when designing forms.9 Greenware teapots awaiting bisque firing. 10 A bisque-fired jar with surface decorations sketched out in pencil.11 Glazed pots stacked in the kiln, ready for firing.12 Sikora gently tapping the side of a casserole to release a lid after the glaze firing.13 Finished pots lined up on a work table in Sikora’s studio. large, flat, pale shapes and the darker borders that meander between production. She speculates: “Though they have fewer moves in them can be atmospheric, imparting to a vessel the appearance of them—the foot is uncut for example—I don’t think that I could a cage and empty space glimpsed through it. As Sikora observes, have made the faux-wood pots earlier. Their reductive qualities “the glazing became a way of articulating and reconstructing the resulted from a certain economy in how I began to approach surfaces by using color and pattern.” materials and how I thought about bounty. There was also an The play between simplicity and complexity and the dynamic attempt to generate tension between the elemental and the banal between surface and three-dimensional form have recently led by luxuriously surfacing basic shapes. In method the faux-wood Sikora to explore what at first might appear to be a radical departure crockery series comes together in a manner that feels more like the from the characteristics of her signature styles. Through a series making of a poem than the telling of a story.” Such a poem would, of sturdy stoneware crocks and teapots she has introduced a dark, of course, be in the vein of William Carlos Williams rather than striated whorl pattern that she refers to as faux wood. Somber in William Shakespeare, exhibiting the terseness of Neo-Modernism tone and emphasizing line over shape in their decorative format, rather than the regulation and intricacy of iambic pentameter. In the faux-wood vessels play the Apollonian, structural counterparts the faux-wood vessels economy in making has resulted in economy to Sikora’s more Dionysian, coloristically expressive works in the of form—the condensation of expression as well as the quality that larger exploration of formal effects. Though they began as scions Sikora describes as effectiveness—while sacrificing nothing of the of her earlier patterned wares, they were driven by conceptual as conceptual complexity of potential impact on the viewer. well as formal concerns. Color receded in the transition from the The conceptual impact most important to Sikora in functional vibrant precedents to the faux-wood vessels not so much through pottery is attained through effectiveness, by which she means a essentialization of structure at the expense of emotional content certain causality. “I’m thinking of pots not in animistic terms,” she as through focus on principles such as economy and effectiveness explains, “but rather as dynamic objects in a living system. We tend that have pervaded Sikora’s thoughts about pottery for some time. to think about household matter or things including functional Economy, in the sense of a conservation of energy, time, and pottery as props in our human-willed dramas, but I’m suggesting resources is significant to Sikora’s work, as much in the formula- that effective pots have affect and agency. This vitality brings into tion of aesthetics and development of conceptual content as in the room a capacity to script what occurs.”

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 33 14

linda Sikora Research travel to United Kingdom and Iran 2004

Invited faculty at The Ohio State University, Teaching at Emily Carr University, Promoted to associate Columbus, Ohio Vancouver, BC, Canada professor at Alfred Built studio at Alfred Station property Fall 1992 Summer 1996 2002 2006

1992 1997 2005 Completed MFA at University Moved to New York to teach at Sold Minnesota property; purchased house of Minnesota—Twin Cities; Alfred University; kept Minnesota in Alfred Station, New York purchased property and studio property as a residency for former students and to make work during summers Fall 1996 First full-time teaching position at University of Colorado at Boulder

34 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org This kind of causality on the part of functional pottery—of subtle influence over, even guidance of human behavior—is for Sikora not limited to the aspect of use. It figures as well into the stage of production, especially (as Untitled Drawing Table suggests) in the interval between finished three-dimensional forms and as yet not fully articulated surfaces. Decoration evolves in the space between prospective ideas, as sketchy as pencil lines on vellum, and the concrete qualities of pots and plates still in progress. “I have a notion of the type of patterns and colors that the forms will hold,” she says, “so arguably as I’m making form I’m embedding surface information in the piece. When the pots come out of the bisque firing they might demand reassessment because they’ve 15 changed or because I’ve changed.” It is ultimately in this reassessment that Sikora’s works integrate form and concept, not only acquiring aesthetic effectiveness—their characteristic resolution of three-dimensional form and surfaces into roles of primacy and support—but also, and equally important, integrating this into causal effectiveness: the agency, rather than mere utility, that the best of pottery can possess.

the author Glen R. Brown, a frequent contributor to Ceramics Monthly, is a professor of art history at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.

14 Yellow tortoise group, 28 in. (71 cm) in width, porcelain, polychrome glaze, wood/oil/salt fired, 2014. 15 Untitled drawing table, 10 ft. (3 m) in length, clay, synthetic vellum, pencil, tables, 2013. 16 Untitled drawing 16 table (detail),10 ft. (3 m) in length, clay, synthetic vellum, pencil, tables 2013. 14–16 Photos: Brian Oglesbee.

Promoted to full professor at Alfred Counter Pots Covered jar 2008 2010 2011

2008 2012 Built wood/oil kiln at Alfred Station studio; Teapots from the faux-wood series; research travel to Beijing and Jingdezhen, China sabbatical travel to Beijing, Yixing, and Xian, China

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 35 James and Tilla Waters Enigmatic Tableware by Paul McAllister

The climate within which contemporary ceramic practitioners ground breaking exhibitions such as “The Raw and the Cooked” operate seems increasingly hostile toward utilitarian work as we in 1993 exposed those hierarchical attitudes profoundly. Examples frequently see the allure of the conceptual, particularly in younger of artists being discreet regarding their ceramics training in order makers’ work. That the world of fine art is hierarchical is not news, to sustain credibility in the fine art world have been mooted (e.g. yet anecdotes of experiences of snobbery, even from other ceramic Rachel Kneebone). It is perhaps important to differentiate between practitioners distancing themselves from potters are common. Ce- someone such as Grayson Perry, an artist who makes pots that could ramics that does speak the language of art (but perhaps not craft or equally be a film, or a painting, as opposed to someone whose design) has fought hard to earn a place in the art world. In the UK, intention it is to make work suitable for the table.

36 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org 2

1 Gray and orange lidded jars, to 4 in. (11 cm) in height, wheel-thrown porcelain, slip, glaze, 2010. 2 Mugs, wheel-thrown porcelain, slip, glaze, high fired, 2009. 3 Large pourers, decorated and black and red, 5½ in. (14 cm) in height, wheel-thrown porcelain, slip, glaze, high fired, 2011. 4 Beakers, 3¼ in. (8.5 cm) in height, orange/gray line blend, wheel-thrown porcelain, slip, glaze, high fired, 2009.

When I first saw examples of James and Tilla Waters’ work at the “Origin” exhibition (2008) at Somerset House in London, England, I was not aware that they had both studied as painters (James at the Slade School of Fine Art, Tilla at the Bath School of Art and Design). Upon learning of their backgrounds, I thought it was a curious thing that two people who had trained at prestigious painting schools should establish themselves ultimately as potters. Even today, it seems a rare oc- currence. I can think of a number of established and respected makers who started out their creative lives in fine art as sculptors or painters but few who made 3 or make pots that can or should be used at the table. Since that initial exhibition experience, I have been fortunate to examine their work more closely at several more Origin exhibitions held in Spitalfields, London; the 2013 “Made in the Middle,” held at the Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham, England; and more recently at the 2013 British Ceramics Biennial, held in Stoke- on-Trent. Each time I was rewarded by different work and a different experience of it. Although the work is vessel based and includes teapots and other tableware, there is no sense that this is necessarily repeated production. Each viewing has revealed work that has been considered as a series or has evolved out of a particular 4 set of responses.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 37 Influences and Inspiration In the earlier work I have sensed what I can only describe as a very British response to Modernism, the Folk Modernism of artists and designers such as Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, or Robin and Lucienne Day. Tilla acknowledges the influence of her mother who trained in printed textiles and of growing up surrounded by examples of 50’s and 60’s textile design. Later work has reminded me of those meditative photographs of seascape horizons by Hiroshi Sugimoto. However the Waters do not consciously reference landscape or suggest that other people read this in their work any more than they do. The work is not nostalgic and the resonances with the past are refreshed and feel less familiar, having some of the spirit of these influences while remaining contemporary. It does share the spare, uncluttered influence of 5 contemporary minimalist taste in design without being burdened with its extreme adherence. They are clearly aware of urban influences despite living and working in rural Carmarthenshire in the west of Wales, where they re- located to in 2002, which is beautiful but relatively remote. Recent work has leaned more heavily toward their earlier training in fine art, to which they credit a broader attitude. Since 2011, they have worked on a series of cylindrical forms in response to a yearning to do something more expressive. Initially experiments, as they describe them, “to see what would happen if we removed the demands of function and the associated expectations of time spent making,” they see the series as a kind of “pure arena for trying out ideas.” The Waters carefully distance themselves from the proliferation of multiples presented in installations. In a 6 recent conversation they spoke of how each piece deserves

38 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org 7 8

5 Ferrero Rocher, 3½ in. (9 cm) in height, wheel-thrown stoneware, slips, high fired, 2013. 6 Unglazed tea set made for the British Ceramics Biennial, wheel-thrown porcelain, slip, liner glaze, high fired, 2013. 7 Circle Series (1), to 4 in. (10 cm) in height, wheel-thrown stoneware, slips, high fired, 2012. 8 Small and large pourers in orange, gray, and smog glazes, to 5½ in. (14 cm) in height, wheel-thrown porcelain, slip, glaze, high fired, 2014.

to be viewed on its own merits. This led to a discussion about the best traits of Spira, like approaching clay work as an exacting craft, tableware they make. They talked about the challenges involved in and yet the work has been liberated from what must have likewise making a teapot, from shape and form considerations to making sure been an incredibly powerful influence. the various elements work together visually and also function well. More broadly, they also shared their belief that there is a noble aspi- Current Work ration in making something that plays a genuine role in someone’s The Waters make their pots using stoneware and porcelain clays life. As they work, they think about the experience of picking up a and, excepting the cylinder series where they are both involved with pot, and the way that something as simple as a handmade teacup surfaces, James throws all the work and Tilla designs and decorates. can be enigmatic and enriching. Their work evidences a practice informed by art, design, and craft and I enjoy the fact it dissolves those categories in unexpected ways. It Apprentice Training seems a pity that more fine-art trained ceramic artists ignore the rich After graduation, James worked on a variety of organic farms, and potential of tableware. There are historical examples of fine artists who Tilla trained and worked as a school art teacher. They wound up have designed wonderful tableware but I can think of few who have as apprentices to Rupert Spira who arguably, although celebrated, successfully married the aesthetics of art and design with an underpin- deserves more credit for preparing some of the ground inhabited ning of craft knowledge and experience such as that demonstrated in by the now ubiquitous Edmund De Waal. Spira was one of the last the work of James and Tilla Waters. This territory is often aspired to apprentices to Michael Cardew and, according to Tanya Harrod but rarely achieved. in her biography of Cardew The Last Sane Man (2012), it took Spira some time to shake what must have been a powerful influ- the author Paul McAllister teaches at the University of Wolverhamp- ence. James and Tilla both appear to have absorbed some of the ton’s School of Art and Design in Wolverhampton, England.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 39 Movement and Tranquility The Work of Cathi Jefferson by Katey Schultz

