Studio Saturday

It's been a short week at the studio. Sometimes, other things get in the way ... and sometimes the energy just isn't there. This week I was concentrating on getting the remaining dipped pots ready for the upcoming stoneware firing, and on catching up with the documentation of those already finished.

Having photographed the most recent pots, I needed to download, crop, adjust colour balance, resize, etc. Somewhat tedious.

After the photos are photoshopped, = they get put onto a page of an Indesign file, in no particular order, and printed -

Then the page gets cut up and pix pasted onto the record sheets. Documentation is complete. 

Looking at these pages (the second one happened by accident, getting slap-happy with the Control+C manoeuvre) I realise that most of my other, previous, over-the-years pots have been individually photographed.

It seems a useful thing to retrieve and gather those pix - which are on the computer rather than "in the cloud" - and resize them so that they make up a "pack of cards" and I can manipulate them into groupings and layouts without being afraid of dropping or bumping the pots themselves.

Or maybe that's too fussy and I should simply get out all the boxes of bubble-wrapped porcelain and sort out what to keep and what to get rid of. There's got to be a point when you do start to get rid of things...

Another plan involving photos, one that's been in my mind for a long time and is at the basis of the entire making process, is to juxtapose the Before (fabric) and After (clay). Perhaps doing that will help me figure out "why" and "where next". (And the "which to keep"...)

Before I start on a new series (aim: a dozen pots with more focus), there are a few more fabric pots hanging around that could be made ready for firing. But some of them are my "complicated" favourites, lots of stitching - they could end up as they are.

No progress with the new kiln - the electrician hasn't come to wire it up yet. After that it needs a test firing and getting to grips with practicalities (such as programming the controller), and then .... well, what then???

First there's this -

In preparation for the Open Studio I'm thinking of what and how to display - which brings us to The Shards. It's getting to the point where I can "let go" of the clunky, boring, chipped, misshapen etc pieces - smash 'em and layer the shards in a jar is the idea. (The idea harks back to the burning-of-work midway through the Book Arts course, when we had an assessment ... that was fun.)

I had some jars (and vases?) on hand

but none were right. The hunt is on, in charity shops. This is the first contender -

A friend said - " It looks like a kilner jar - which suggests edibles - is that what you want? The particular shape of a funerary urn suggests things past, memories, broken/dead but not forgotten.... A measuring cylinder would suggest scientific analysis, recording etc   "

Which got me thinking....

Yes it's a kilner jar - which can also suggest preservation, indeed cooking (heat), and exclusion of air (as in tomb).

Where to get a glass funerary urn.......?

I hope the shard become layers - there are some very dark pieces I plan to destroy.

Measuring cylinder also suggests (a) time (to fill it to a certain point); (b) accretion; (c) experimentation of a somewhat scientific sort.

These are the possibilities so far -

As far as the display goes, I'm wondering if some of the groups could sit on grounds of various sorts ... adding an emotional component perhaps ... (again it would be good to have it clear in my head how/why this is meant to work)

 Or maybe the best thing would be to have just the pots themselves, a parade of them across or around the table?

These are ready for firing -

 The space is getting clearer .... the flowers near the window were dipped a couple of weeks ago and are cracking up, is there any point in firing them....