Welcome To The Yard

Grad School: Week 25 - Ted Kooser, Process, and The Studio Door

2012-02-11T07:29:00.001-06:00

So This Is Nebraska

By Ted Kooser

The gravel road rides with a slow gallop

over the fields, the telephone lines

streaming behind, its billow of dust

full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.

On either side, those dear old ladies,

the loosening barns, their little windows

dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs

hide broken tractors under their skirts.

So this is Nebraska. A Sunday

afternoon; July. Driving along

with your hand out squeezing the air,

a meadowlark waiting on every post.

Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,

top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,

a pickup kicks its fenders off

and settles back to read the clouds.

You feel like that; you feel like letting

your tires go flat, like letting the mice

build a nest in your muffler, like being

no more than a truck in the weeds,

clucking with chickens or sticky with honey

or holding a skinny old man in your lap

while he watches the road, waiting

for someone to wave to. You feel like

waving. You feel like stopping the car

and dancing around on the road. You wave

instead and leave your hand out gliding

larklike over the wheat, over the houses.

The highlight of week 25 was a visit to campus by poet laureate Ted Kooser. When asked about his writing process he said he liked to wake up early, around 4:30, and sit down at his desk and start drinking coffee. From there, he would write poetry and fail, over and over again, to compose anything decent. The important part, he said, was getting to that chair, because if a poem came along and he wasn't ready, well, it was gone. This is the long version of "suit up and show up." Or an even longer explanation of what an old teacher told me, that the hardest part of making pots was walking through the studio door.

Kooser was an insurance executive for thirty years before becoming a full-time poet. He said he excelled at this business because he knew how to write and describes waking up early to get a little work done before driving into Lincoln for his day job, then going to the library at lunch for more research, and finally home at the end of the day to shed his suit and tie, and be with his family. It was only after he retired from insurance, that he went on to become poet laureate.

Kooser loves Nebraska. In particular, his corner of the state, the Bohemian Alps. He does not accept residencies or visiting poet jobs because he would just stare out the window all day and think about home. Kooser writes about the ordinary in life and says, "you have to stare at a lot of fence posts before you can start seeing the beauty in them." To me, and many others, he is a Nebraskan legend.

I also wanted to show the process of decorating a platter from start to finish here on the blog. I salt-fired this week and got very mixed results. There were a few winners, but most of the kiln was either passable or went straight to the dumpster. All the pots could have been better, but my mind had already moved onto the next project. Such is the blessing and the curse of graduate school, right now. Change is of premium of value, and with change comes failure, promise, and growth. The important part is to keep charging forward.

Grad School: Week 24 - Studio Potter, Making Life Whole, and Partnership

2012-02-04T11:47:00.004-06:00

"Marriage, like any partnership, is fundamentally a putting together of pieces, an ongoing arrangement of fate's deliveries into a livable, nurturing layout. Rheumatoid Arthritis informs the directions in our life together, but with each decision, we must practice viewing the destination as one full of choices."

-Molly MacQuoid Bass

I am really pleased to announce that my wife, Molly Bass, has an article published in the newest edition of Studio Potter. The article is titled, Making Life Whole, and discusses the challenges and rewards we have faced as a couple, for Molly as a spouse of one who has a chronic illness, and for me as an artist, living with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). It is a lovely piece of writing, highly personal, and we hope useful to others who battle some obstacle while trying to live a full life.

For years I have tried to hide the fact that I have RA. This has taken a variety of forms. One relates to chronic pain as one would an intimate partner. It is someone that is always with you, sometimes walking by your side, other times riding your shoulders, screaming bloody murder. I rarely introduce people to this invisible stranger. Michael Cardew, although still an active potter at the time, described fighting against his body that, "had become a surly and reluctant servant." Part of Molly's article describes how to view pain less as an obstacle, but more as path finder, letting it direct your work in the studio when necessary, but never giving in.

After arriving here at UNL, it became obvious that I was not going to make it through the program unless I started to communicate. It is to the program's credit that they met this complication with grace, privacy, and support. Communicating, at large, such a personal matter was a complicated leap of faith. Molly writing about it in Studio Potter was an even greater journey towards making what was once private, public.

We use blogs, websites, and even ceramic journals to communicate our successes. They are the medium of professional mobility. This small, public revelation is a reminder that life is not all roses for artists, for anyone. Our victories are few and often hard fought. When we face obstacles, we are not pariahs, underdogs, or victims. We are human and to be human is to be flawed, incomplete, and sometimes, in pain. This fact can be a small comfort, true, but it is a universal I think it is important to notice now and again.

Please visit my wife's blog, Minnow, for an honest and visually stunning look at what life is like here on the prairie. She is a wonderful writer, photographer, and wife.

Thanks for keeping up.

Aaron

Grad School: Week 23 - "The Raven", Poe, and Ideas

2012-01-29T11:15:00.001-06:00

The idea began in the abstract. He wanted to write something tonally sombre, sad, mournful, and saturated with melancholia, he knew not what. He thought it should be repetative and have a one-word refrain. He asked himself which vowel would best serve the purpose. He chose the long "o." And what combining consanant, producibly doleful and lugubrious? He settled on "r." Vowel, consanant, "o," "r." Lore. Core. Door Lenore. Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Actually, he said "nevermore" was the first such word that crossed his mind. How much cool truth there is in that essay is in the eye of the reader.

-John McPhee on Edgar Allen Poe's creation on the poem, "The Raven"

In school this week we tried not to discuss the difference between art and craft. Art begins with an idea, that is executed through any material that will most effectively express it. Craft starts with a material or process, and the idea finds its outlet somewhere before completion. This may be one of the most talked about, and tired, discussions in the craft realm, and despite efforts to steer clear of it, it raises its ugly head in many different disguises. Like a cat chasing its tail, the difference between art and craft will never be completely pinned down.

Edgar Allen Poe was paid $9 for his poem, "The Raven." If the above quote is true, it seems the idea bubbled up out of his subconscious. He had a feeling of potential, not a concrete idea about composition. The source of his inspiration came from his gut or his heart, and found resolution in his mind and on paper. Poe had an idea. The source of that idea was another matter entirely.

Where do ideas come from, after all, and how can we mine them most efficiently? Poe seemed to pull his grand idea out of the ether and gradually watched the gasses form into composition. He was accused of being a drunk and drug addict after his death, some of which was apparently true. There are ideas, and then there is the harder to reach area of where ideas come from. If I think about the latter, I tend to hesitate. Most of the time, I am grateful just to be having inspiration come to me at a reasonable pace while I am in the studio. The rest is hard work.

See you next week.

Grad School: Week 22, The Work at Hand, The Future, and New Images

2012-01-22T05:40:00.013-06:00

Even as you are reading this, engineers in Silicon Valley are hard at work on new ways to delight you - gathering the entire field of aesthetic experience onto a single screen you'll be able to roll up like a paperback and stick in your back pocket. It's safe to say that delight won't be in short supply, and as long as there is juice in the battery, we won't have to feel alone. But will we be alone? Literature, to a degree unique among the arts, has the ability to both frame the question and to affect the answer. This isn't to say that, measured in terms of cultural capital or sheer entertainment, the delights to which most contemporary 'literary fiction' aims to treat us aren't an awful lot. It's just that, if the art is to endure, they won't quite be enough."

- Garth Risk Hallberg, from the essay "Why Write Novels at All?"

Although this quote is about the ability of fiction to ease the sense of lonliness, and fiction's possibilities moving forward, the quote reminds me of Kevin Crowe's essay, The Work at Hand, in which he states, "Handmade is not enough." Functional potters often take a hard look at themselves and ask, "what can I offer a world that seems indifferent?" I think The Work at Hand answers this question far better than thousands of other artists statements about the joys of the kitchen, the interaction between maker and user, and the potter imagining food in the bowl they are making at the time. He says what everyone else is trying to say.

It can difficult to take a hard look at why you do something creative, for dubious monetary rewards, that is labor intensive and often very frustrating. Why put yourself through it? Are there any other reasons to do it besides the fact you enjoy it? Is there any moral ground to stand on? Difficult questions, right? I'll leave the answers to you. Just write them on the back of a palette of high fire clay and send it on to Welcome to the Yard.

Please go on over to my website to take a look at the last round of pictures. Here is a sneak peak of a dinnerware set I made towards the end of last year. I have always believed in leaving the top of the dinner plate a smooth eating surface, while I consider the bottom of the plate to be mine to do with what I like. Food communicates so much important information. Too much decoration and one could confuse their carrots for peas, their pasta for brushwork, simply not notice that there is a beautiful meal in front of them, or mistake that grey morsel as edible.

There is a lot of work in progress at the studio. I have slow dried these long boat forms to a point where they are growing green mold. They are pretty large and I just needed to take my time. The rest of the work is moving along. Things are in process. Always in process. Thanks for reading.