When Cathi Jefferson walks through the old-growth forest a few hours from her Cowichan Valley home on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, she’s utterly attuned to the movement of the natural world. Epic Douglas fir and cedar trees tower overhead, branches so far above it is as though they dangle from clouds. At ground level, trunks as wide as 50 feet around come out of the ground apparently without ef- fort. Of course, nothing about old-growth trees is effortless; each growth ring a dark scar of hard-earned nourishment and survival. As easy as Jefferson makes an artist’s life appear, I’d venture to say hers isn’t effortless, either. There is a quiet patience to her demeanor that translates into her work and it’s no wonder where that comes from. But what I find most powerful about Jefferson’s synergy between a life lived and a pot thrown (or a piece hand-built), are the ways each pays tribute to movement and tranquility. A Canada native, Jefferson has maintained a full-time studio practice for 40 years, the majority of that time from her own home and nearby woods she frequents. Taking early inspiration from teacher Herman Venema (also from British Columbia), years of personal study, and trips to Japan, a triumverate of influence has stacked together to powerful effect. “Japanese historical pottery has always been a strong influence for me,” says Jefferson. “The simple, strong forms carry a sense of history and imperfection that reflect the importance of using well-crafted, handmade objects. You live with these objects. You eat and drink from them, and they improve the quality of your life.” Jefferson’s functional pieces include yunomis, wine cups, latte cups, mugs, plates, olive dishes, asparagus dishes, sauce dishes, spice jars, colanders, serving bowls, lidded serving dishes, gravy boats, and pitchers. Salt fired and slip glazed

40 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org in natural tones, most bear the mark of her unique nature-inspired surface designs and patterns—paper money leaves peppered across a vase, fern designs wrapping around a cup, or Japanese lantern leaves brushed across a jar. Some objects are presented in pairs or triptychs, intentionally set atop a thick board of salvaged arbutus wood. “Arbutus trees are the most amazing trees,” says Jefferson. “They grow in a very narrow and specific range; something like only 17 miles from the ocean and just halfway up Vancouver Island. These trees are being affected by climate change and pests and, so far, there are no solutions on how to heal them.” When asked about paying homage to the natural world, Jef- ferson wholeheartedly acknowledges that is her deepest hope for the work. Other than a brief series of slab tombstones and a breathtaking installation (Reflecting Nature: Reflecting Spirit, 2007) partially funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, it’s safe to say most of her work shies away from pessimism, lament, or pointing fingers. While Jefferson feels the loss of our forests and ecosystems on a deeply personal level, she strives to make her 2 work focus on the opportunity to reconnect with nature. If we can reconnect, we have something to work from, a way to remember 1 Leaf vases, 12 in. (30 cm) in height, slab built, salt/soda fired to cone 10, 2009.2 Raindrop Vase, 18 in. (45 cm) in our best selves. Without that, where would humankind even be- height, slab built, Helmer Kaolin Slip, black underglaze dots, gin? “Nature connects us with what’s really important,” she says. salt/soda fired to cone 10, 2013. Photo: Teddy McCrea. 3 Sandra Carr, Joe Gelinas, and Cathi Jefferson’s 6 Ferns on “We have nothing without the natural world.” It takes a certain Native Live Edge Arbutus Shelf, slab built, salt/soda fired to personality and way of engaging with the world to transform pain cone 10, arbutus shelf, 2012. 1–3 Photos: John Sinal.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 41 and disappointment into positive connectivity, and whether delighting in the graceful, playful stacking of her spice jars or marveling at the wide-top balance of her native plant vases, it’s clear the artist has achieved just that. Goldy-greens and rusty orange tones are presented in various shades, mirroring the passage of time from fresh spring leaves to late fall duff. Wide openings hovering above narrow bases suggest the expansiveness of a tree, while maintaining balance and functionality. Like the stately forests around her, there is tranquility to the work in both form and surface design. Perhaps more than any other work, Jefferson’s most recent sculptural series of Raindrop Vases epitomize the spirit of her creative process. The idea came to fruition during her most recent trip to Japan in October 2013. Awarded a paid, collabora- tive residency and conference called Ota Artist in Residence (OAIR), she met with one Korean and two Japanese artists in Ota, a subdivision of Tokyo. Collaborating with metalsmith Teruo Takahashi, the two discussed the Buddhist conception of circles and created several mixed-media pieces. From these interactions, Jefferson put together a handful of aesthetic challenges and inquiries she’d been pondering for a while, designing her firstRaindrop Vase. “I see any work in a series as an opportunity for growth. You start with something and see where you can take it . . . if it keeps engaging you, you keep doing it because there’s more to learn.” “If you think of a raindrop,” Jefferson continues, “it’s round on the bottom, so the form sits on a round curve, the angles vary, each piece different from the other—as it is in nature.” Working with large slabs that come together in smooth seams and a narrow opening near the top, the hint of a circle remains in the overall form but there’s also something more—an opening, a chance for change, a way out. The surface design consists of tiny, concentric dots modeled after an antique Russian seed sifter Jefferson kept in her house for decades. Working with the pattern, she realized she’d also seen it on a silk-screened dress she owns. The pattern likewise evoked falling rain or the ripples 4 created when raindrops fall in a puddle. Envisioning this work in Japan alongside a high-intensity collaboration and cultural experience, Jefferson couldn’t wait to get started. One afternoon, she slipped away for a solo visit to the Mitsui Museum of Art in Tokyo, affirming 4 Fawn Lily Storage Jar, 12 in. (30 cm) in height, wheel-thrown stoneware, Helmer Kaolin Slip, Ruggles and Rankin #6 Tile Slip, Green Slip, Dark Outline, her instincts. “I went to the teabowl collection and Warren MacKenzie Shino Glaze (liner), salt/soda fired to cone 10, 2011. Photo: it was breathtaking,” she says. “Observing how the Teddy McCrea. 5 Yixing teapot, 4 in. (10 cm) in height, wheel-thrown and altered parts work together as a whole amidst the variation in porcelanous stoneware, Helmer Kaolin Slip, Green Slip, brown Mason stain in terra sigillata outline, Warren MacKenzie Shino Glaze (liner), salt/soda fired to a piece was very striking. Seeing how the movement cone 10, 2004. 6 Cathi Jefferson working in her studio along with her cat, Hardy. of a teabowl works, I could appreciate something so Photo: Alison Tang. 7 Tree Circle from the Reflecting Nature: Reflecting Spirit Installation, 7 ft. (2.1 m) in height, coil-built stoneware, single fired in a train wood simple and beautiful. I looked at the foot and the body kiln at the Archie Bray Foundation, 2007. 5, 7 Photos: John Sinal. and even the design that was on the teabowl itself; then

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5 7

there were the subtleties of each of those parts and how they came and Korea. View her work in London for the 10-year celebration of together to make something so quiet, gentle, soft, and beautiful.” the Carter Wosk awards, or in Ontario at Canada Clay and Glass What struck Jefferson further was that these simple, ancient Gallery. Learn more at www.cathijefferson.com. 64

pieces could be so arresting and effective without overtly calling r e c ipe s attention to themselves. Having traveled to Japan several decades Katey Schultz has written essays on more than 60 artists. She is the ago, of course she had seen ancient pottery in person. But, like author of Flashes of War, a collection of short stories featuring char- a tree, the angle we have on the world is different from year to acters in the and around the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2013, year. What she saw then couldn’t possibly be the same as what she she received Book of the Year in Literary Fiction from the Military Writ- saw in 2013, even if studying the same object. “The work wasn’t ers Society of America and, in 2014, IndieFab Book of the Year from flashy,” she says. “There was a quiet dignity to the pieces; a quiet Foreword Reviews. Learn more at www.kateyschultz.com. movement. The eye didn’t get stuck anywhere.” While she’s too humble to think it herself, the same could be said of her own work. Watch an excerpt of Jefferson’s instructional video on surface decoration for salt firing in the digital version Cathi Jefferson is a recipient of the Carter Wosk BC Creative Award for of this issue. Visit ceramicartsdaily.org/ceramics- Applied Art and Design, has taught ceramics at University of Victoria monthly/ceramics-monthly-january-2015/. since 2007, and has demonstrated throughout North America, the UK,

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 43 Cary Esser A Vital Geometry by Glen R. Brown

r e c ipe s Interaction between the geometric and the organic in art can the recent sculptures of Cary Esser, the regularity of a pentagon 66 be a simple matter of formal contrast—of squares, triangles, or a heptagon can be infused with an apparent predilection to and circles negotiating space with softer, less predictable growth and a rectangle’s balanced perfection can be undermined floral or visceral elements—or it can be a more complex by the melancholy influence of death and decay. In Esser’s work

p roc e ss process of wedding forms to motives with which they are not geometry—specifically the geometry of the ceramic tile—retains 49 naturally compatible. For example, the organic shapes of the its abstract nature but at the same time appears to stir with im- body’s organs can be subjected, as in Duchamp and Picabia’s plications of vitality or disintegrate through the inevitable fate of compositions of the 1910s, to a machine-like organization all things that live. The geometric and the organic are not treated of parts that is distinctly less human than the workings of a simply as visual polarities but rather as variables in a relation- respiratory, circulatory, or reproductive system. Likewise, as in ship of formal structures and underlying motives that is open to

