Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play |
Not to be outdone… when Michelle saw Allison stamping her plate in class,
she decided to go for it too!!! It was a great night of stamping fun for my students
in class Tuesday night! Allison & Michelle have the bug… it’s a slippery-slope
down that stamping hole. Get ready for a sweet ride!
Tuesday night in my Wheelthrowing Class, one of my returning students needed a way to decorate her plate… and decided to tackle stamping of the rim. Wonder where she got THAT idea?!… and I wonder where this stamping-prodigy has been hiding all this time? Allison’s plate turned out BEAUTIFULLY!!! I think she might be onto something here…
Adding colored flashing slip accents to my latest batch of mugs
to celebrate another MUGSHOT MONDAY!
Today I finally sent a “deadline” email to my studio landlord…
and looky-there… just a couple hours later... it’s all FIXED?! Well, kinda.
I’m excited to have light again. But I was confused as the new LED fixture that had been jury-rigged to the old fixture was gone… along with all the extra cords… and now I have some “bonus” fluorescent bulbs on my wedging table?! Turns out all he did was switch out the bulbs to new LED tubes… left the old ones on my table… and called it done?!
Disregard the fact that the fixture still does NOT turn on or off…
he said since it’s now LED I can “just leave it on since it doesn’t use much electricity!”
I guess I should have sent a “demanding” e-mail a few months back
if I knew it would just take an hour for him to fix it?!
And I use the term “fix” fairly loosely…
Another platter ready to be stamped. I like to call it “on the soft side of leatherhard” when I stamp. It’s dry enough to not be sticky or floppy, but still wetter and more malleable than when you would normal trim the plate.
And then the stamping fun began…
Round & round & round…
And the tools that did all the work… two clay stamps, a wooden tool... and my fingers!
In one of the wheelthrowing rooms at Lillstreet, there’s a large plaster bat divided in two sides… one side for clean porcelain, the other side for everything else! Apparently someone left a pile of reclaimed clay slurry on the plaster bat… quite possibly on the wrong side?!!!
You’ve got to love the question… and the response… and the fact the clay is STILL there on the plaster bat!!! Unattended. Not claimed. Sure to be completely dried by the morning.
Okay, so I would love to call this the POTTERY OLYMPICS…
but that only happens every four years! Ha!!!
So this week in class after we critiqued , judged & awarded the Nesting Bowls…
we moved onto the POTTERY OLYMPICS… okay, so maybe it’s not so bad…
We started by dividing the class into four teams of three. I had pre-chosen the Team Captains… by splitting up the couples… so it was Molly vs. Jacob vs. Patti vs. Jon. But then we found out that Jon was not coming to class for a medical issue… so his “Captain-manship” was handed off to Teresa who had just finished eating Jon’s dinner! So the four Team Captains chose their teams and we were almost ready to move on… except one team only had two people. So I drafted my friend Natalie who has recently returned to Chicago & Lillstreet to join us in the activities. She was great to agree on such short notice!!!
To kick it off… I had each team fill out a worksheet to assign who might be the “competitor” in some of the challenges… only using cryptic hints as to what the challenge would be.
CHALLENGE ONE
Each team had one bag of clay, a wire tool and one competitor to cut it up into predetermined weights. No scale. No weighing of the pieces. Just their best judgement with a chance to compare each ball to each other. At the end of the challenge, we weighed the balls of clay… to add up the variances. Team that was the closest to the correct weights would win the challenge!
We then did a bit of housekeeping…
Each team had a chance to even out their weighting mistakes, making sure their balls of clay were the correct weight. They then wedged them up – while another member of their team set-up a wheel for future throwing challenges!
CHALLENGE TWO
This time we had two competitors for each team… each using a two-pound ball of clay. They had a limited amount of time to hand roll the longest coils they could…. and limited table space! And here’s the twist… if your coil were to break during the challenge, you’re done! No squishing it back together. We would just measure the longest segment while the others continue to roll clay.
CHALLENGE THREE
For the next challenge… it was the third member of each team who did NOT roll a coil that was up! Now they had to use the recently-rolled coils to build the tallest coil cylinder. Simple enough, right? They could not continue rolling the coils… and it had to be freestanding at the end.