Grad School: Week 21: Questions, Snowy Owls, and Nature's Refrain

2012-01-14T14:40:00.001-06:00

"There is a symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folding bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains from nature - the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

-Rachel Carson, from The Sense of Wonder

Here in Nebraska and much of the area, Snowy Owls are wandering south from the arctic in search of food. They are arriving emaciated as there is an imbalance in the predator to prey ratio up north. Perhaps there are too many Owls this year and not enough Lemmings, or the Lemmings themselves are in crisis, forcing juvenile owls south in search of food. Whatever is happening in their normal feeding grounds is out of balance.

This was the first week officially back in school and it got off to a raging start. As you can see, I am starting to find my way around a Nikon, and eventually will be sending these images through photoshop for some trimming and adjusting. Learning these new tools will require adaptation, but certainly less than a juvenile Snowy Owl is requiring this time of year.

These rudimentary photos are indicative of the psychic and formal split that is happening in the studio right now. I am making low-fire wall pieces that are narrative and personal, and also good old fashioned salt-fired pottery. Do I want to make art in the realm of ideas, or follow my gut, and throw functional forms? I don't have that answer at the moment. Will there be a marriage between the two? Again, no answers.

The air here in Lincoln is dry, and grass has trouble growing properly. Fall was indecisive and it is unclear when, and if, the trees will fully lose their leaves. Week 21 went by quickly, as they all have. A little factual information about the second semester of graduate school: I am taking three credits of Greek Sculpture, three credits in a Colloquium focusing on criticism, and five credits in the studio, creating questions that are hard to answer. Ever wonder what graduate school is like? I did for years before coming here. So there is at least one question I have an answer for.

Next week I promise some photos from the studio of pots in process, and other announcements. Until then, I will be silently praying for a Packers/Patriots Super Bowl while on the exterior, I will be working at this second semester in Lincoln. Thanks for reading and have a good week.

Grad School: Week 20, To MFA or not to MFA

2012-01-08T09:23:00.000-06:00

"One's life begins on so many occasions, constructing itself out of accidents derived from coincidence compounded by character (only the last is ordained, if it is ordained)."

-Donald Hall, from Unpacking the Boxes

Over the years, I have received a lot of opinions about potters going to graduate school. Just last post, Dan Finnegan brought this question up again. There really is no answer, just as there no answer to what a correctly made pot is. I have heard people with MFA's describe non-degreed potters as envious, and working potters describe academics as poor makers.

Working potters tend to feel like they earn their bread more honestly and academic potters seem more willing to embrace conceptual pots. I'm generalizing here. The grass does always seem to be greener on the other side of the fence.

Would you trade your health insurance for more time in the studio? Do you require financial security over independance? Do you make things that people want to buy? Are you an excellent teacher? Have you got a bad back? Debt? Can't stand young people? How much do you even want to think about the objects you make? In what context? Potters don't need to go to graduate school. Everyone needs different things in order to continue producing at a high level. Maybe you need a new roof more than a challenging change in artistic direction? Teachers and working potters are both vulnerable to life's necessities sneaking into their artistic work. An MFA also does not equal teaching at the college level. In light of these questions, i'm going to post most of my letter of intent to actually get into school. I had never seen one of these before writing mine, so maybe this will open up the attic door a bit:

"Rather than narrow my focus, I will broaden my perspectives by taking risks and exploring old and new work in order to better inform my own practice. I have been influenced by David Pye’s book, The Nature and Art of Workmanship, in which he refers to two types of working: “the craftsmanship of certainty,” and “the craftsmanship of risk.” I have come to believe that a sustainable studio practice requires a balance of both. I want to use my time in an MFA program to take more risks that will in turn influence the balance of these vital elements in my own studio.

At the same time, I am hungry for the opportunity to articulate and defend the aspects of pottery that I find essential. This will help me to identify and shed the non-essential and build skills to crystallize how I think about my work. I will examine the historical context in which my work falls, explore themes beyond utility, and further investigate brushwork as a surface treatment. In researching these avenues, I will evolve as a craftsman and produce work that more accurately reflects my vision.

Functional pottery seems abundantly relevant to me and requires little or no internal justification. However, in the past several years I have found myself in communities that are largely indifferent to the handmade object. In collaboration with the faculty and other students, I want to investigate the cultural relevance of making utilitarian work.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a professional potter. I believe that craftsmanship and thoughtful making are the foundations not only of a successful studio practice but also of a rich life. For the first time, I know that I am prepared to enter an MFA program. I want to ask difficult questions of my pots, stretch intellectually, and incorporate new sources of inspiration into my work."

So there it is. Could one have accomplished all this at home in three years? Perhaps. I knew that I couldn't. I don't know why other potters go to graduate school, but there are my reasons. Thanks for reading and Happy New Year.

Aaron

Grad School: Week 19

2011-12-31T09:32:00.001-06:00

To be of use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Next week is back to school for me and back to work for many others. I don't have too much to describe this week. We drove from Maine to Nebraska in two days and are slowly acclimating. We heard this interview with Maurice Sendak on the radio, somewhere in Western Iowa. It is a beautiful twenty minutes about life, growing older, and beauty. Happy New Year.

Grad School: Week 18

2011-12-24T10:38:00.002-06:00

"Maine's long and cold winters may help keep our State's population low, but our harsh climate also accounts for what is unique and valuable about our land and our people."
-Tom Allen

There was nothing harsh about this morning on Little John Island, nor can I claim to be a Mainer. For anyone who has visited, though, the state has a way of grabbing you and today was a good example. Cooper explored why the holes he was digging in the sand continued to fill with water, while i came about as close to a perched Bald Eagle as one can get. What does this have to do with graduate school? Nothing really. But it is still week 18.

Both my wife's mother and her partner are artists, a painter and furniture builder, and Robert Newton helped me to construct some large masonite slump forms to drive back to Nebraska for work in the studio. What these large arcs will produce is a bit of a question but i like the scale. Dare to dream a little bigger.
The weather today is all snow, quiet a change in just one day, but has put me in the mind of all the contradictions there are in life and art, relationships and living spaces, our emotional and physical lives, in nature and the animal world. Is this time of year about redemption? The winter's slow end as the days get longer, three minutes at a time? The Writer's Almanac today had a quote by Robert Bly, who has seem miles of snow fall to the ground and i'll end with his thoughts:

"I was very surprised to find out, as my poems pick up more and more of the past of human beings, the ancient culture, more and more of the grief and the suffering of human beings -- the poems become funnier! I don't understand that, but I love it. I feel that there's some way that as the mind gets more mature, in the midst of a lot of grief, it's able to dance a little!"

Let's Dance.

Grad School: Week 17

2011-12-16T13:51:00.002-06:00

"Art hurts. Art urges voyages-and it is easier to stay at home."
-Gwendolyn Brooks

The semester is over and I am writing this from Maine, where there is nothing but trees, ocean, and sweet endless rest. Things finished up well, with all the papers, presentations, meetings, and critiques done and wrapped up. I have heard the first semester of graduate school described as the depths of despair, but I did not find it that way. It was challenging, and at times nerve-racking, but I liked it. I liked it very much. When it ended, I made a quick run out East to my second home, Maine. Here, things are very different from the rest of the United States:

My father,Elliott Sober, a lifetime academic, believes graduate school is a 12 month a year endeavor and I agree with him. So while on break, I am letting ideas percolate and trying to keep the sketch book handy. Back in Nebraska, the studio is clean and ready for me when i return. I'll sign off with a video sent to me by my mother-in-law, Carol Bass, that is worth watching through until the end. Thanks for reading and if you have not, sign up to follow this blog on the right side of the screen. Membership has its privileges.

Grad School: Week 16

2011-12-10T08:54:00.007-06:00

"The way you made it, that's the way it will be."
-Gillian Welch

In order to be a good potter I think you got to be just as ornery as the dickens. If you ain't, and ain't as cantankerous as they come. someone is going to come and change you and you're going to be turnin' out stuff that inside you don't want to make.
- Zedith Teague, potter, North Carolina

The question from most pottery students is: "why?" Why did the glaze do this? Why did my handle fall off? Why does my plate look like a taco? Why is no one buying my prize piece? Why are my ideas not being realized in my finished piece? A resounding chorus of Why's? This choir of questions gets less technical with experience and the answers become more difficult to find. A favorite teacher of mine would always pronounce with her southern twang, "Well that's the way you made it." And this answer remains the most basic and truthful response to questions of content, S-cracks, and everything else. Think about the way you made it. The answer is there.

Week 16 is the final week of the first semester and culminates in a committee review to look over the entirety of your work made during that time. It is composed of the clay faculty plus one or two other professors. Questions are asked. Some are answerable, others not. I like to give some serious thought to if i know the answer to the question posed before i start talking. "I don't know yet," is an acceptable answer, at least in this first year.

Besides pots, I worked on a series of tiles in low-fire clay, medical in nature. A second body of work. A work in progress to be more specific. I don't know where these are headed exactly but i have ideas, and the time to fail and re-try. In the meantime, it is winter break and there will be a lot of time to think about the least likely way to screw up my ideas. The way i make them, as always, is the way they will be.