44 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org manipulation. As in Aristotelian thought, form seems schooled by an inner cause, but in Esser’s work the relationship between the two is clearly synthetic and exploratory: a matter of art not nature. Esser’s recent work has evolved from a career-long dedication to tile as a medium and an equally important, albeit less obvious, interest in metaphors relating to the human body. Perhaps the two emerged in tandem, since Esser’s early work treated the tile not as an autonomous object but rather as a component of architecture: of structures designed to house and reflect the human body through their utility and their aesthetics respectively. A student at the Kansas City Art Institute in the 1970s, Esser observed the urban environment and 2 took particular note of the impressive ceramic architectural ornament on Art Deco structures such as the Union Carbide building. The result of this observation was a shift in her focus from pots to tiles, forms that, for Esser, were closely related through a shared connection to containment and to human needs. “I thought about how clay had been used for architecture as well as for vessels,” she recalls. “Architecture is a container and the terra-cotta ornament is a veneer on the container.” While still an undergraduate student, Esser explored the potential of the tile as a functional and aesthetic form by constructing a temporary building on the KCAI campus and sheathing it in ceramic ornament. After graduation, as a resident at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, 3 Montana, in the early 1980s, she applied a colorful ceramic-tile mural to the interior of 1 Parfleche 1, 11¾ in. (30 cm) in height, slip-cast red earthenware, fired to cone 01, 2014.2 Labyrinth: Chartres, Maze, and Ear Canal, 5 ft. 10 in. (1.78 m) in length, press-molded and incised red earthenware, a Victorian cupola that had been salvaged terra sigillata, glaze, fired to cone 02, 1999. Photo: Jeff Bruce. 3 Topo 1–7, 14 ft. 10 in. (4.5 m) in length, for reuse as a gazebo on the Bray’s grounds. press-molded fritware, glaze, fired to cone 02, steel, 2010.1, 3 Photos: E.G. Schempf. Later, following completion of her MFA at Alfred University and a move to North Carolina for an artist residency at Duke University and a stint of they imparted a feeling of status and conveyed lineage. That’s become adjunct teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel latent in ornament in the last two hundred years; some of the devices Hill, she produced a number of public works on commission. Such have been used for centuries and they don’t really have any overt tile reliefs as Punica Granatum, Campsis, and Oinochoe, produced meaning anymore.” Perhaps this sense of disconnection between for an urban garden in Durham, featured robust depictions of heraldic imagery and its former symbolism gave Esser implicit en- flowers and pottery, andSandhills Flora: Winter, Spring, Summer couragement to separate the medallion from its architectural context and Fall, designed for a brick wall in Sanford, consisted of four and produce a series of autonomous botanical and geometric carved shield-shaped floral relief medallions. tiles. Sometimes these were singular, like the heraldic devices set into The medallions in her work reflected a reawakening of Esser’s Spanish Plateresque façades or English Tudor chapels; sometimes interest in heraldic devices, a subject she recalled from an archi- they were intended to be displayed in patterned groups more sug- tectural history course taken as an undergraduate. “The professor gestive of Middle-Eastern tiled walls. Such precedents appealed to discussed the use of shields on buildings,” she explains, “and how Esser, who tended to absorb and recast the spirit of historical works

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 45 rather than imitate their specific details. For example, the reliefs of By employing tropes such as metaphor (clay and musculature; the Leaf Stream series—with their carved elements and glazed blue architectural labyrinth and inner ear) and metonymy (shield and and turquoise surfaces—subtly conjured rather than copied the body), the Labyrinth works seem in retrospect to have constituted ancient brick murals of Babylon and Persepolis. important, if still somewhat tentative, steps on a path toward what Esser’s Labyrinth series of the 1990s continued the use of both would become a significantly more complex exploration of connec- the tile format and the reference to architectural shields, medal- tions between tile and body. The Labyrinth tiles were sculptural, lions, and heraldic devices but also introduced allusions to the divided into curvaceous, biomorphic sections, but their vertical human body. Some of these were obvious, even diagrammatic. orientation and display against the wall brooked no ambiguity Labyrinth: Chartres, Maze, and Ear Canal, for example, pairs a about their status as tiles. Likewise, the organic was referenced, map of a garden maze and an image of the famous eleven-circuit but only as form—orifice, ear, musculature—rather than as mo- labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral with an incised drawing of the in- tive. The next stage in Esser’s work would see a greater emphasis of ner workings of the human ear: the bony labyrinth that houses the concepts such as systematization and growth. Not coincidentally, cochlea, the semi-circular canals, and the vestibule. Other allusions the transition evolved from a renewed concentration on ceramic to the body were subtler. “I have an interest in the mass of clay,” processes, most importantly glazing. Esser comments. “The raw material has a physicality about it that As a professor at the Kansas City Art Institute, Esser noticed several reminds me of bodies, of musculature. What was most important years ago that her students had largely embraced the recent trend in about those pieces was that I put holes about an inch in diameter ceramic art toward monochromy. Hoping to pique their curiosity and an inch deep into each shield at the center of the labyrinth. about color, she revived an earlier penchant for glaze testing, never That had to do with my idea of orifices and the interior of the body. suspecting how profoundly the experimentation would influence the It’s not really sexual or scatological. The holes are as much about direction of her own art and even the underpinnings of a new body of the pores of the skin and the follicles of the hair as anything else, work in 2010. The Topo series constituted an embodiment of organic and they relate to how the orifices in the body make us vulnerable process in geometric form that aptly evolved as Esser worked with yet help us to survive both psychologically and physically.” materials. “I was just testing,” she recalls. “I got out every low-fire glaze cary esser

Gazebo, press-molded red- earthenware tiles. Created during Esser’s residency at the Archie Bray Punica Granatum, carved red earthenware. Foundation, in Helena, Montana. Urn, earthenware with slip and Installed in the garden of a private residence Photo: Chris Autio. terra sigillata. Private collection. in Durham, North Carolina. 1982 1993 1995

1989 1994 1999 Leafstream (detail), red and white earthenware, terra Sandhills Flora, carved red and white Rosettes, work in progress for Trillium, Iris, sigillata, glaze. Installed in Burtonsville, Maryland as earthenware. Located in downtown Passion Flower, and Pine Lily, collaboration part of the Montgomery County Public Art Program. Sanford, North Carolina. Supported with Al Frega. Old Revenue/Secretary of by the North Carolina Public Art State building in Raleigh, North Carolina, Program. Photo: Mo Dickens. North Carolina Public Art Program.

46 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org that I had, and instead of testing on tiles that were square I decided to make a pattern. I made tiles in two shapes: one with seven sides and one with five. I tested glazes on those, and in the process they started growing on the studio table. I was composing and arranging with color, and I decided to start playing 4 with different heights, because 4 (Detail) Landscape I, 4 ft. (1.2 m) the tiles were made in slightly in diameter, press-molded fritware, different molds and I liked the glaze, fired to cone 02, 2008. Photo: E.G. Schempf. 5 Landscape I and II, 4 effect. So my recent work all ft. (1.2 m) in diameter, press-molded really grew out of process and fritware, glaze, fired to cone 02, experimentation with material, 2008. Photo: E.G. Schempf. color, pattern, and form.” The Topo sculptures resolved the difficulties still present in the Labyrinth series of moving beyond a purely formal dialog between organic and geometric, and it made subtler the dynamic between tile and body. As the tiles took on varying heights, the chief bodily metaphors became relevant to growth and, to a lesser extent, physiology 5 rather than anatomy. Likewise, references to functional tiles became

Campsis Triptych, press-molded red Topo 1, press-molded fritware, earthenware. Private collection. Photo: glaze. Private collection. Seth Tice-Lewis. Photo: E.G. Schempf. 2001 2010

2008 2014 (Detail) Landscape II, 4 ft. (1.2 m) Parfleche 1, 11¾ in. (29.8 cm) in in diameter, press-molded fritware, height, red earthenware, slip cast, glaze, fired to cone 02, 2008. fired to cone 01, 2014. Private Photo: E.G. Schempf. collection. Photo: E.G. Schempf.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 47 units that share a common shape but vary in other particu- lars, most importantly the implications of stages of growth that are conveyed by their differing heights. Like people in a group or cells in a tissue, the units imply different stages of maturation in the organic process of growth. The natural counterpart to growth in the life cycle is decay, and it is perhaps not surprising that the implicit integration of this process with the timelessness of geometric form would occur in another of Esser’s current series of sculptures. This as yet untitled series began during a residency at the Northern Clay Center in Min- neapolis, Minnesota, in 2010 but its roots stretched back to experiments more than ten years earlier with a process of slip casting tiles. “I was trying to cast solid tiles,” Esser remembers. “I made a series of plaster slabs and strips that were an inch-and-a-half to an inch thick. I used the strips to make a rectangular space on the slab and then on top of that laid another slab with a funnel hole in it for adding slip. Sometimes if I didn’t fill the funnel all the way because I got called away from the process, there were some interesting things that happened to the surfaces. Then one time I didn’t have a big enough slab for the top so I used two. That created an interesting seam line. It was just something that I was playing around with.” When Esser later revived her slip casting efforts the imperfections were deliberately sought, especially those causing the hollow tiles to appear ruptured. In part the effect was appealing for its affinities with the slashed paint- ings of Lucio Fontana, an exhibition of whose work she had visited a few years earlier. Modern, particularly Minimalist, painting had drawn her interest since the 1970s, and the rectangular format of her new wall pieces made them reminiscent of canvases.

Escutcheon, 16 in. (42 cm) in height, press-molded red earthenware, From this perspective the bubbles and creases marking their surfaces glaze, fired to cone 02, 2010. Photo: E.G. Schempf. could be seen as analogous to brushstrokes. It is significant, however, that unlike the Topo sculptures, the wall pieces are not glazed. Their warm reddish brown or off-white surfaces, smooth and inviting of touch where they are not lacerated or peeling, are curiously skinlike. less obvious. The shift in orientation from the vertical to the horizontal “I think of these pieces as bodies,” Esser explains, “especially in the might have been construed simply as a transition in reference from relationship between their interiors and exteriors.” The ragged edges wall tiles to floor tiles, but Esser deliberately distanced her work from separating these spaces, as a consequence, cannot help but convey such straightforward interpretation by elevating her compositions on hints of the fate of the body: its destiny in decay. At the same time, shelves, pedestals, or custom-fabricated tables. The result was a lifting the wall pieces are geometric forms, rectangles that would ordinarily of the tiles from the immediacy of utility and a settling of them in transcend the organic processes regulating life. In these latest works the conceptual space of sculpture. In this detached and contemplative Esser subjects the absolute and timeless to the frailty inherent in the space the works became suggestive of dramatically varied landscapes, finite, and the result is a moving artistic synthesis: an inducement to hence the series’ title, but their retention of geometric form seemed to contemplation that neither nature nor geometry could provide alone. make them equally allusive to architecture and other technologically produced structures. Cary Esser has been the chair of the Kansas City Art Institute’s ceramics Despite their formal origins in geometric patterning (the pentagon- program since 1996. She is the Belger Crane Yard Studios Resident heptagon format was first encountered by Esser in a textbook on Artist at Red Star Studios in Kansas City, Missouri. To see more of periodic tiling) the units composing the Topo sculptures escape the Esser’s work, visit www.caryesser.com. absolute rigidity of formulas. Their production in press molds, the evidence of which is plain in the creases and pockets that articulate the author Glen R. Brown, a frequent contributor to Ceramics their walls into organic irregularity, imparts individuality to each tile/ Monthly, is a professor of art history at Kansas State University in column, giving the compositions the appearance of conglomerates of Manhattan, Kansas.