CHALLENGE FOUR
We then switched to a wheelthrowing challenge. All three players on each team would get a 3-pound ball of clay. Using one wheel per team, they would take turns throwing matching bowls! The first person would throw a bowl, and then they switched places as the second person stepped up to match that first bowl. Now with two bowls in, the third person stepped in to match the first two! Harder than it sounds… since there was no going back to “fix up” or alter the previous bowls!
CHALLENGE FIVE
We stuck with wheelthrowing for the next challenge… this time with two pre-determined players. Again with a three pound ball of clay they had to throw one “perfect” bowl. And here’s the twist… One throwing. One driving. Yep, one person was doing all of the centering & throwing… while the other person had complete control over the speed on the foot pedal.
 Whoops!!!… I missed the photos of this one! But trust me, it was fun to watch!
CHALLENGE SIX
After two wheelthrowing challenges… we switched back to handbuilding for a slab throwing competition. With five pounds of clay, they had to throw the largest slab of clay… round-robin fashion with each team member taking a turn. And again, if their slab broke at any point… they were done with the challenge. No squishing it back together! Largest surface area wins!
It’s a “shame” no one had any fun!!!
CHALLENGE SEVEN
For their final challenge.. and the funniest… for me… each team had to throw one final “perfect” bowl with a four pound ball of clay. They would each have two minutes… switch… two minutes… switch… two minutes… Two full rounds of working on the same bowl. Yes, each team would continue to work on their one bowl to make it as “perfect” as they could. Each person had two “two-minute” chances to help their team
And here’s the best part… for ME at least… all the while BLINDFOLDED!!!
And then the final challenge envelope… THEIR HOMEWORK!!!
PSYCH!!!
They have no homework this week as they have all been working so hard over the past couple weeks.. the deserve a break – and some tie to make what ever they want for a change!
And again, I have the BEST STUDENTS EVER!!!
Each of them embraced my crazy challenges and played along with my silly reindeer games!
Okay, so right off the bat… I need to apologize for not having the best photos this time!
I regret NOT getting photos of everyone’s nesting bowl sets. The bowls were all squeezed onto one table… some were stacked… some were not.. some were still too wet to move… and my mind was swirling knowing that I had to pick the TOP TWO… and more importantly, knowing that I had a LOT of crazy fun challenges that we had to get started quickly if we were going to get around to all of them?!
So this week’s homework challenge was a set of three wheelthrown nesting bowls. A tough challenge to get done in just one week! And to up the ante even more… I added a secondary challenge for EXTRA CREDIT BONUS POINTS!!! If the they were to make a nesting set of FIVE bowls and still get chosen for the TOP TWO… they would win huge bonus points!!!
Donna made this adorable set of nesting bowls…
a wonderful set for the “handbuilder” in the class! Her fit & sizing was spot-on!
Dave went for a nesting set of FIVE… but had a few issues along the way…
so he ended with a set of four porcelain bowls decorated with some blue underglaze.
Susan went for a set of FIVE nesting bowls.. and took a narrative spin on “nesting” as well!!! She bowls were beautifully decorated on the outside with some colored slip and sgraffito “nest” and “leaf” patterns. She even went as far has having nests & eggs inside a few of them… and an “empty nest” for when the kids leave!
Claire made a lot of bowls that all stacked well… and were ULTRA-light!!! Some brushed on colored slip details to bring them all together!
Patti was chosen as one of the TOP TWO with these very well-thrown,
well-trimmed and perfecting nesting bowls. The simple perfection of the underglaze
decoration helped with the win!
Tatiana won the BIG BONUS PRIZE for her set of five nesting bowls…
well, actually more than FIVE!!! Again so sorry I didn’t get a photo of her full set stacked.
They were pretty wet still, so they were stacked & unstacked very quickly by Tatiana.
She threw several porcelain bowls and then altered their shape and gave them
some great textures & patterns scraped on the outsides!
Always good to see the code! Especially when you’re doing a bisque kiln full of your student’s fragile tulipieres!!! Always safer to have the fragile pieces bisqued than sitting around in the greenware state. Now they just need to glaze them… before adding real flowers!!!
Another night working with “dramatic task lighting” in my studio…
only benefit being that the photos have great contrast to show off the stamped textures!!!
So here’s a sneak peek at the “before & after” on another stoneware platter…
and the tools that made the textures & patterns!
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Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
Lillstreet Studios ∙ 4401 North Ravenswood, Chicago, Illinois 60640 ∙ 773-307-8664 gary@firewhenreadypottery.com |