Grad School: Week 15

2011-12-03T23:04:00.010-06:00

Worry is not competence, but we make do with the former since the latter may reside only in our imaginations -- or in summer, when it's not really needed.

-Richard Russo, on Autumn in Maine

I had a successful firing of the salt-kiln this week and have worked out a few of the bugs. This time i sprayed in 5 lbs. of salt in solution rather than dumping in 2.5 lbs. Also, i stalled the kiln out at around cone 7 in order to prolong the firing. Those burners are super powered. I could have wrapped things up at ten in the morning if I wanted to. Someone told me at some point that "pots like prolonged exposure to high temperatures." The same person also told me to, "end the firing on a hot note." I had to ask what the hell this meant and he said that the kiln gets turned off at its hottest temperature. Makes sense.

It takes some time to develop a good relationship with a kiln. A trusting, reciprocal, and healthy relationship. You have to learn its likes and dislikes, what makes it temperamental, when to push it and when to let it do its own thing. Only then can you get the thing dialed in. Sound like a lot of emotions to put into a bunch of bricks and some natural gas burners? You bet it is. It's not the most intimate relationship in my life, obviously, but i do think about the kiln when we are not together.
It takes some time to get "dialed in" with a new kiln and i made good progress to that end this week. Five of these Yunomis will get shipped to AKAR this week, it is that time of year again. This Friday is my first Committee Review where i present the best work of the semester.
Then there are papers and presentations, a pottery sale, cleaning, and i am off for Christmas. Am i gaining competency or learning to worry more here in grad school, as Richard Russo puts it? Probably both. I am starting to learn about what art comes from the subconscious and what gets made from the conscious mind. Week 15 is over, that is for sure a definite.

This last round reminded me why I love salt-fired pots, despite the labor and long firing process. They were the first decent pots i have made here that look the way i like. That this only took two firing is good. At Northern Clay Center, it took me a year to get that kiln to behave.

Towards the end of this week, i was trying to remember how many firings that have ended with me lying on a studio table late at night, waiting for the temperature to please go up enough so i can go home a lay down on a bed. Let's just say i believe in a long and aggressive pre-heat. Thanks for reading and to those potters firing for the pre-christmas rush, i wish you and your kilns many happy days, not nights, together.

Grad School: Week 14, Bon Iver=Pottery

2011-11-26T20:36:00.001-06:00

The subject matter, as ever, is vague: “There’s finding love, not needing love, and then there’s sleeping with your buddy’s girlfriend,” Vernon said. Not that you’d ever be able to guess that from listening to the lyrics. The songs revolve around the melodies — big, spectral, swooping things — and the words are secondary to the feelings they evoke. Often when singing, Vernon lands on cryptic words: “acrost,” “melic,” “noachide” and so forth. The meaning is in the melody, the texture, the implication. “I’m not really asking you to hear what I’m saying too much,” he said, “because I would have spoken the words harder."
The meaning is in the melody, the texture, the implication.“You can place yourself inside his songs and his music, because he leaves space for you,” said the alt-country singer Kathleen Edwards, who is Vernon’s girlfriend. “I mean this respectfully, but most of the time I have no idea what Justin’s songs are about.” But that vagueness has the effect of inviting people in.

Maybe it is just Wisconsin pride about a kid from Eau Claire that became an international pop sensation, or my visit home for the holidays, but i have felt that Bon Iver, and functional pottery have a lot in common. What, you ask? His songs, and good pots, are both multi-layered objects that both invite interpretation and deny it. They are both excellent at invoking emotions and not so good at communicating clear ideas. Both are beautifully crafted.

This week was a week off. The next two weeks will include two papers, two presentations, an artist statement, salt-firing, and a committee review. Also, a few electric firings. Busy. Stay tuned. Week 15 might just be epic.

Grad School: Week 13

2011-11-18T22:24:00.013-06:00

AS THEY ARE

Maybe because the post office lady has a post office
made out of a house, she built a house that looks like
a post office. You can't say for sure why any
of the houses here look this way, though some seem
to offer their own explanations: We weren't able
to fix all of it, for instance, is common, or Later,
we changed our minds, or the comprehensive Yes
but it works, which includes both of the others,
and accounts for the cape half wrapped in plastic
against the cold of this winter day, and the four-pane
window on a slant letting in the light between
the porch roof and the eaves. What the houses might
have been or ought to look like drifts like smoke
from their chimneys up into some other world.
Here in their world they remain just as they are.

-Wesley McNair

I never thought i would live in Nebraska. Not for any reason i could ever imagine. I swore i wouldn't come here, even if i did manage to get accepted into the program. Nebraska vs.Maine. It's a hard sell but so far I am glad i made the move. I'll that i have ever wanted was to settle into a place and stay but fate conspires with no one.

The studio I have for the year is windowless, so i don't actually know i am in Nebraska while i am working. I could be in Maine, or a casino in Las Vegas. At the end of the day there is a shock leaving the building as my pupils contract at seeing the sun, my ears, nose, and lungs fill with fresh air, and i realize the true time of day, the weather, the tilt of the planet, moving around the sun.

I was going to post some pictures of what is happening in the studio, where time is measured only in clicks on the big red alarm clock. Instead, here are some pictures, taken from my wife's blog, Minnow, from out of the studio. Pictures of Nebraska. Pictures that make their way into the studio in one way or another.

The semester is drawing to a close like a freight train, of which there are many here in Lincoln. There have been a few rattle snake sighting here in eastern Nebraska, apparently, and the lore is that they hitch a ride in the empty coal cars coming in from the west. I don't know if this is true, but the tracks are close to the studio building and i imagine the trains pulling into the yard empty, save for a few rattlers in the bottom of a dusty coal car, waiting for a good chance to slither out and find a place to be just as they are.

Grad School: Week 12

2011-11-12T07:46:00.001-06:00

Coach: Philip is one of the most competitive people I've ever known," Turner said. "I don't think there's anyone that winning means more to. He has great confidence in his abilities. I will say that he's pressing and there are times he's doing more than he needs to do. There are times in those situations where he makes a great play. There's a fine line for him... and sometimes he's trying too hard and trying to make plays that aren't there. From a scheme standpoint, we're trying to give him safe options to throw the ball."

QB1: "I'm trying to do the best I can, it's hard to feel you own self exactly what you are doing. If you knew what you were doing and what was going to hinder you, you wouldn't do it. I've been in my best stretch lately, obviously, but by any means is it going to make me slow down or quit trying or lose confidence. We still got a long ways to go."

-San Diego Chargers Press Conference

When i was looking around at graduate schools, a professor, after telling me for about an hour what the experience could offer an artist, said,"basically, we are teaching you how to better learn." I think this is important, and illustrated in a somewhat roundabout way in the quote above. Coach knows what is going wrong, QB1 just has a feeling. Can football explain everything?

In other small news, Akar Gallery
just opened their 30 X 5 Salt and Soda Invitational. It is a great show and an opportunity to buy some pots. They do a wonderful job there. Check it out.

Grad School: Week 11

2011-11-05T06:53:00.005-05:00

from The One Day

Smoke rises all day from the two chimneys above us.
You stand by the stove looking south, through bare branches
of McIntosh, Spy, and Baldwin. you add Oak logs to the fire you built at six in the castiron stove.
At the opposite end of the same house, under another chimney,
I look towards the pond that flattens to the west
under the low sun of a January afternoon, from a notebook
busy with bushels and yields. All day in out opposite
rooms we carry wood to the stoves, we pace up and down, we plan,
we set figures on paper-to converge at day's end.

for kisses, bread, and talk; then we read in silence,
sitting in opposite chairs; then we turn drowsy.
Dreaming of tomorrow only, we sleep in the painted bed
while the nights frail twisting of woodsmoke assembles
overhead from the two chimneys, to mingle and disperse
as our cells will disperse and mingle when they lapse
into graveyard dirt. Meantime the day is double
in the work, love, and solitude of eyes
that gaze not at each other but at a third thing:
a child, a ciderpress, a book-work's paradise.

Donald Hall

Ahhh...If work life was only just like this. Donald Hall pacing one side of the house, Jane Kenyon on the other, and magic, labored over and pure, leaving by mail to the publishers at regular intervals. Donald Hall would be the first to recognize that work is hard, good work even more difficult, and he is a writer who continues to put pen to paper prodigiously. This poem does put me in the mind of fall, and it has arrived here in Lincoln, finally. Giant, wet prairie snowflakes falling and melting instantly for a good half hour.