48 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org Having an open-face plaster mold with

flexible dimensions provides a lot of options Monthly Method: Tile Molds wi t h Flexible D i m ensions when slip casting tiles. To make a mold like this, I cast a large flat plaster slab, as well as long thin plaster strips of varying thicknesses. (The strips shown here resemble pieces of wood, but they really are plaster!) Creating a tile using these molds starts with drawing a rectangle the size of desired slip-cast tile onto the large plaster slab (1). I place plaster strips around the drawn rectangle, to create a space into which casting slip will be poured. 1 2 The space inside this open-face mold is approximately 15 x 10 x 1½ inches. Once the narrow strips are arranged, I am ready to pour casting slip into the mold. I mix the slip with paper pulp and sand, thus making it very thick. Therefore, it is not necessary to dam the cracks around the plaster strips with clay to prevent slip from escaping the mold (2). If using a thinner casting slip, to avoid leaks it would be necessary to seal the cracks

3 4 with soft coils of clay placed on the outside edges where the plaster strips and slab meet. I pour the casting slip into the open face mold (3) and check to make sure the slip is level with the height of the plaster strips that create the mold (4). Next, I place plaster slabs onto the top face of the freshly poured tile to create patterns in the face of the tile. Note the spaces between the slabs (5). The casting is left in the mold for at least 24 hours to allow water from the slip to be drawn into the plaster. 5 6 The next day, I remove the plaster slabs from the top of the cast tile (6). The linear fissures were created by the spaces that were left between the plaster slabs placed on top of the slip. The holes were created by air pockets created between the slip and the plaster slabs during the casting process. When dry, the tiles are once-fired to cone 01 in an electric kiln. No glaze or other surface treatment is applied. To hang the tile, a ¾-inch deep, wooden panel with an inset wooden cleat is epoxied onto the back of the tile. The rectangular dimension of the wooden panel is smaller than the tile so that it isn’t visible when hung. To ensure that the epoxy effectively attaches the tile to the wooden panel, I use a grinder and drill to cut angled holes and grooves into the wood face and Parfleche 2, 13 in. (33 cm) in height, slip-cast fritware, fired to cone 01, 2014. Photo: E.G. Schempf. the back of the tile before gluing.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 49 Playing with Fire

by Lilianne Milgrom

Louis Lefebvre knows a thing or two about ceramics. He sits at the helm grain of contemporary wisdom. However, after visiting multiple of Lefebvre et Fils, a Parisian gallery that has been dealing in antique and studios and considering the works of ceramic artists already known Modern ceramics since 1880. Five years ago, Lefebvre opened the gal- to him, he realized that through the primeval act of working with lery up to the brave new world ofinParis contemporary ceramics. the earth, the artists were creating exciting personal interpreta- For the gallery’s recent exhibition, Lefebvre called upon art critic tions of a shared, almost mythological story. Whether one turns and curator Alexis Jakubowicz, who brought together eleven young to Genesis in the Bible or to the Greek myth of Prometheus, Man ceramic artists from Paris, New York, Lima, and Athens to create has been portrayed as coming from the earth and ultimately return- an exciting show entitled “Tout Feu Tout Flamme” (All Afire, All ing there. Jacubowicz expands this concept by viewing artists who Aflame). Jakubowicz admits that curating a show restricted to one master working with earth and fire as “contributing to the work in specific medium was new to him, a concept that goes against the progress that is humanity.”

50 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org At the front entrance of the gallery, Florian Bézu’s Météore sits weightily on the gallery’s floor, a soundless presence foreshadowing man’s appearance on earth or perhaps presenting an eerie post-apocalyptic scenario. The streaked enameled earthenware glazes enhance the spherical form’s pri- mordial, naturalistic texture and evoke the violent entry of a foreign body into the earth’s atmosphere. Cascading down the wall to the left of the ominous meteor, Morgane Tschiember’s beautiful Skin installation represented an inventive combination of clay with mixed media including fabric, varnish, and steel. This work is one of the artist’s first forays into ceramics. The title reflects the magnified, pore-like effect of Tschiember’s mystifying technique. The clay appears to have been fired on a backing of fabric and steel mesh, pulling apart as it shrank during the firing, resulting in a lace-like effect produced by hundreds of uneven ceramic discs clinging like lichen to their porous ground. On the opposite wall, Mimosa Echard’s untitled work is a delicate triangle whose base is a glazed coil of clay suspended between uneven lengths of steel chain. It gives the impression that the artist drew a thin line on the wall using ceramics instead of a writing tool. She is known for her light touch and her work has been described as “an unearthing and recording of a fragile kind of poetry.”

1 Dewar and Gicquel’s Mixed Ceramics (N°1), 35¼ in. (90 cm) in length, stoneware, porcelain, earthenware, 2010. Courtesy: Galerie Loevenbruck, Paris. 2 Patricia Camet’s Viracocha, painted 2 ceramic, 2013. 3 Robin Cameron’s Ribless, 22¼ in. (57 cm) in height, ceramic, metal stand, wood base.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 51 Although it is becoming more and more common to find ceramic artists integrating different materials into their work, what is particularly interesting in this exhibit is that the majority of the artists represented come from other disciplines and are returning to and experimenting with clay, putting a fresh spin onto the oldest material of creative expression. Jacubowicz thinks it is high time for art to get off its cerebral pedestal: “Ceramics is a way of doing, of making, and getting your hands dirty. It is the intersection of art and craft that is drawing these younger artists.” The award-winning duo Dewar and Gicquel personify this trend. They have worked together in Paris since 1998, adopting a conscious hand-made approach to sculpture. By using unfamiliar materials and techniques they intentionally become amateurs, choosing not to be in full control of their process. This approach creates a tension in their work that is very appealing. The duo’s work in Tout Feu Tout Flamme is entitled Mixed Ceramics (N o 1) and as the title suggests, it is an assemblage of slip-cast, wheel-thrown, and found ceramic objects aesthetically unified by layered glazes. New York-born Peruvian artist Patricia Camet creates slip-cast installations that reference both her contemporary environment and millennia-old artistic traditions. There is a sacred quality to her arrangements that spurs the viewer to both seek the source of the form and read the deeper spiritual messages conveyed by the iconography. Camet’s work is presented in the gallery’s crypt-like 4 lower level along with other artists whose works convey a

52 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org 6

sense of archeological excavation and meditations on returning to the earth. North American artists Ryan Blackwell and Robin Cameron are prime examples. There is another subtext that runs through this show: the energy both consumed and alluded to by the alchemy of fired, glazed clay. One work that references this is the understated Vas et Viens (Come and Go), by Chloé Jarry. The piece consists of subtle, slip-cast light switches placed on the walls at light- switch height. Jarry focuses on the inner grandeur of mundane overlooked objects and her minimalist works reflect the influence of her artist residency in Japan. The Tout Feu Tout Flamme exhibition discards artistic convention. Jacubowicz explains his perception that artists who decide to work with clay “accept the scorched-earth school of art, to agree to a degree of violence or force in the midst of finesse,” an interest in transformation that takes many forms. The participat- ing artists seem to have jumped into the fire without taking too many precautions. The unencumbered 7 results exude a sense of the power of creation. 4 Florian Bézu’s Météore, 21¼ in. (54 cm) in height, enamelled earthenware, 2013. 5 Ryan Blackwell’s Mother’s Bad Dreams, ceramic, human teeth, resin, the author Lilianne Milgrom is a multi-media artist wood, hardware, 2011. 6 Mimosa Echard’s untitled, 19¾ in. (50 cm) in height, enamelled earthenware, steel chain, 2010. 7 Morgane Tschiember’s Skin, 6 and writer on the arts. To learn more, visit her website, ft. 4 in. (1.9 m) in height, ceramic, fabric, varnish, steel, 2013. Photo: Isabelle www.liliannemilgrom.com. Giovacchini. Copyright: Adagp, Paris. Courtesy of Galerie Loevenbruck, Paris.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 53 Scaling it down by Liz Zlot Summerfield

54 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org One of the first responses I hear when someone views my work in person for the first time is “I didn’t realize it was so small.” Most often, our work is seen in magazines, posters, and presentations, so to get an accurate sense of scale (even with dimensions provided) can be tough. Talking about scale is a conversation I welcome, because I am a firm believer that it is highly important to our work. Scale is not often discussed unless the work is quite large or quite small. I believe each person’s sense of scale is relative to their own body. What might be small to you could be large to me. It is important to be in touch with your own scale, and I suggest you do this by paying close attention to the objects you surround yourself with on a daily basis. If you collect art, is it large or small? If you wear jewelry, is it large or small? Do you prefer a large cup of coffee or a smaller cup that you will refill several times? Your experience with these objects changes due to their scale, thus scale has the ability to communicate. If we are observant about the scale of our work, it informs and answers many of the questions pertaining to the form and surface. Not many surfaces will transfer successfully from small scale to large scale and vice versa. The surface and form must relate to the scale. In thinking about scale this way, it is no longer an afterthought, but rather an integral component to the whole piece. In my case, bigger is certainly not better.

Sketch to Pattern Making How do you journey from a drawing in your sketch book to a paper pattern? Start with a clay sketch that will become the rough draft of your pattern. Make a cylinder (either by pinching, coiling or Opposite: Lidded pitcher on brick, handbuilt earthenware, slip-trailed from a slab) and attach a bottom. The cylinder should be similar patterns, terra sigillata, underglaze, glaze, 2014. Above: Lidded box on brick, handbuilt earthenware, slip-trailed patterns, terra sigillata, in scale to the intended final piece. Draw lines on the surface of underglaze, glaze, wire, 2014. the cylinder anywhere you intend to create a seam. Cut along the lines and lay the sections out flat, creating a two-dimensional shape Beveling, Folding, and Shaping (1). Trace the flat clay sketch onto a malleable material, such as The slab is ready to bevel and fold once it has lost its stickiness construction paper. Cut out the paper pattern. You now have a but it is still very soft to touch. To create a greater surface area for rough draft of your pattern. To ensure proper measurements, fold the slabs to connect, you will need to bevel the edges. Before you the paper pattern, as you would in making a paper snowflake, and begin, here are a few simple hints to beveling. cut off any uneven edges. Hold the knife as you would a pencil and remind yourself that To test your pattern, roll out a slab and trace the pattern. Fold your wrist should not be contorted or uncomfortable during the the slab to create the basic form, then take note where the pattern beveling process. If you are right handed, you will always work on needs adjusting. Alter the pattern and continue the back and forth the left-hand side of the piece. In order to accomplish this, you between clay and paper until you are satisfied with your pattern. need to turn your board to orient the piece as you cut all of the Trace the pattern onto a more durable material to create a master bevels. One common problem with beveling is being too tenta- pattern. Paper patterns can easily be rescaled on a photocopier to tive. The knife should cut through the clay at an angle with the create larger or smaller sizes of your original design. tip running along the surface of the board. The following beveling instructions set the pot up in a geo- Rolling and Tracing metric fashion; creating four equal sides. To begin, start from the Roll out a ¼-inch-thick slab large enough to fit your pattern. Run top of the piece and run your knife along the edge at a 45° angle a rubber rib along the surface of both sides of the slab to compress until you finish cutting one side. Repeat this step on all four sides, the clay particles and remove any canvas texture. Place the pattern remembering to turn the board after each cut. Once you bevel the on the slab, and first trace it with a needle tool before cutting it first half of all joins, flip the slab over and bevel the side of the out with a knife—the needle tool line creates a valley for the knife seam adjacent to the first bevel. Note (with the arrows in the im- to follow. Hold the knife perpendicular to the slab and cut in one age) that you are always beveling on the opposite side of the slab even motion (2). (3) to create each join.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 55 1 2 3

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To prepare for folding up the sides, brush the beveled edges with To form the feet, the pot must still be at the soft leather-hard slip (there is no need to score due to the wetness of the slab). Lift two stage and hold its shape. If the clay is too wet when forming the adjoining sides and begin to overlap the beveled edges starting from feet, the bottom will sag, and if it is too dry it will crack along the the bottom of the pot (4). Gently join the slabs together, working bottom. Using the fatty part of your thumb, gently tap between your way around all four sides of the pot. Once the pot is standing the seams on all four undersides of the pot (5). This forces the on its own, take a rubber brayer and roll the edges together to create bottom to become concave and simultaneously creates four feet a firm connection. The brayer connects the seams, leaving a visible for the piece to sit on. Once the feet are formed, place the pot on line, whereas a rib will smooth them together, eliminating the seam a level surface and bend the feet to eliminate any wobbling. line. Make these decisions based on your own personal aesthetic. There If you choose to stamp into the clay surface, now is the ap- is no need to add coils to the inside seams due to the wetness of the propriate time while the clay is a soft leather hard and can accept clay. You have now created your cylinder. Allow the pot to firm up the texture (6). to soft leather hard in order to address the bottom and add volume. Constructing the Lid, Flange, and Spout Adding Volume Once the pot is a stiff leather hard, you are ready to create the Set the pot on a banding wheel, wet your fingers, and gently push out lid. Prepare the pot by leveling the rim. This is easily done with a the inside walls. This stretches the slab and adds a curved, volumet- Surform. Roll a small ¼-inch slab about the size of the opening of ric surface. Work around the pot until all four sides are addressed. the pot. Place the pot upside down on the slab and trace around

56 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org 4 5 6

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1 Handbuild a cylinder to make a pattern. Cut it apart to give a visual from the 3-D form to the 2-D paper pattern. 2 Trace the pattern and cut along the valley created by the needle tool with an X-Acto knife. 3 Bevel the edges to create more area for the join. Flip the slab over and do the same bevels on the sides adjacent to the first bevels on the backside of the slab. 4 Gently tack the slabs together from bottom to top all around the pot. Use a rubber brayer or rib to secure the slabs. 5 Tap all four edges between the side and bottom of the pot to create both feet and a concave bottom. 6 I push a carved bisque stamp into the outside surface of the pot, while holding one hand on the inside of the pot. 7 At the leather-hard stage, cut the lid away from the pot holding your X-Acto knife horizontal to the pot. This should be done in one motion. 8 Finger tack a thin slab around the inside rim of the pot. The flange only needs to be slightly higher than the top of the pot to hold the lid in place. 9 Cut away clay from the pot just inside the traced line of the spout, so that there is enough surface area to attach the spout. 10 Use slip made from your clay body to decorate the exterior of the pot. The consistency of the slip along with the pressure used will determine the quality of line you create. 11 Underglaze is one solution to add color to the pot whether it is used for large blocks of color or small impact areas. 12 The slabs used for constructing the brick are stiff leather hard and beveled on all sides of the slab. The bevel cuttings are saved to be later used as seam fillers. 13 Attach all four sides to the bottom slab. The bevel cuttings fit snug into the corners of the pot and eliminate any need for rolled coils. 14 Once the five-sided pot is dry enough for handling, flip it over and adhere it to the sixth slab. Clean and compress the seams with a rubber rib. 15 After the pot is bisque fired, apply tape to mask the areas not intended for glaze. Peel away the tape before glaze firing.

the opening. Remove the pot and cut along the traced line, then Clean up the seam between the pot and flange with a rubber-tipped soften the cut edges, taking care not to stretch or deform the traced tool and avoid using any water on the flange. Adjust the flange slab. Hold the slab in the palm of your hand and rub it with your slightly inward with wet fingertips, so that the lid easily slips back thumb or a rib to create volume. Score and slip the pot and adhere into place on the pot. The lid will need to dry and fire on the pot the volumetric slab to the pot with the rubber brayer. The pot is to ensure a proper fit. now an enclosed, hollow form. Create a line where you intend To create the spout pattern, start from a rounded triangle or to cut the lid away from the pot. Insert your knife perpendicular ice-cream cone shape. Alter the shape of the spout by elongating to the pot and cut an even line (do not saw back and forth) (7). or rounding the edges. Once the shape is cut from the pattern, Slowly spin the banding wheel while you cut the lid away from the gently squeeze the slab in half to create a trough where the liquid pot. Rest a finger or part of your hand against the banding wheel will flow. Add a decorative cap by attaching a small slab of clay as you work to stabilize your hand and encourage an even cut. onto the top of the spout. Mock the spout up on the pot and make It is appropriate to adhere the flange to the inside of the pot sure it is centered. Once it is placed, trace the spout and cut just when the lid and pot are no longer in danger of being distorted inside the trace line leaving enough clay for the spout to attach 1 3 from movement. Roll a thin slab (about ⁄8 inch thick and ⁄8 inch to the pot. Score and slip the pot and attach the spout to the pot in height) from soft clay. Score and slip the top inside rim of the (9). Clean up the connections with a rubber-tipped tool. If you pot. Finger tack the flange to the inside of the pot leaving just a applied a decorative cap, once the piece is leather hard drill a hole small overhang which will eventually catch the lid from sliding (8). through the front of the spout to allow liquid to flow.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 57 the surface unglazed (raw and dry) or glazed (shiny and slick). Although underglazes may be applied at the leather-hard, bone-dry, or bisque stage, I prefer to apply them at bone dry, which leaves me the option to carve back through to reveal the clay body. After the bisque firing, clean the pot inside and out with a lightly damp sponge. Wax the lid flange (for easier clean up) and pour or brush a liner glaze inside the pot. Wait until the surfaces are completely dry before applying any additional glazes to the outside of the pot. To create stripes on the lid, draw pencil lines as a guide. Apply glaze (I prefer commercial glazes due to their brushability) with a small brush, and clean up any runs with an X-Acto knife before glaze firing.

Constructing the Pedestal Brick The brick is a six-sided, hollow form made from leather-hard slabs. The dimensions of the brick are directly related to the pot that sits on it. This rectangular pattern consists of three total templates; two for the sides and one for the top and bottom. Roll, trace, and cut slabs as described for the pitcher form. Allow the slabs to set up until they become leather hard. Bevel all four edges of each slab but only on one side of the slab (12). As you bevel, save the bevel cuttings in a plastic bag for later use. Take one slab cut to size for the side of the box and slip and score all four edges and attach it to the bottom slab. Do this for the three remaining slabs that make up the sides of the box. In lieu of rolling small coils, use the bevel cuttings to fill the spaces along the bottom and sides (13). Run a rib on the Floral and striped pail, handbuilt earthenware, slip-trailed patterns, terra sigillata, outside edges to strengthen and secure the seams of the underglaze, glaze, wire, rubber, 2014. form. Allow this form to set up until the bottom is a Building Up the Surface stiff leather hard and can be flipped without sagging. At leather hard, the pot is at the appropriate stage to slip trail and Once flipped, attach the top of the brick by placing the five-sided add any additional decorative clay components. Slip trailing with form on the sixth leather-hard slab (14). Secure and clean up the your clay body creates a subtle, raised surface without a change seams with a rubber rib. Poke a small hole on the bottom to allow in color. To prepare the slip, slake down your clay body to a air to escape during the drying and firing process. Place a small yogurt-like consistency and run the prepared slip through a sieve weighted board on top of the brick to eliminate warping while to eliminate any large particles. drying. Once dry, apply 2–3 coats of AMACO Velvet underglaze, Practice dispensing the slip through a slip trailer on paper to allow the brick to dry, then bisque fire. make sure the line quality is what you desire. The size of the metal To prepare the surface for stripes, use a slightly damp sponge tip and the consistency of the slip will determine the quality of line to clean the surface. Apply tape to mask off the areas that will be (10). After the slip’s sheen has disappeared, loosely cover the pot left unglazed (15). Brush on 1–2 coats of glaze and peel away tape under plastic until it becomes completely bone dry. before glaze firing. At the bone-dry stage, brush three coats of terra sigillata onto the slip-trailed portions of the pot. The terra sigillata will thin out the author Liz Zlot Summerfield is a studio artist and ceramics in- over the raised areas and pool in recessed areas. It is the perfect structor living in Bakersville, North Carolina. She exhibits her work solution for textured surfaces located on the outside of the pot. It and teaches nationwide. To learn more visit www.lzspottery.com. is used primarily on outside surfaces as it is not a glaze surface that seals the clay and may soak up moisture. Burnish the terra sigillata Check out an article by Katey Schultz on Summer- until you see a waxy sheen. field’s work from the April 2009 issue ofCeramics In addition to terra sigillata, I apply AMACO Velvet underglaze Monthly, and an excerpt from her DVD in the digital to any portion of the pot that requires color (11). The Velvet line of version at www.ceramicsmonthly.org. underglazes are versatile because they offer you the choice to leave

58 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org Don’t miss our e-dition at www.ceramicsmonthly.org

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 59 techno file

spodumene by Dave Finkelnburg Spodumene is a naturally occurring mineral source of the flux element lithium and is commonly referred to as lithium feldspar. It’s lithium that lowers glaze melting temperature and dramatically brightens such colors as cobalt blues. Using spodumene is not without its challenges, however.

Defining the Terms Sourcing Lithium Crazing: The condition in which a Potash feldspars may contain, in total, more than 14% sodium and potassium oxides by weight. ceramic glaze shrinks more upon At 7.7% lithium oxide by weight, a familiar commercial spodumene appears to contain much less cooling than the body it is fired upon, thus placing the glaze in sufficient flux. Such thinking, of course, is entirely wrong. tension to crack. Such glaze cracks The most common error made in the formulation of glazes containing lithium in any form is to are referred to as craze lines. overlook the critical fact that lithium weighs less per atom than any other flux element on earth. Lepidolite: A naturally occurring mica Since fluxing power is due to the number of flux atoms present in a glaze, rather than the weight mineral containing about 4% lithium of those atoms, the challenge of lithium is to avoid adding too much of it. oxide plus about 9% potassium oxide. To visualize this in action, consider simply replacing a potash feldspar in a glaze recipe with an Petalite: A lithium aluminum silicate equal weight of spodumene. What will the result be? First, the new recipe will have more alkali flux mineral with a high silica content, than before. Recall that lithium, sodium, and potassium are all alkali flux elements. more than 4% lithium oxide, and The recipe will also have more alumina and less silica than before. To bring the glaze recipe back relatively insignificant amounts of close to what it was originally requires adding silica (sometimes called flint) and reducing alumina other fluxes. by using less clay. Shiver: The condition in which a However, of possibly greater importance, the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the glaze will ceramic body shrinks more upon be sharply lower. As a result, the glaze may shiver off rims and other sharp edges of ware after firing. cooling than the glaze fired onto it, The point, of course, is that like many other glaze ingredients, spodumene cannot simply be thus placing the glaze in sufficient compression to rupture its bond with substituted for another feldspar in a glaze recipe on a weight-for-weight basis without changing the body and pop off the surface of the fired result. the ware. In the case of spodumene, careful use of glaze calculation software is the most efficient way Spodumene: A lithium-aluminum to bring lithium into the glaze recipe without producing undesirable changes to the fired glaze. silicate mineral currently available with well over 7% lithium oxide. Don’t Settle For Less or Pay Too Much Some spodumene sources produce a relatively coarse product. Ideally all glaze ingredients would pass through a 200-mesh sieve. It is wise to at least dry sieve a sample of a new batch of spodumene through an 80-mesh sieve. Any spodumene that will not pass through that sieve would settle out quickly in the glaze bucket, so it should be either discarded or set aside to be ground fine enough to use. A number of other sources of lithium have been used in glazes and clay bodies including frits, petalite, lepidolite, and lithium carbonate. However, spodumene is easily the most affordable lithium source available. H2O In a studio situation where a mixed glaze may remain in a tightly closed bucket for dissolved a long period of time, lithium carbonate may present serious problems if one is twice- lithium firing. The first firing, of course, burns organics out of the body, drives off water, and strengthens the ware while commonly leaving it sufficiently porous to absorb water from the applied glaze. The problem with lithium carbonate is it is somewhat soluble in cold water. Left to sit long enough in the glaze slurry, some lithium carbonate will dissolve. The lithium in glaze solution then migrates, in the evaporating water from the glaze slurry, to the surface of ceramic body the ware as it dries (see diagram at left). The water that reaches the surfaces of the glazed That creates a local concentration of lithium at the glaze surface, which can be high ware evaporates into the air, but the dissolved enough to cause shivering at that point. In extreme cases of lithium carbonate dissolving lithium does not. Areas that dry first, such as rims, in a glaze, both crazing and shivering have been reported on the same fired piece! ridges, handles and other attachments, will have a higher concentration of lithium (thus a lower CTE) The fact that lithium lowers the CTE of a fired glaze can be an advantage, however, as than other parts of the glaze. long as the lithium remains undissolved. Small amounts of spodumene, which contains lithium in a less soluble form than lithium carbonate, are frequently added to glaze recipes to lower glaze expansion and reduce or eliminate glaze crazing.