I will admit that my mind has been elsewhere this week, not entirely in the studio, not entirely out of it. Somewhere between Donald Hall's two chimneys. Mainly i've been pacing around the house. To compensate, i'll leave you with a video my wife found, and leave this post at that. This video was filmed off the coast of Ireland and shows what a flock of starlings can look like if you are very lucky. A flock of these birds is called a Murmuration. Do check out her blog MINNOW, although she should probably be sending traffic my way, given the number of hits she is getting. Have a good week, and thanks for reading. Here it is. If you feel like getting a good set of goosebumps, it's worth two minutes:

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Grad School: Week 10

2011-10-29T02:39:00.002-05:00

"I'd cooked up these avatars in the soup of my ever changing self, but they were not me-they did what what i wouldn't, or couldn't do... The need to tell stories was deeply embedded in our minds and inseparable entangled with the mechanisms that generate and absorb language. Narrative imagination-and therefor fiction-was a basic evolutionary tale of survival. We processed the world by telling stories, produced human knowledge through our engagement with imagined selves."

-Aleksandar Hemon

These tiles are all new work. New material, new temperature, and a new subject matter. This is the first real effort i have put into making low-fire anything and these pieces are all in process. They will be given at least one more firing with some oxide washes, glazes, and underglazes. One thing about low-fire is the kiln does not help you out much. What you see is pretty much what you get. I am learning, and trying to make something personal and maybe even beautiful at the same time. It has been freeing to work with images off of the pot. I don't have to worry about form, food safety, glaze fit, or functionality. Hell, i could put floor wax or spray paint on these if i wanted. Making pots is a passion, but there are some days it feels like heavy set of responsibility to have to consider all the requirements of food service.
As these tiles come to completion in the next week, it has been so useful to project human emotions and situations onto animal imagery. There are a huge selection of images to work from, each loaded with their own associations. Whether it is an angry rabbit, cunning bluejay, or wounded elk, they each communicate something different. They are not exactly self-portraits. But they touch on a narrative, and that is enough right now.
for those of you wondering where the salt-fired pottery has gone, it is on the shelf waiting to be decorated and fired. In the next week or two i'll have a kiln load ready. Will the pots intersect with the tiles in any way? I'll just have to see what week 11 brings although something tells me that might be farther down the line

Thanks for reading.

Grad School: Week 9

2011-10-21T20:11:00.003-05:00

The Night House

Every day the body works in the field of the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass-
the grass of civics; the grass of money-
and every night the body curls around itslef and listens for the soft bells of sleep

But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
leaves the trapazoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.

And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.

And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,

resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to eachother or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body-that house of voices-
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance,

to listen to all the names being called
before bending again to its labor.

-Billy Collins

Week 9, like all those before them, was a very full week. My wife, Molly Bass created this video in our backyard feeder as a reminder to slow down. Her blog chronicles life as a transplant from Maine to Nebraska. The switch from ME to NE. I'll take a break from images of pots in process or just opened kiln and sign off with this slow passage of Nuthatches living just behind the house. It's Friday after all, and time for a rest.

Grad School: Week 8

2011-10-15T11:11:00.000-05:00

"I'll put it this way brother: you've got to be the thermostat rather than the thermometer."

-Cornel West

Cornel West was talking about President Obama, although what he is saying resonates during Week 8 here in Lincoln, NE. After firing a salt kiln and another soda, i met with all three clay faculty members and a digital arts professor to review the work and begin to talk about moving forward with it. This was a lot of outside information and invaluable. I would be hard pressed to find four people on the outside willing to talk, and care, so deeply about work.

When i left Penland's Core Fellowship program, the clay coordinator at the time warned me, "You're about to go into the desert, kid." Meaning i now had to find my own water, food, information, and feedback. The graduate school environment is nothing like this desert. It is a wealth of knowledge that just has to accessed. The challenge, i think, is negotiating the many voices and stimulation to do a Dr. West advised; "be the thermostat, not the thermometer."

Grad School: Week 7

2011-10-05T21:23:00.013-05:00

When we go to the supermarket and pick something off the shelf, we don't think, "where did this come from? Did it suffer?" Hunters understand what hard work it is to take an animal from the field and put it on the dinner table. We as a society aren't passing these things on. We're not teaching . With television, the internet, smart phones, there are so many things pulling us out of the natural world.
-Steve Vose, Maine Magazine, October 2011

Week seven began with a visit from Ah Leon who conducted a number of tea ceremonies and demonstrated for a full day. He gave an engaging presentation from a much different perspective. He studied under a master potter for many years and to paraphrase, he said, "It takes three years to learn your masters hand, 9 years to forget their teachings, and the rest of your life to find your own voice." He said that he still sometimes feel his masters hand guiding his when he makes marks or throws pots. Here in the US, we are more preoccupied with personal expression and individuality. Ah Leon has certainly found his own voice in a major way. His understanding of teapots rivals that of an engineer. We are talking fluid dynamics, not drippy spouts.

Week 7 has also been notable in that i fired my first salt kiln. I woke up early and hustled into school. Getting there at 6am, i still didn't beat the tuba section of the marching band getting ready for Saturday's game. It was a vaguely surreal, military style unloading before the sun was up. The pots were on the dry side, not enough salt. There was good work in there and bad. My final conclusion was that i had started. There is a lot of work ahead in refining and cleaning up ideas, as well as working out a few technical kinks. There were a few diamonds in there along with a lot of coal.
The process of turning clay into ceramics can be a tough one. I am trying to make it easier without sacrificing anything. Working in this environment means pushing forward constantly. A bit of momentum gets things moving, and then possibly speed. It was a good first push this week. Time, and work, will tell what exactly just came out of this kiln. All those tubas playing in the dark Nebraska morning could mean anything or nothing at all.

Grad School: Week 6

2011-10-02T13:50:00.003-05:00

Not writing was a kind of symptom that presents a problem of its own. "He could get himself into places where he was pretty helpless," Costello says. "Basically it was the same symptoms all along: this incredible sense of inadequacy, panic. He once said to me that he wanted to write to shut the babble in his head. He said when you are writing well, you establish a voice in your head, and it shuts up the other voices. The ones that are saying 'you're not good enough, you're a fraud.'"

-David Lipsky, The Lost Years and Last Days of David Foster Wallace

This week was a hard one at grad school and i finally came to realize why everything smelled like anxiety on the second floor. It was all around, not just coming from my armpits. There are a lot of voices whispering in your ear here at school. Many are your own, some are other people's voices. It can be challenging to tune your mental radio correctly so one clear voice, your voice, is able to emerge for even an hour or two.

I did however, manage to ask one of the stupidest questions possible about the painting you see here:

Me: I understand all the male imagery, the hat and alcohol and looking at naked women, but i don't get why there is a cat on the table. Cats aren't masculine
(awkward pause)
Teacher: The cat relates to the slang reference, popular at the time, to female genitalia.
Me: (in my head) Oh, you're talking about Pussy. Got it. I know all about that.

So that was the comic relief in my week. Tomorrow we keep soldiering on...

Grad School: Week 5

2011-09-21T20:39:00.012-05:00

The buzzard never says it is to blame.
The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.
When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.
If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean.

A jackal doesn't understand remorse.
Lions and lice don't waver in their course.
Why should they, when they know they're right?

Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,
in every other way they're light.

On this third planet of the sun
among the signs of bestiality
a clear conscience is Number One.

-Waslawa Szymborska

Ron Meyers was here this week as a visiting artist and put on a good show. This is the third time i have heard him speak and watched him work. He handles clay in an incredibly immediate manner. There is no fussing or fretting over the work. Once you master throwing tight and center, it has to be a challenge to letting that go and working loose again. We had a good critique/discussion and he recommended loosening up a bit myself. He said the pots were starting to look a little overworked. Fair enough, I think.
Ron Meyers has been a big influence on me for a while now. While he did not invent putting animals onto pots, I feel an affinity for the posture and emotions his animals carry. He likened them to portraits of other professors during overly long faculty meetings but i suspect there is something deeper going on. Perhaps there is some darkness there, as well. Expressing the beauty and ferocity of the animal world, and in turn our human world, is one of my favorite topics

There is a lot going on in the studio these days, although it has been hard to find time to get in there between lectures and classes. I have been making some wall pieces in earthenware as well as collecting work for the salt firing. The wall pieces are cathartic to make as they can be totally free of function. There is no worry about glaze fit, crazing, pitting, etc. This is all very freeing for me.
The demands of functional pottery can be a warm embrace or a shackle preventing new ideas from flowing. Functionality provides parameters to work within, which can be very useful, given the infinite number of choices artists are confronted with. Sometimes, however, functionality is a bag you carry around with you in the studio, weighing you down. A big bag of full of **** that weighs a ton. Just the notion that I can work on a surface without any of the "rules" associated with function is enthralling.

Despite all this excitement, I am decorating pots to go in the salt-kiln. In his workshop, Ron Meyers said that the hardest part of his production cycle was the painting, and that a cigar and some bourbon often helped him get started. It is very difficult for me to find a rhythm with the brushes. One thing that helps, however, is doing my decorating at home, away from the studio. Having my wife, dog, and football all in one room helps me to finish pots. You have to be comfortable to make comfortable pots. Ron also told me that I looked like my pottery, and that there was no way a woman would ever make pots like mine. I took this as a compliment although he may have meant that i was thick and bottom heavy.