60 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org Recipe Comparison Glazes that have been designed to fit stoneware clay bodies clay bodies fired to the same temperature. Small replacements of will typically craze on porcelain clay bodies fired to the same the potash feldspar in a glaze recipe with spodumene on a one temperature. Likewise, glazes that do not craze on porcelain clay for one basis have a significant effect on glaze fit. The following bodies will typically shiver on edges of ware made from stoneware calculations illustrate this.

4321 4321 4321 From A Potter’s Book, for porcelain version 1 for porcelain version 2 by Bernard Leach Spodumene...... 0 % Spodumene...... 5 % Spodumene...... 10 % Whiting...... 20 Whiting...... 20 Whiting...... 20 G-200 HP Feldspar...... 40 G-200 HP Feldspar...... 35 G-200 HP Feldspar...... 30 Kaolin ...... 10 Kaolin ...... 10 Kaolin ...... 10 Silica ...... 30 Silica ...... 30 Silica ...... 30 100 % 100 % 100 %

Total Alkali Fluxes Total Alkali Fluxes Total Alkali Fluxes

Li2O, Na2O, K2O...... 0.246 Li2O, Na2O, K2O...... 0.26 Li2O, Na2O, K2O...... 0.274

Total Alkaline Earth Fluxes Total Alkaline Earth Fluxes Total Alkaline Earth Fluxes CaO, MgO, SrO, BaO. . . . . 0.754 CaO, MgO, SrO, BaO. . . . . 0.74 CaO, MgO, SrO, BaO. . . . . 0.726

Alumina Alumina Alumina

Al2O3...... 0.402 Al2O3...... 0.411 Al2O3...... 0.443

Silica Silica Silica

SiO2...... 3.759 SiO2...... 3.698 SiO2...... 3.674

SiO2:Al2O3 Ratio...... 9.35 SiO2:Al2O3 Ratio...... 8.99 SiO2:Al2O3 Ratio...... 8.29

Coefficient of Thermal Expansion Coefficient of Thermal Expansion Coefficient of Thermal Expansion CTE x 10-6/°C ...... 7.29 CTE x 10-6/°C ...... 7.07 CTE x 10-6/°C ...... 6.82

The 4321 glaze has a calculated SiO2:Al2O3 ratio of ~9.38 and a CTE silica in the recipe and the firing temperature (degree of vitrification). of 7.29. A direct substitution of spodumene for the potash feldspar The point of the tests is not to show that spodumene causes shivering, in the recipe (40% spodumene) produces a calculated SiO2:Al2O3 because it doesn’t unless one uses an excess of it, but rather that ratio of ~7.06 and a CTE of 5.53. The silica to alumina ratios are in from this extreme example it is clear spodumene has a significant a range where both glazes will be glossy and any fired difference effect on lowering glaze expansion and in small, calculated additions will not be visible. The spodumene version, however, with its very can improve the glaze fit of an otherwise crazing glaze. dramatically smaller CTE, may shiver seriously off any sharp edge. Subjecting the test tiles to several consecutive cycles of cooling I’ve used 4321 quite a bit at cone 10. When using it with porcelain, in a freezer for a half hour or so followed by being gently placed I have substituted talc for some of the whiting as well as adding a directly into boiling water should prove that point. This will be small amount (5%) of spodumene to reduce the CTE. The CTE of more apparent in glazes with dark colorants fired onto a light porcelain bodies has a wide range, affected both by the amount of stoneware body.

Have a technical topic you want explored further in Techno File? Send us your ideas at [email protected].

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 61 tips and tools

ring slump molds by Nancy Gallagher Want to make quick work of multiple, handbuilt plate forms? Try Styrofoam rings found in most craft supply stores, They’re inexpensive, lightweight, and easy to store.

I like to make slab-molded plates using a 12-inch-foam wreath form. This gives definition and a transition to where the rim begins. Any With this method, I am able to make multiple plates at the same time alteration of the rims and rounding of edges can be done with the with consistent results. The wreath forms are available in many sizes plates on the mold (5). and hold up well to wet clay, allowing for repeated use. Throwing Foot Rings Forming the Plate While the plates are setting up, throw the foot rings on the wheel, Starting out with a slab and a sturdy ware board, use a 12-inch bat to cutting them all from one open cylinder (6). This allows for consistent trace and cut out the initial circular shape (1). If the slab is textured, measurement and accurate stacking. make sure to have the textured side down. Once the foot rings and the plates are equally leather hard, place Once the circle is cut out, center the wreath form on top of the a plate upside down on a foam-topped banding wheel. Center the slab, place another board on top of the wreath form, then flip the foot ring on the plate, mark its placement, remove it, then score and entire sandwich over (2). slip both the plate and foot ring (7). Press the foot ring firmly into For consistent shape and size, center the wreath form and slab place, smoothing the top and inside edges with a soft rubber rib. on a banding wheel. With a wire knife or cheese cutter braced still, Allow the plates to dry slowly under plastic. perpendicular to the slab, and using the edge of the wreath form as By setting up a small assembly line of these molds, you can achieve a stop guide, spin the banding wheel and cut even trim all around either uniformity or individuality in your production, and have multiple the plate (3). If a shallow, rim-less plate is desired, tap the slab and surfaces at the ready for decoration (8). mold down gently against the board, allowing the plate to slump Send your tip and tool ideas, along with plenty of images, to naturally. For a rimmed plate, again utilize the spinning banding wheel, [email protected]. If we use your idea, you’ll receive a while bracing a soft rubber rib against the inside rim of the mold (4). complimentary one-year subscription to CM!

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62 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org Tons of great clay videos at www.ceramicartsdaily.org

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 63 recipes a r t i c l e 40 recipes for salt & soda by Cathi Jefferson Want some slips and glazes that work well together in salt and soda firings? Try the ones below that Cathi Jefferson uses on her work.

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Warren mackenzie shino glaze (1–2) terra sigillata helmer kaolin Slip (1–3) Salt/Soda Fire to Cone 10 Reduction Salt/Soda Fire to Cone 10 Oxidation/ Reduction Salt/Soda Fire to Cone 10 Reduction Soda Ash...... 9.1 % Ball Clay (OM 4)...... 4500 g Nepheline Syenite ...... 20% Spodumene (with iron). . . . . 36.4 Water...... 3 gal Helmer Kaolin ...... 80 Custer Feldspar ...... 42.4 Lye (or Calgon)...... 48 g 100 % EPK Kaolin...... 12.1 Mix well, let stand at least 24 hours. Siphon Apply to green or bisque ware. It must be 2 100.0 % and use the top ⁄3 portion. Discard the bot- very thin (like skim milk). Avoid drips; they 1 tom ⁄3 portion. will show. I spray or dip this on all of my Add: Bentonite...... 2.0 % For a red terra sigillata use Cedar Heights pieces as a base layer. This is a good liner glaze. Redart as a substitute for the ball clay. Ball mill or let stand for at least one week. dark outline (1–3) Andrew wong luster glaze For a rutile color, add 20 grams of rutile to Salt/Soda Fire to Cone 10 Salt/Soda Fire to Cone 10 Reduction 500 ml of the OM 4 Terra Sigillata. Mason Stain #6600...... 5 tbsp. Lithium Carbonate...... 5.3 % Ruggles and rankin green/blue slip OM 4 Terra Sigillata...... 500 ml Whiting...... 2.1 Salt/Soda Fire to Cone 10 Reduction Nepheline Syenite ...... 55.8 Wadding/Kiln wash Borax...... 4.3 % Kaolin ...... 26.3 Salt/Soda Fire to Cone 10 Oxidation/ Reduction Nepheline Syenite ...... 26.1 Silica ...... 10.5 Alumina Hydrate ...... 50 % 100.0 % EPK Kaolin...... 17.4 OM 4 Ball Clay...... 26.1 EPK Kaolin...... 50 % Add: Tin Oxide...... 2.1 % Silica ...... 26.1 Mix with water to a thick moldable consistency for wadding or thin for a kiln wash. Soda Ash (optional) . . . . 5.0 % 100.0 % This is a good liner glaze. I spray a thin layer Add: Bentonite...... 1.7 % over decorated areas of bowls and plates. 1 Leaf vases, 12 in. (30 cm) in height, Helmer Cobalt Carbonate. . . . . 2.6 % Kaolin Slip, Green Slip, Dark Outline, Shino Glaze Ruggles and rankin #6 Tile Slip (3) Chrome Oxide ...... 3.5 % (interior). Photo: John Sinal. 2 Striped cruet set, Salt/Soda Fire to Cone 10 Reduction 6 in. (15 cm) in height, Helmer Kaolin Slip, Green green slip (1–3) Slip, Dark Outline, Warren MacKenzie Shino Glaze Nepheline Synenite ...... 10% Salt/Soda Fire to Cone 10 Reduction (interior), slab-built earthenware tray, fired to cone #6 Tile Kaolin...... 70 Ruggles and Rankin Green/Blue Slip. . 50 % 04, 2013. Photo: Teddy McCrea. 3 Lantern vase, Grolleg Kaolin ...... 15 14 in. (36 cm) in height, Ruggles and Rankin #6 Rutile Terra Sigillata ...... 50 Tile Slip on lanterns, Green Slip on leaves and Silica ...... 50 100% stems, Dark Outline, Warren MacKenzie Shino 100 % Mix equal parts of the Ruggles and Rankin Glaze (interior), 2008. Photo: Janet Dwyer. 1–3 Add: Bentonite...... 1% Green/Blue Slip and the Rutile Terra Sigillata. slab-built stoneware, salt/soda fired to cone 10.

64 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org CERAMIC WORKSHOPS 2015

Return to your own work or discover a new medium. Art New England provides a distraction free setting in Bennington, VT with inspiring faculty, friendly colleagues, great food, and 24 hour studio access. All classes may be taken for credit.

WEEK ONE JULY 19–25 Ann Agee Handbuilding with Clay-The Riff and Grand Gesture

WEEK TWO JULY 26–AUGUST 1 Bob Green High Fire Low Fire

WEEK THREE AUGUST 2–8 Betsy Alwin The Magic of Multiples: Explorations in Mold Making and Casting

For questions please contact Nancy McCarthy: [email protected] or 617-879-7175 MassArt.edu/ane

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 65 recipes a r t i c l e 44 cone 02 glaze recipes by Cary Esser These glazes provide wide variation in hue, translucency, and texture, depending on the thickness of application, the rate at which the kiln is cooled, and the additions of colorants.

Cary’s Crystal Glaze (1–4) Cone 02 Oxidation Lithium Carbonate...... 44 % EPK Kaolin...... 11 Silica ...... 45 100 % Add: Bentonite...... 2 % Crystal Yellow Green Add: Chrome Oxide ...... 1 % Crystal Green Black Add: Chrome Oxide ...... 3 % Green /Turquoise Add: Copper Carbonate . . . . . 3 % Blue Add: Cobalt Carbonate . . . . . 1 % Very runny! When applied thick, these are 1 best fired on a horizontal surface To achieve optimum crystal growth, slow cool the kiln at 90° per hour, from 1562°F to 900°F. Not food safe. Marlee’s Satin Matte (2) Cone 02 Oxidation Barium Carbonate...... 2.10 % Gerstley Borate ...... 7.36 Lithium Carbonate...... 11.58 Magnesium Carbonate. . . . . 3.16 Whiting...... 12.63 Nepheline Syenite ...... 24.20 Silica ...... 38.97 100.00 % Add: Tin Oxide...... 4.21 % Dark Ultramarine Add: Cobalt Carbonate . . . . 2.10 % Deep Turquoise 2 Add: Copper Carbonate . . . . 5.26 % Grass Green Add: Red Iron Oxide...... 5.26 % Copper Carbonate. . . . 4.21 % Pink Add: Rutile ...... 3.16 % For a white translucent glaze, omit the tin oxide. A slow cooling cycle is best for achiev- ing the satin matte texture. A faster cooling cycle also produces nice results—the glaze is shiner and more translucent. Not food safe.

1 Topo 1–7 (detail), press-molded fritware, Cary’s Crystal Glaze, fired to cone 02, 2010.2 Landscape I (detail), press-molded fritware, Cary’s Crystal Glaze in Yellow Green and Green Black, and Marlee’s Satin Matte Deep Turquoise, fired to cone 02, 2008. 3 Torso Tile, Cary’s Crystal Glaze in Blue, fired to cone 02, 2010. 4 Topo 9 (detail), press-molded fritware with 3 4 Cary’s Crystal Glaze in Green/Turquoise. All photos: E.G. Schempf.

66 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 67 68 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 69 ° NARRATIVE ° FROMPLAN TOTechnique Join us for a ceramic conference in JACK KIP San Diego, California TROY O’KRONGLY February 6–8, 2015

Artists Tammy Marinuzzi, Kip O’Krongly, Jack Troy, and Theo Uliano demonstrate their own unique approach to clay and share techniques you can bring home to TAMMY THEO your studio. MARINUZZI ULIANO Hosted by Jackpots Pottery Sponsored by AMACO/Brent, Mayco, and Shimpo

To learn more or register, visit us online at:

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NEW BOOK RELEASE! GlAzinG Ceramic Arts TECHniquES Handbook Series Glazing Techniques Edited by Anderson Turner Anderson Turner has edited When it comes to glazing a ceramic surface we have many GLAZING TECHNIQUES books for the American options, and Glazing Techniques covers a wide range of Ceramic Society since possibilities. In this book, you’ll discover how dozens of talented Glazing can be one of the most challenging parts of the ceramic2003. He received a BFA in process.artists approach glazing using aAnd variety of techniques, materials Sculpture from the University and firing ranges to achieve stunning surfaces that are sure to of Arizona and went on to inspire your work. earn an MFA in Ceramic Art Unlike the past, clay artists today have ready access to electric from Kent State University kilns and more easily controlled firings, as well as hundreds of (Ohio). He is currently glazing is about more than just a recipe. Though understanding materialsglazes, underglazes, stains and istools that crucial are ready to use. If Director of Galleries at Kent you’re looking for ways to creatively incorporate these materials State University. He lives alone or in combination, or if you need insightful information on with his wife and three a particular technique, Glazing Techniques is the place to start. children on their farm in Garrettsville, Ohio. This book provides step-by-step details on materials, glaze for success in glazing, technique is just as important. If you have beenpreparation, layering, struggling lusters, underglazes, majolica, china paint, stencils, spraying, pouring, and more. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro, Glazing Techniques provides the expert information and instructions you need to inspire you for as long with glazing, Glazing Techniques will be both instructional and inspirationalas you enjoy working with clay. in your pursuit of a better glazed surface. Turner

The American Ceramic Society www.CeramicArtsDaily.org download aPrinted infree China excerpt or order your copy at www.ceramicartsdaily.org/bookstore

70 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org Sam Chung Akio Takamori Christina West Sunshine Cobb Kensuke Yamada Randy Johnston Victoria Christen Alessandro Gallo Cristina Córdova Farraday Newsome

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www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 71 presents New Instructional Video from Jennifer Allen Darted & Decorated: TechniquesDarted and Surface for Enhancing Form In this installment of the Ceramic Arts Daily Presents Video Series, Jennifer Allen demonstrates her 2-DISC SET! From basic alterations on the wheel, to more complex handbuilt proj- techniques for creating her beautiful porcelain pots. Jennifer begins the video as she began her ceramic arts daily personal exploration of form: by making simple alterations on wheel-thrown forms, pointing out that interesting forms can be developed using the simplest of studio tools that every potter has in presents their tool box. She moves on to her primary method of altering clay forms by demonstrating her ects, Jennifer Allen shares her simple techniques for creating sophisti- single-pointed and double-pointed darting techniques on thrown pieces. Then she demonstrates how her darting techniques can be applied to handbuilt forms as well. For each project, she also shares her decorating techniques, from the greenware stage all the way through the glaze. By the cated forms. For each project, she also shares her decorating processes, end of the video, you’ll be ready to slice, dice, bend, fold, paint, and carve your way to fresh new forms and surfaces!

Jennifer Poellot Harnetty from the greenware stage all the way through the glaze firing. By the Editor, CeramicArtsDaily.org Program Manager, Ceramic Arts Daily Presents Video Series Darted end of the video, you’ll be ready to slice and dice, bend and fold, and paint and carve your way to fresh new forms and surfaces! Decorated& Techniques for

with Jennifer Allen enhancing form and surface

Jennifer Allen received her BFA (2002) from the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and her MFA (2006) from Indiana University, Bloomington. In March 2008, the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) named her a National Emerging Artist. Jennifer was the recipient of the 2006– ceramic arts daily video library ceramic arts 2007 Taunt Fellowship at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. She is currently a member of an online collective of ceramic artists called Objective Clay (www.objectiveclay.com). In addition to keeping a home studio, she currently teaches ceramics at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. To learn more about Jennifer Allen, please visit www.jenniferallenceramics.com. withJennifer Total Running Time: Approximately 2 hours, 15 minutes Allen ceramic artsdaily.org g Copyright 2015 The American Ceramic Society ceramic arts daily video library

order online today or watch a video clip at www.ceramicartsdaily.org/bookstore

Handbuilding Potters CounCil Worldwide Membership Organization for Ceramic Artists with Pattern and Illustration {Est. 2001} Join us for a one day ceramic conference in Our member beNefITs Columbus, Ohio TOuch everY AspecT Of February 21, 2015 YOur lIfe:  Network within the community  Professional enhancement opportunities and resources  Save money with member discounts JOIN TODAY! Presenters: Chandra DeBuse and Lauren Karle Hosted by Mayco Call 800-424-8698 to join or visit www.potterscouncil.org To learn more or register, visit us online at: ceramicartsdaily.org/potters-council

72 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 73 The place to build, manage, and share your recipe collection!

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www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 75 monthly emerging artist call for entry

The May 2015 issue of Ceramics Monthly will feature work by emerging clay artists All ceramic artists, both US and international, who have been actively pursuing a career in ceramics for less than ten years, are eligible to apply.

Lauren Mabry, 2014 Emerging Artist

To be considered, please submit the following: • Up to five high-resolution (300 ppi) digital images on a CD • Full-size color print of each image, printed on US Letter or A-4 paper • Complete caption information for each image, including materials, processes used, dimensions, and date completed • Contact information including email address • Artist statement and résumé Dawn Dishaw, 2014 Emerging Artist Mail to: Ceramics Monthly—Emerging Artist 600 N. Cleveland Ave., Suite 210 Westerville, OH 43082

Arrival deadline: February 17, 2015

Submissions arriving after the deadline will not be considered. Emailed submissions and submissions containing more than five images will not be considered. Please do not submit materials in binders or folders. Submitted materials will not be returned. Due to the volume of entries, we cannot acknowledge submissions. No phone calls please. Eric Knoche, 2014 Emerging Artist