Until next week...

Grad School: Week 4

2011-09-17T10:10:00.003-05:00

"The real message of "Friday Night Lights" is a message about the joy of little things: the awkward thrills of a first kiss; the strange blessings of an unexpected rainstorm on a lonely walk home from a rough football practice; the startling surge of nostalgia incited by the illumination of football stadium lights just as the autumn sun is settling; the rush of gratitude in an otherwise mundane moment, that comes from realizing that this (admittedly flawed) human being that you are squabbling with intends to have your back for the rest of your life..."Friday Night Lights" is about breathing in and appreciating the small, somewhat imperfect moments that make up an average life..."Friday Night Lights" embraces the rough edges, the fumbling, the understated beauty and uncertainty of the everyday."

-Heather Haurilesky

Making pots is a lot like "Friday Night Lights." Functional pots are objects that quietly bear witness to the ups and downs of regular life. They are small parts of the series of events that mark the everyday; the coffee break during an otherwise endless day at work; a cup of tea offered when nothing else can be done; the raising of a cup to mark an anniversary, etc. Above all else, making pots is about integrity. Integrity is craftsmanship. Someone said that the difference between a laborer and a craftsman is pride in work completed correctly. Any fan of Friday Night Lights knows that Coach Taylor is all about integrity. In his marriage or on the field, Coach always acts with sincerity and a resolute commitment to doing the right thing. Like in football, there are no shortcuts to success while in the studio. Good craftsmanship cannot be faked or hurried. One question i find myself asking while in the studio is: What would Coach Taylor do? (WWCTD)

Week 4 at grad school was a busy one and flew by. I have enough pots for a kiln load but have moved on to working with low-fire clay on some slab built wall pieces. Like a lot of potters i know who salt-fire, i am always dreaming about developing a body of work that is low-fire. Firing in an electric kiln would just make life simpler. So, i am dipping one toe into the low-fire world with some wall pieces and trying to get a sense for the materials. Other than this, i am busy with an art history course and teaching.

Ron Meyers arrives tomorrow to be a visiting artist and the festivities start with a critique in the evening. I took a workshop from Ron Meyers and Chuck Hindes while at Penland and he is a great person to watch work. There is no fussing at the wheel, only action.

Until next week...

Grad School: Week 3

2011-09-10T22:48:00.001-05:00

"Everyone has an internal age. A time in life when one is, if not one's best, then at least one's most authentic self. When your outside and inside are in sync, and the soma and psyche mesh as perfectly as they're ever going to"

-David Rakoff

This week at Grad School was cut short by a visit from my brother and extremely precocious niece, Lilah. I am not sure if Lilah is at her most authentic self but i am sure the thought has never crossed her mind. Lilah told me that being an adult is, "being able to protect your house from octopuses." This seems entirely true.

In the studio, all is going well and i am building up work for a first firing. More importantly, I am starting to stretch my thinking beyond what i normally make, and looking for better modes of expression. This is the grand luxury that grad school has offered so far. As we get older, life inevitably gets more complicated and for me, time in the studio is no different. Growing up, from Lilah's age and onward is a journey full of ups and down, contradictions and revelation. Maybe it was Lilah, growing older, or it was just time, but i got out an old copy of the book Art and Fear, given to me years ago by Mary Hark. I'll sign off with another quote:

"...the seed for your next art work lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece. Such imperfections are your guides - valuable, reliable,objective, non-judgemental guides - to matters you need to reconsider or develop further. It is precisely this interaction between the ideal and the real that lock your art into the real world, and gives meaning to both... Humanity is ultimate source of your work."

-David Bayles and Ted Orland, from Art and Fear

Grad School: Week 2

2011-09-03T21:23:00.001-05:00

Week 2 has now passed and has been productive. Clay has arrived and i am busy throwing and slipping pots, getting a feel for the studio and soon, the kiln. I am making pots, again, after a long break. My image of the graduate student is of a tortured, sleep deprived animal. I am not feeling tortured, or at least they haven't started torturing me yet. It has been gratifying to get back into the studio and feel the familiar rhythms of the production cycle. It has been awhile since i have worked full-time at pottery and an even longer time since i have been ensconced within an institution devoted to art and craft.

The decision to return to school was one that was long in the making. In reality, i applied to a number of schools in 2001, and again in 2006. I was rejected from every school at each of these attempts. After the last attempt, roughly five years passed where i remained active and working, determined to make pots outside a system that didn't seem to want me.

Studio life had its ups and down during that time. There were periods of fast development, professional success, and quick problem solving. There were also times when i produced work just to get kilns filled, to get the truck packed for the next show, and to keep ahead of a grueling schedule. Even at the best of times, it was difficult to ask hard questions and find the time to experiment, fail, and make bold changes. I thought my work was confident and developed, until one day i thought otherwise. I have always approached pottery with a mixture of workmanlike consistency as well as a passion for the whole idea of making things by hand.David Rakoff talks about the romantic stereotype of an artists's life versus what is actual reality in his book, Half Empty:

"The myth of bohemia persists with good reason. Given the choice between a day spent giving oneself over to oil painting, or one spent in the confining grid of office cubicles, most folks would opt for the old fantasy of the carnal chaos of the drop clothes, easels, turpentine, raffia wrapped chianti bottles holding drippy candle ends, and cavorting nude models, forgetting momentarily the lack of financial security and the necessary hours and hours of solitude spent fucking up over and over again."

I have to say that has been really nice to get back in the studio and start fucking up again.

Grad School: Week 1

2011-08-27T17:07:00.003-05:00

The first week is through here at UNL Lincoln and by Saturday, i managed to throw a few boards of pots and break the seal, as they say here in college. My tools are all lined up in a row, i learned about the difference between the avant-garde and kitsch, the best way to evacuate a building, and where i should go when i need to evacuate myself. My note taking skills from college (11 years ago), somehow kicked back into being and i can safely say that something was written dow during ART 846. What those four pages actually say, is anyone's guess.

I'm going to try to keep the blog going during this experience. Grad school was a strange and mysterious place for me to consider for many years. I will not try to expose it, or too much of myself, but just maybe describe it and my impressions. Here is a short list of good and the bad so far:

1. There is no place to swim in Nebraska.
2. The ceramics department here is incredibly well appointed.
3. If the squirrels would eat the flies here, everyone would be happier to cook outside.
4. Being a student will get you free newspapers, healthcare, and t-shirts.
5. If you see a shiny coin and pick it up, it probably has the ten commandments written on it.
6. Mixing glaze here is much more pleasant than your sister in law's garage. (no offense, hannah, and thanks.)

That's it for now. There is much work ahead...

Summer and Change

2011-06-20T19:36:00.001-05:00

Where, exactly, has this blog gone off to? I am soon on my way to University of Nebraska, Lincoln to begin a three year MFA program. I have toyed with this idea on and off for ten years and am finally ready to do it. It was a giant decision that took real time to work up to (as well as actually get accepted). If there is one thing that i have had to accept, is that work in the studio does not travel in a linear path. There are ups and downs, turn and corkscrews.

This major change and move accounts for my lack of writing here and general radio silence when it comes to shows. There are, however, some excellent opportunities to buy some pots in Maine this summer:

This Saturday, i will be participating in the 2nd annual WANDERING ART SHOW

Please come out to the red barn and see paintings, furniture, and pottery. We will have fiddle music, cold beverages, and a great time.This is one of the finest barns and properties in southern Maine and it will be a great chance to come inside and have a look around.

Also, on July 9th, I will be participating in Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts annual event. The Salad Days and Invitational Pottery Sale supports this great place and is a great excuse to get up the coast and spend the day outside. Art. Salad. Beer. Music. A winning combination.

And Finally, if you want to head even further up the coast (down for you Mainers). Pots are available at The Blue Heron Gallery in Deer Isle, Maine. On the way to Haystack, this gallery is one of the best out there. I have only been up to this area once, but i fell very hard for it, as most people who visit do.

That's the news for now, and that is plenty. Will grad school be conducive to blogging? Not sure. I'll just wait and see.

News and more News

2011-05-10T06:44:00.005-05:00

I will be teaching a three day workshop this weekend at Haystack Mountain School of Craft. This workshop is offered in conjunction with the Maine Craft Association and i am thrilled to head downeast and visit a place i have heard so much about. The course description reads as follows:

Students will use the wheel to create functional pottery for daily use. Special emphasis will be put on improving throwing techniques, functionality, and the interaction of form and surface. Demonstrations will be given on a variety of forms, including large platters, teapots, handles, and vases. Students can also bring work that has been fired, as well as brushes. Pot decoration will be discussed with an emphasis on traditional brushwork, patterning, and creating lively and visually compelling imagery.

It should be a beautiful weekend in Deer Isle and we will be covering a lot of in depth issues regarding clay and process. Now that the blog is up and running again, there will be more posts and pictures to come.

Maine Home and Design Feature

2010-12-19T08:58:00.004-06:00

Big thanks to Maine Home and Designfor the full page feature of our event this past fall. A great holiday present to stumble on yesterday when buying bread in Wiscasset. They sent Amanda Kowalski to chronicle the event and she did a great job capturing the sale. Go grab the magazine off the new stands or order it online to see it for real.

2010-12-03T06:34:00.002-06:00

These two guys are larger pots. The platter is about 16 inches across and the vase maybe 20 inches tall. Both shot well, i think. The brush was working that day. Today promises to be a busy First Friday in downtown Portland. Lots of holiday sales open. Please stop buy and visit us at Nine Hands Gallery on upper Congress, by the State Theater. These two pieces are available.

Mug, 2010

2010-12-02T14:20:00.001-06:00

You Know Me

2010-12-01T15:15:00.003-06:00

Or you don't, because i never post. Either way, these three pots plus two others are getting shipped to Iowa for Akar Gallery's annual Yunomi Invitational. They were shot recently by the talented Jay York, of Portland, Maine. This huge online sale requires months of preparation to lead up to an orgiastic few hours of online shopping. Of course this may be old news, if you are browsing a pottery blog...
Nevertheless, it was really nice to be invited this year. Victories can be few and far between for a working artist, and it felt real nice to get the invite. More pictures to come...And we are nearing the 100th post...It will get here eventually. That's a blog promise.

Cups Runneth Over...

2010-10-18T15:17:00.003-05:00

This past weekend was a home sale with Laurie Hadlock, Carol Bass, and Robert Newton in Laurie's barn. Good fall weather helped and it was a nice event. I'll just let the pictures do the talking...

I shipped work out to the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston today for their annual, Our Cups Runneth Over. A dozen high quality cups and mugs are on their way via the united stated postal service. Between the tape gun, peanuts, staples, and usps, shipping was unusually aggravating today. It always stings to spend money on shipping supplies. But, sometimes you have have to spend a little to make a little. Work will be shipping out all week in new smelling boxes and bubble wrap. If you are near boston, check it out.

Craft Show This Weekend...

2010-10-07T13:04:00.002-05:00

Hi all, just wanted to remind everyone that i will be participating in the Portland Fine Crafts Show this Saturday and Sunday. As i was organizing my track lighting and zip ties today, i was getting a real sense of deja vu. It is a small world out there, and only so many people know what "in-line 10x10 with pipe and drape" means. This will be my first show with the Maine Crafts Guild and hope it is a good one. If you are in town, come on by. I'm in booth 6.

Business as Usual

2010-09-20T14:45:00.004-05:00

The latest work is out of the kiln. It was a consistent firing without too much loss. I am finding this to be the norm for regular making. Not to knock consistency. Revelation would be better, of course, and that does happen. For me, it happens maybe one firing a year. Maybe once every 18 months. This is the slow trajectory of craftsmanship.
As for the details, i added 1.5 lbs. of salt and half a pound of soda, sprayed into the kiln. Fired up pretty neutral and then gave it a little kick of reduction at the end because i had a vision of all my pots looking like chalk. In fact, they were a little reduced for my taste.

This is becoming the ultimate "business as usual" blog post and i do feel inclined to talk about the weather here in Northern New England, but better not. Lots of shows coming up this fall and more on that later. I need to go get more plastic peanuts for all the shipping that is coming. Is the blog losing some of its zing?

There will be more posts coming with show announcement and Welcome To The Yard is limping its way towards its 100th post. It has been three years in the making. The 100th post will be epic, to say the least. Stay tuned...

Schaller Gallery Plate Show

2010-09-02T14:03:00.004-05:00

New work is online at Schaller Gallery. I sent a set of five dinner plates and five lunch plates.. I have always struggled with decorating the eating surface on plates. It never felt right. Food needs a somewhat uniform surface to sit. Otherwise, there is too much information going on, all of it muddled. If you are going to use them, that is. So, i settled on a deal: The top of the plate is for the food, the bottom is for me. Even in writing that last sentence, i had to force myself to not say front and back of the plates. I sometimes remind myself that for functional ceramics to really function, certain concessions sometimes need to be made. For me, that means not interrupting the eating surface.

Performance Vs. Creation

2010-07-30T06:24:00.003-05:00

When i was a student at Penland, Jack Troy was and teaching and he said that he considered himself a performer of forms, rather than a creator of forms. In my mind, potter's who focus on the thrown and altered pot are more creators of form. This has been a helpful distinction for me, as well as for looking at other people's pots (OPP). One is not necessarily better than the other. I know i tend to lean towards performance, rather than creation. Dividing the world into two types isn't always helpful, but this distinction remains a useful tool in evaluating the pots coming out my own studio, and those of others.

Blogger Disappears Downeast!

2010-07-19T13:12:00.007-05:00

After a very successful sale at Salad Days, this blogger continued down the coast and didn't think about pottery very hard for awhile. Down time Downeast was the name of the game. Time away from the studio can be almost as valuable as time in the studio. I wish i could say i was super refreshed to hit the studio hard, but i am more ready to hit the beach and look for sea glass. Duty calls and tomorrow i will face the empty studio.

The last firing went well and was a little more reduced than before. I had been firing with an oxyprobe but did without this firing. I did miss it, but reminded myself what a true luxury it is. It is jarring how quickly we can become dependent on technology. I can count the times i have fired without a pyrometer on one hand. Firing techniques have not changed that much over time compared with other technologies, but it would be a challenge to fire without even using cones. As far as forced air burners, high duty fire brick, and air conditioning go, i'll keep them. Technology marches on, increasingly with all of us in tow.

Tomorrow will begin another production cycle. There are some vague ideas formulating, nothing concrete. I am more of a suit up and show up type potter. The hardest part is often walking through the door.

Home Show and Sale

2010-06-24T13:52:00.002-05:00

This Saturday i will be having a home show with Carol Bass and Bob Newton. Work will include paintings, sculpture, furniture, wood, and of course, pottery. The show will take place on Littlejohn Island and run from 10-4. There will be lots of new work, refreshments, and some new garden pottery for sale. It is a casual and relaxed affair so bring the kids, the dogs, and some walking shoes and take a look around the island after the show. Also, it is a great a opportunity to take a look at one of the most photographed homes in Maine. Any fan of Maine Cottage Furniture will enjoy seeing the home of its co-founder, Carol Bass.
Come on by and say hello. One day only. Three artist. One day.

Watershed Salad Days

2010-06-05T07:40:00.002-05:00

I am pleased to announce that i will be participating in the Salad Days sale at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. Held on July 10th, this sale and fundraiser will be a major event. With that in mind, i am hitting the studio pretty hard and gearing up for the next firing. The last firing was major for me, in that the work coming out looked comfortable, not forced, and more basic than before. When i am not sure what to do with pots, i always do more. It is a bad habit. Here are some studio shot of work in progress:

A Solid Firing

2010-05-24T16:58:00.003-05:00

This was a solid firing. I am finding myself with less and less to say about the pottery so i will keep to the facts.

I used half a pound of soda and 1.5 lbs. of salt, all mixed up in solution and sprayed into the kiln, mainly into the firebox and between the stack and the exit flue. I was trying to keep from spraying the ware directly.

This gave a nice sheen with few really wet spots. I hate that carbon trap, splotchy soda look. Just saying.

A ton of plates came through. No wads were ditched into the interior of any glazed work. There were not too many accidents among the dinnerware. All said, 24 dinner plates and 25 side plates were fired. This is a lot for a kiln this size. The stacking scheme worked out.

This is the size of the kiln. Two shelves deep. Not super tall. Forced air.

A couple of mugs. I finally am finding the mind space to do nothing to the surface. What a relief it sometimes is.

A lastly, another platter. Less finally is more. Less salt, less decoration, less altering, less words.

Up To the Arch

2010-05-19T06:34:00.002-05:00

The kiln got loaded up yesterday and i will fire tomorrow. Lots and lots of plates in this one. They are stacked four high which means countless wads. Actually, it is 32 wads per stack. There are roughly 48 plates in the load (dinner and lunch plates). This means 384 wads just for the plates (who's counting?). My hope is not to ditch too many of them into the glazed interior of the pots. Always a fear. Tomorrow, we fire.

Doing Less

2010-05-14T14:16:00.003-05:00

First Attempt. Too Much

Second Attempt. Too Much.

Third Attempt. Too Much.

Final Attempt. Not Too Much.

Repeat.

New Work At Schaller Gallery Online

2010-04-30T14:10:00.003-05:00

A new round of crow inspired vessels is available at Schaller Gallery. Click the link to see some pots.

Filling Shelves

2010-04-27T14:56:00.004-05:00

Not much to say other than that. Just trying to fill the table up, move it to the shelves, and run them through the kiln. Trying to keep it that simple.