76 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org call for entries deadlines for exhibitions, fairs, and festivals

international Juror: Matt Schiemann. Contact Matt bonsai containers. Containers may be residents only. Students who have a Schiemann, Morean Center for Clay, 420 traditional or an individual approach California address are encouraged to exhibitions 22nd St. S., St. Petersburg, FL 33712; to the art form of bonsai. Juried from apply. Functional and non-functional, 2D 419-606-2475; [email protected]; digital. Fee: $35 for up to 10 entries. and 3D. Juried from digital. Fee: $30 for February 2, 2015 entry deadline www.moreanartscenter.org. Jurors: Deborah Bedwell, Michael 3 entries. Jurors: Ruth Braunstein, Mary England, York, “Ceramic Art York Hegedorn, Sara Rayner. Contact Ron Bayard White, Deborah Lozier. Contact 2015” (November 9, 2015–January united states Lang, National Bonsai Foundation, Teri Gardiner, Richmond Art Center, 6, 2016) contemporary ceramic artists exhibitions at The US National Arboretum, The 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond, CA 94804; from the United Kingdom and world- National Bonsai and Penjing Museum, [email protected]; wide. Fee: $39. Contact Ben Pugh, Craft February 13, 2015 entry deadline 3501 New York Ave., Washington DC, http://richmondartcenter.org/call-for- Potters Association of Great Britain, 63 Maryland, Baltimore “Putting the 20002-1958; [email protected]; artists; 510-620-6772. Great Russel St., Bloomsbury, London, Pieces Together: An Exhibition to Ad- www.bonsai-nbf.org/; 717-513-8883. WC1B 3BF, United Kingdom; 020 dress What is Broken” (May 16–July 4) fairs and festivals 3137 0750; [email protected]; This exhibition asks artists to create May 6, 2015 entry deadline http://ceramicartyork.org. mosaic work that speak of things that Virginia, Lorton “Workhouse Clay February 1, 2015 entry deadline are broken and illustrate how we may National 2015” (August 1–September 13) Wisconsin, Cambridge “Cambridge February 27, 2015 entry deadline as individuals and a community work artists 18 years or older residing in the US. Pottery Festival & US Pottery Games” California, Lincoln “America’s Clay- with one another to put the pieces back Functional, sculptural or mixed media art- (June 13–June 14) professional pot- Fest III Student Show” (April 17–May 30) together. Juried from digital. Fee: $30 for work (ceramics being primary medium). ters, representing all pottery medi- all US and international students working 5 entries. Juror: Sarah McCann. Contact Juried from digital. Fee: $30 for 3 entries. ums, from functional to sculptural. with clay, from the high school level to Mary Cloonan, Baltimore Clayworks, Juror: Anne Currier. Contact Dale Mar- Juried from slide or digital. Fee: $25. the college/university level. Juried from 5707 Smith Ave., Baltimore, MD 21209; hanka, Workhouse Arts Center–Ceramics Contact Wendy Brabender, Cam- digital. Fee: $25 for up to 3 entries. Juror: [email protected]; Program, 9504 Workhouse Way Bldg. bridge Pottery Festival & US Pottery Casey O’Connor. Contact Mike Daley, www.baltimoreclayworks.org; 410- 8, Lorton, VA 22079; 703-584-2982; Games, 1688 Hammen Dr., Cambridge, Art League of Lincoln and Blue Line Arts, 578-1919 ext.18. [email protected]; WI 53523; [email protected]; 580 6th St., Lincoln, CA 95648; 916- www.workhousearts.org. www.cambridgepotteryfestival.org; 209-3499; [email protected]; February 14, 2015 entry deadline 608-423-4515. www.americasclayfest.org. Florida, Tallahassee “The 30th An- May 8, 2015 entry deadline nual Tallahassee International Juried Missouri, Kansas City “KC Clay Guild April 1, 2015 entry deadline February 27, 2015 entry deadline Competition” (August 24–October 4) Teabowl National 2015” (August 28–Oc- New Jersey, Province “Peters Valley California, Lincoln “America’s Clay- artists 18+ in the US and worldwide, with tober 12) US residents creating teabowls, Fine Craft Fair” (September 26–27) fine Fest III” (April 17–May 30) all US and all media eligible for consideration. Juried both traditional and non-traditional. craft; blacksmithing, ceramics, fibers, international clay artists are encouraged from digital. Fee: $20/2 images. Juror: Work may not exceed 9 inches in any fine metals, photography, woodwork- to submit entries for the $3000 in prizes Panel of FSU College of Fine Arts Fac- direction. Artwork may not exceed $200 ing and other special topics. Juried from and awards. Juried from digital. Fee: $40 ulty. Contact Jean Young, Florida State in value and must be for sale. Juried from digital. Fee: $35. Jurors: Jan Huling, for up to 3 entries. Jurors: Tip Toland University, Museum of Fine Arts, 530 digital. Fee: $3 for up to 3 entries. Juror: Darren Fisher, Bruce Dehnert. Contact and Peter Held. Contact Mike Daley, Art W. Call St., Tallahassee, FL 32306-1140; Lisa Orr. Contact Susan Speck, KC Clay Lindsay Ketterer Gates, Peters Valley League of Lincoln and Blue Line Arts, 580 [email protected]; www.MoFA.fsu.edu; Guild, 200 West 74th St, Kansas City, Craft Center, 19 Kuhn Rd., Layton, 6th St., Lincoln, CA 95648; 916-209- 850-644-3906. MO 64114; [email protected]; NJ 07851; [email protected]; 3499; [email protected]; www.teabowlnational.weebly.com; www.petersvalley.org; 973-948-5200. www.americasclayfest.org. February 17, 2015 entry deadline 913-384-1718. Pennsylvania, Philadelphia “39th Nebraska, Lincoln “MUG Shots VII: Annual Phildelphia Museum of Art April 15, 2015 entry deadline July 15, 2015 entry deadline National Juried Cup Exhibition 2015” Craft Show” (November 11–15, 2015) Taiwan, New Taipei City “2016 (April 3–May 30) all US artists working Virginia, Lynchburg “The National Open to all mediums. Application fee: Taiwan Ceramics Biennale” (July–No- in clay. Work must be original functional Juried Bowl Show: The Battle of the $50. Contact: Philadelphia Museum vember, 2016) open to all ceramic artists. and non-functional interpretations of Bowls” (October 2–27) all interpretations of Art; PO Box 7646, Philadelphia, PA Works must be at least 50 percent clay the cup completed in the last two years of the ceramic bowl. Juried from digital. 19101; [email protected]; or ceramic. Juried from digital. No entry and available for purchase. Juried from Fee: $30 for up to 3 entries. Juror: Ellen 215-684-7930. fee. Contact New Taipei City Yingge digital. Fee: $30 for first application, $5 Shankin. Contact David Emmert, ACHS, Ceramics Museum, 200 Wenhua Rd, for each additional (3 max). Juror: Brian 139 Lancer Ln., Amherst, VA 24521; May 31, 2015 entry deadline Yingge District, New Taipei City, Taiwan Harper. Contact Susan Stark-Johnson, [email protected]; 434-946- Maryland, Timonium “Sugarloaf 23942; [email protected]; www. LUX Center for the Arts, 2601 N. 48th St., 2898; www.thebattleofthebowls.com. Crafts Festival in Timonium” (October public.ceramics.ntpc.gov.tw/biennale; Lincoln, NE 68504; [email protected]; 9–11) Maryland, Gaithersburg “Sug- 886-2-8677-2727 ext. 502. www.luxcenter.org; 402-466-8692. regional exhibitions arloaf Crafts Festival in Gaithersburg” July 31, 2015 entry deadline March 16, 2015 entry deadline February 1, 2015 entry deadline (October 16–18) New Jersey, Somerset “Sugarloaf Crafts Festival in Somerset” California, Long Beach “2nd Intl. Connecticut, Guilford “Teapots, Florida, Palm Beach “11th An- 2015 Picasso Teapot Competition” Vessels, Flagons & Flasks” (May 15–June nual Mad Hatter’s Teapot Luncheon” (October 23–25) Pennsylvania, Oaks (November 1–January 1, 2016) Orig- 14) containers in all media, including (March 10 ) tea party themed objects “Sugarloaf Crafts Festival in Oaks“ inal art only. Juried from actual mixed media. All submitted work must such as teacups, teapots, cookie plates, (November 6–8) Maryland, Gaithersburg work. Fee: $25. Jurors: John Parham, be three dimensional. Open to US resi- sugar and creamers, tea infusers, and “Sugarloaf Crafts Festival in Gaith- Mark Burns Consulting. Contact dents. Juried from digital. Fee: $25 for platters in all craft media. Juried from ersburg” (November 20–22) Virginia, John Parham, Teapotguy.com, 126 3 entries. Juror: Hayne Bayless. Contact digital. Fee: $25 for 3 entries. Juror: Chantilly “Sugarloaf Crafts Festival in Esperanz, Ste. A, Long Beach, CA Maureen Belden, Guilford Art Center, Mark Walnock. Contact Mark Walnock, Chantilly” (December 11–13) All Sugar- 90802; [email protected]; PO Box 589, Guilford, CT 06437; 203- Armory Art Center School of Art, 1700 loaf Craft Festival entries: Open to all craft www.teapotguy.com; 310-717-3358. 453-5947; [email protected]; Parker Ave., West Palm Beach, FL mediums. Juried from slides or dig- www.guilfordartcenter.org. 33401; [email protected]; ital. Fee: $20. Contact Sugarloaf September 15, 2015 entry deadline www.armoryart.org; 561-832-1776 x37. Craft Festivals, Sugarloaf Mountain Florida, St. Petersburg“Biennial Cup March 21, 2015 entry deadline Works Inc., 19807 Executive Park Show” (October 1–31) cups, mugs, tum- Washington, DC “The 3rd Na- February 2, 2015 entry deadline Circle, Germantown, MD 20874; 301- blers, yunomis, teacups, steins, teabowls. tional Juried Bonsai Pot Exhibition” California, Richmond “California 990-1400; [email protected]; Juried from digital. Fee: $30/3 entries. (June 12–August 2) American made Now” (June 13–August 21) California www.sugarloafcrafts.com.

www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 77 classified advertising Ceramics Monthly welcomes classifieds in the following categories: Buy/Sell, Employment, Events, Opportunities, Personals, Products, Publications/Videos, Real Estate, Rentals, Services, Travel. Accepted advertisements will be inserted into the first available print issue, and posted on our website for 30 days at no additional charge! See www.ceramicsmonthly.org for details.

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78 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org index to advertisers

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www.ceramicsmonthly.org february 2015 79 spotlight making it work

Ceramics Monthly: Robert Briscoe: Obviously, What do you think it to make a living as a takes to make a living potter, you must first care as a potter? passionately about making good pots. Developing the skills to make good pots is the prerequisite to making a living. Once you have that, you need the same skills as any other entrepreneur if you want to support yourself through your art. You need to be efficient in the studio, identify and nurture your audience, manage your money, and, most importantly, preserve your passion.

Efficiency Understand the need to maintain the treacherous balance between efficiency and aesthetics. Continually invest in yourself as an artist— equipment, training, time, tools, space. Recognize when it makes sense to hire another person to get something done. (My example is photography.) Be disciplined in the studio (seasoned with fun as appropriate).

Identifying and Nurturing an Audience Acknowledge that you must sell your work to live. Explore different ways of marketing to find the mix that will work for you—wholesale, art fairs, Internet sales, galleries, studio events, workshops, teaching. Recognize that this will change over time as the world changes. •Acknowledge the importance and the cost of marketing—you either embrace this role or you pay someone else to do it for you. Same as cleaning.

Managing Your Money Acknowledge that choosing to be a potter probably means accepting a lower-middle-class lifestyle. Most potters don’t make six-figure incomes. Understand the appropriate use of debt. Embrace the role of being an accountant or hire someone to do it. But, even if you hire it out, you must understand the numbers and how they impact your studio.

Preserving your Passion Do it for yourself. Recognize the joy in this choice. Take on projects that carry you forward. Learn to say no to opportunities that distract you from your path. Trust that it will work. Find or build a community that supports you.

80 february 2015 www.ceramicsmonthly.org