History of the World in 100 Objects

2010-04-24T06:11:00.003-05:00

Check out this strange ad for the BBC Radio's History of the World in 100 Objects. This program tells the history of everything through 100 carefully chosen human made objects, from the earliest tool right through to computers. As much as talking about the objects, it tells the story of the maker. This is the history of the world that we crafters have been waiting for. Also, who doesn't want to listen to Sir David Attenborough lay down some truth about early hand tools? Done in conjunction with the British Museum, this radio documentary can be downloaded. Listening to it in the studio will give you the long, long view of making.

For example, the act of creating stone chopping tools also activates areas more involved with speech in the brain. This may indicate that shaping tools was one of the earliest acts that spurred communication. The process of making objects for use, even beauty, was a pivital step in building civilizations. People have been making things, for use and beauty, for a long long time. The program takes a good hard look at the objects, the effects they had on the maker, and how this propels civilization forward.

Sprung

2010-04-21T06:44:00.002-05:00

Spring has sprung here in Maine and while i have been maintaining radio silence, things are busy in the studio. Dinner plates and side plates are being made. Nothing eats up square feet in the studio like a long run of dinnerware and this run was no exception. They must dry upside down and it is a long wait to get those little baddies off the table and onto the shelf. The same goes for drying out the trimmings. Without a pug mill or mixer, i let my scrap dry out completely, slake it down, mix it, and then dry it back up to throwing consistency. This low tech process works just fine but you must start with bone dry clay to avoid clumps. It has to be dry dry dry. Hence, piles of scrap spread across tables.
Other than this work, winter is officially over in Maine. Although the locals warn that spring can often be merciless, the trees are budding, birds are returning, and the basement has no standing water.
Finally, I just shipped work to Crimson Laurel Gallery in North Carolina and to Red Lodge, Montana to Schaller Gallery. It'll be there soon.

Working in Series

2010-04-04T15:24:00.002-05:00

New pots are out of the kiln and i am pretty excited about starting to work in longer runs and making some sets. I have long steered clear of large dinnerware sets and nesting forms. But, after looking at the chaos of my cabinets, a little imposed order might be just the thing. It is an explosion of contemporary potters in my cabinets, coupled with my own work. I am thinking that perhaps people might enjoy a little order in their kitchen, without sacrificing the handmade. So, i am making plates like crazy right now and thinking, how do i get the world to decide they need service for 12?

The Smallest Things

2010-03-23T21:09:00.002-05:00

Sometimes the best pot to come out of a kiln is also the smallest and least extravagant. I thought about this mug all day and just had to hold it back for my own use. It is pretty simple really. Not a complicates design or particularly flashy.

It is difficult to make pots where the technique does not show through. Pots that are understated without being obvious. Personal expression is a huge pillar in contemporary ceramics. The personality of potter is celebrated as much as their work. Sometimes, though, pots come through the firing that look just like themselves, and no one else. These are gems that can be hard to come by. Someone famous said that in a good work of art, the skill never shows.

2 lbs. Salt, 1 lbs. Soda

2010-03-22T17:25:00.003-05:00

Here is a selection of work from the latest firing. The atmosphere was neutral the whole way through and i fired an even cone 10 all the way around. This was my second firing with this kiln and actually felt like i was firing the kiln, instead of it firing me. The first time, i was just tagging along for the ride. This time i was able to look at the oxyprobe with something more than curiosity.

Intelligent Crow

2010-03-17T08:16:00.001-05:00

Crows have been a long running image in my pottery. Here is a discussion by a scientist regarding their incredible intelligence, ability to learn, and the concept of actually working with this species in a mutually beneficial way. These critters are all around us, and have learned from us more than we know. Crows are long written off as a junk bird but possess a keen ability with tool-use, problem solving, and adaptive reasoning. Check it.

Deciding what images to put on a pot can be daunting. It is far better to make a bad decision than no decision in this regard. In other words, indecision is the greatest enemy. It is sometimes better not to worry about where ideas are coming from, and just concern yourself with having ideas.

In Defense of Camouflage

2010-03-10T09:41:00.002-06:00

Brave Sparrow

whose home is in the straw
and bailing twine threaded
in the slots of a roof vent

who guards the tiny ledge
against the starlings
that cruise the neighborhood

whose heart is smaller
than a heart should be,
whose feathers stiffen

like an arrow
fret to quicken
the hydraulics of its wings,
stay there on the metal

ledge, widen your alarming
beak, but do not flee as others have
to the black walnut vaulting

overhead. Do not move outside
the world you've made
from bailing twine and straw.

The isolated starling fears
the crows gang up
to rout a hawk, The hawk

is cold. And cold is what
a larger heart maintains.
The owl at dusk and dawn,

far off, unseen, but audible
repeats its syncopated intervals,
a song that's not a cry

but a whisper rising from concentric
rings of water spreading out across
the surface of a catchment pond.

It asks, "Who are you? Who
are you?" but no one knows.
Stay where you are, nervous, jittery.

Move your small head a hundred
ways, a hundred times, keep
paying attention to the terrifying

world. And if you see the Robins
in their dirty orange vests
patrolling the yard like thugs,

forget about the worm. Starve
yourself, or from the air inhale
the water you may need, digest

the dust. And what the promiscuous
cat and jaybirds do, let them
do it, let them dart and snipe,

let them sound like others.
They sleep when the owl sends
out its encircling question.

stay where you are, you lit fuse,
you dull spark of saltpeter and sulfur.

- Michael Collier

Soldiering Through

2010-03-03T11:18:00.002-06:00

My trusty commercial underglaze have finally arrived. They took a small detour and went to Minnesota so the long wait is finally over. It is great to mix your own glazes and such but sometimes it is worth paying for others expertise. I have been using these Fireshade Underglazes for 5 or 6 years now and swear by them. When you are looking for a good black, things can get dicey. The black i use is so dark it seems like there is hole where it sits, that no light can escape. It is cosmically black. Like deep space.

There are what seems like mountains of bisqued pots to start decorating. It is daunting to begin but i quickly build momentum and soon enough am done. As i start this process, i begin to build a mental catalogue of images, old and new, that will go onto pots. This is a form of mental squinting, to see the rough outline of a body of work. I also imagine the pots as an army i am decorating to go into battle (the kiln). This is a rather American way of looking at it. When making pots, though, it is important to keep the herd strong. This sometimes requires killing off the weaker members in the scrap pile or garbage. When the weeks of work go into the kiln, I want it be a unified front against mediocrity.

The battle goes on!

Where Oh Where

2010-02-24T11:34:00.002-06:00

my new lover girl, Bindi

I have officially neglected this blog for awhile now so will try to get back into it and report a little more. Things are cracking in the studio and shelves are sagging with work. I am waiting on underglaze to arrive from the West Coast and plan to start decorating as soon as it arrives. The studio is in full tilt, with myself, Paul Heroux, and Scott Goldberg all producing work. The wood stove has been blazing and the walls filling with some very different work. I can't say enough how interesting, educational, and fun it is to share the studio with other artists. As much as i like holing up and working alone, this is much better.

So here is a brief list of what is going on in the studio this winter:
1. Throwing on a treadle for the first time. Learning to slow way down.
2. Covered bowls. A form i have always struggled with is starting to show some progress.
3. Large serving dishes with multiple lugs. I have gone lug crazy this winter. I'll lug anything.
4. Listened to Under The Dome, by the famous Maine author.
5. Mugs, mugs, and more mugs.
6. Squaring off more work and exploring footed forms (an excuse to put lugs on the bottoms of the pots).
7. Generally trying to stretch a little and making more throw away reclaim. My show schedule is not hardly as busy as last year. This means i have the time to experiment a little more, fail at some forms, and go down some roads i might otherwise not.
8. Re-reading some of the great pottery books of all time. Letting the old masters have their say.
9. Handles. Refining and adjusting.
10. Generally trying to handle the work less, do less brushwork, and let the material speak for itself.

There is a partial list. I'll try to get back with some more photos soon but just wanted to say i am still out here, still turning pots.

New Work At Schaller Gallery Online

2010-01-31T08:03:00.002-06:00

Work is now available at Schaller Gallery. This online store has some really good potters, and i'm not just saying that. Based out of Red Lodge, Montana this gallery exists on the ether, supplying pots through the internet (a series of pipes). It is a very well designed website with fabulous photography and a great selection. Need i say more?

New England's Largest Elm Tree (Herbie) Comes Down Tomorrow

2010-01-17T11:16:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow, in Yarmouth, ME, the largest Elm tree in New England will be felled due to dutch elm disease. Over 250 years old, this tree is majestic and will be really missed. Children have been visiting the tree this weekend and making drawings, taking pictures, and saying goodbye to this landmark. To honor this tree, The Herbie Project will use the wood from the tree to construct a variety of projects from local craftsmen. Benches will be made for the town out of his wood as well as a number of other wood related projects. i will be burning some of the scrap wool to incorporate into a glaze. All the work from this project will be shown at the Portland Museum of Art in 2011.
The town of Yarmouth has really come together to honor this event. What could just as easily have passed noticed by only a few has become a city wide project to recognize a change in the landscape in the town. Where nature and culture collide, craftsmen seem to fill the void that is left

Animal Dreams is Coming Soon

2010-01-14T13:02:00.003-06:00

The biggest show of the year is coming soon! Myself and Adu Gindy are opening on January 16th at the Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul, MN. To my Minnesota customers, this will be the largest collection of work available for some time. It will be a great collection of animal inspired pots and other decorated vessels. Not to mention some beautiful paintings by Adu. I will not be in attendance at the opening but sent a very solid collection of pots in my place. Please come on out this Saturday evening for drinks and appetizers and to support the artists and a fine fine gallery. They use a sticker at the gallery that reads: "Glorious American Craft." What could be better, or truer, than that?

It's Official

2010-01-11T15:11:00.000-06:00

Class Starts Soon

2010-01-06T15:26:00.002-06:00

It is not too late (but getting too late) to sign up for a class at Portland Pottery. They start tomorrow and include a beginning and intermediate class. Also, i will be teaching a one day workshop on January 30th. It is titled Brushwork and the Functional Pot Follow the link to Portland Pottery and please join me for some detailed instruction. The description of the workshop is below:

Aaron Sober is from Wisconsin and has been working in clay for about ten years. He is a graduate of Macalaster College and has worked at several art centers and craft schools throughout the US. Aaron is now living and working in Brunswick, Maine. Beginning in January 2010, he will be joining us as an instructor at Portland Pottery. Aaron’s functional pots are decorated with a variety of interesting and detailed brushwork. He uses slips and glazes to obtain these beautiful designs. This workshop will focus on using brushes to decorate pottery. Traditional techniques will be discussed with ample time for demonstration and experimentation. The class will discuss how to decorate a three dimensional object, materials necessary for effective brushwork design, and tools to electrify a ceramic surface with brushwork.

2009-12-30T13:35:00.002-06:00

Here are a few more images from the last firing. All in all, i am pleased. The group of work that will be sent to The Grand Hand will be a really strong collection. It is about 75% work from this first Maine firing and 25% from the last firing in Minnesota. I'd like to say this would complete my transformation into a certified Mainiac but the influence of Minnesota pottery is something that may be with me forever. I am not alone in the sentiment. It is good to break the firing seal, as they say, here in New England. Compared to my first firing in Minnesota (which was a total mess), things are on the right track. Some images...

the casserole has been uncharted territory up until now. here is a first crack at it.

the ubiquitous meadow grass filled most of the top of the kiln. good atmosphere up there and some nice titanium slips.

another handled bowl. I may go back to the drawing board on these. maybe they just need some soup in them.

Pots From the Latest Firing

2009-12-29T17:04:00.003-06:00

Here are a few pots from the last firing. Things looked good in there. Not perfect. But there are some nice ones and i am gratified and relieved. There is a lot of evidence of soda in there and not so much salt. This is an interesting change for me. I generally prefer salt in order to retain brushwork and avoid the carbon trapping splotchiness of soda. On the other hand, obscuring the brushwork can be the best thing ever sometimes. A fine line.

a new crow on a fence post made for a nice set of plates to be shipped back to the midwest

these handled bowls are a new form and i think i like them. I think...

An old standby. Most teapots i make are the size of basketballs. This one is for a little less.

I love my crow. There. I said it.

Firing Complete

2009-12-24T07:46:00.002-06:00

I fired the kiln over at Paul Heroux's studio yesterday and will unload this Sunday. It was a smooth firing with no upsets. One never knows what to expect with the first firing in a new kiln but perhaps this one might just come out well. No pictures, however, as it seemed better to maintain a little visual privacy for this first firing in Maine. I added 2 lbs. of soda and 1.5 lbs. of salt to this one, all of it sprayed in. Happy holidays and we'll get back with the blog soon.

Freedom Follows Function

2009-12-22T14:25:00.006-06:00

There are functional potters who believe singularly in domestic use, the interaction of user and maker, and the unfettered functionality of hand made ware. Then there are other types of potters for whom functional ceramics is the vehicle for other ideas. I have long been the second type of maker. Pottery is the vehicle for self-expression rather than the end in itself. Both ways of making are totally valid, but it is a useful distinction for me when i look other's work. Recognizing this has also been useful in trying to chart a course through the studio, a career, and beyond. Knowing what you are, and are not, is a powerful tool.

While there is no chance of giving up functional pots, i have been painting more and starting to tinker with some sculpture in the basement. It has been interesting to cast off the rules (and there are rules) of making things for use. It is an interesting question of what to make if you don't need to worry about glaze fit, weight, hand feel, balance, and durability. What type of work would you make if there were no constraints? How much of what you make is done out of habit? These are some questions i have been asking myself lately. The rules that we potters set for ourselves are so useful. They provide boundaries to work within and this gives focus and direction. Sometimes it is good to stretch, though, and forget some of the rules.

Animal Dreams

2009-12-19T15:58:00.002-06:00

The postcard is out for the big show at The Grand Hand. This is my biggest show to date and i am planning on sending from 40-50 pieces, including some larger work. Some is already fired and some will be pushed through the kiln next week. I have been culling work for the last year and it will go towards this show. More updates will be coming soon regarding opening times and date.

Regretsy for the Holidays

2009-12-17T06:34:00.002-06:00

Get it this year at regretsy.com. This online time killer collects the best(!) of etsy and filters out the rest. I have not seen any of my pots on the site, but chances are i probably missed them. Browse by section, from Pet Humiliation to Not Remotely Handmade to Don't Ask Me. There is something for everyone here, but hopefully not something from everyone.

Warren MacKenzie Spits Hot Fire

2009-12-16T06:35:00.002-06:00

I think there is an American expression, but not because people have tried to do so., but because there are a lot of potters; they interact and affect one another and because there is a sense of American rhythm which we can't escape. There is a wonderful phrase which Philip Rawson used, "memory traces". We are all tied inevitably to our memories and experiences which find expression without our willing it or being conscious of it. This is the sort of thing which shapes expression from a culture which can seldom be seen at the time it occurs. I have no fear of utilitarian pots ceasing to be made, no matter what the magazines or gallery owners tell us. THey will be made because there will always be people who express themselves through pottery for those who have eyes to see...

...When you look at almost every culture from the past, archeologists use utilitarian pots to find out about that culture. When Alix and I were first starting to pot we looked in the museums and found that the pots we liked were those made for daily use. These seemed to us to express the dynamics of a society in the healthiest way. When potters became clever or produced the unusual or rare it usually marked the decline of a culture, even though that may not have been obvious at the time. Seeing this we decided to attempt to use the functional pot as an expressive outlet for our ideas and feelings. I've never been sorry we decided that and have never felt constricted in my work.

Michael Cardew explains the two types of men, and Spits Hot Fire

2009-12-15T08:18:00.003-06:00

It has often been remarked that some potters are by temperament "clay men" and others are "kiln men". To the latter, a continuous devotion to the kiln and the fires is easy and natural at all times. Clay men on the other hand, bound to the grosser elements, earth and water, must when the fire is once alight take a conscious vow, at least for the duration of the firing, not to allow anything to distract or divert them from the kiln and its demands. There is nothing static about the fire. Flames and flame temperatures are moving continually in extension and time, and a few minutes lost may be irreparable. The kiln is a jealous master - or mistress - demanding the undivided attention of those who attend it.

Being your slave, what should i do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend
Nor services to do, till you require

Bernard Leach Spits Hot Fire

2009-12-14T14:33:00.004-06:00

Here are a few rules of decorating from my man Bernard Leach:
1. The end of lines are important; the middles take care of themselves.
2. Lines are forces, and the points at which they change or cross are significant and call for emphasis.
3. Vertical lines are of growth, horizontal lines are of rest, diagonal lines are of change.
4. Straight line and curve, square and circle, cube and sphere are the potter's polarities, which he works into a rhythm of form under one clear concept.
5. Curves for beauty, angles for strength.
6. A small foot for grace, a broad one for stability.
7. Enduring forms are full of quiet assurance. Overstatement is worse than understatement.
8. Technique is no means to an end. It is no end in itself.

Where We Are At

2009-12-08T16:20:00.002-06:00

is in the midst of glazing. I am getting ready to fire work for a big show this January at the Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul, MN. This will be a little of a wildcard firing as it will be in a new kiln, in a new state, etc. As any one who has ever mixed the same glaze recipe in a different state, ceramic materials are eerily hard to predict and manage. Maybe it is the water, or the source of materials, or the clay... Do you see where i am going with this? It is hard to isolate variables after making a large move. Impossible. Nothing to do but make work and see how the first load looks. I wish i was more scientific, sometimes, but the hard truth is that i am just not super interested in ceramic materials. This is ok. We have to focus on our strengths, after all, or we would be all over the studio all the time.

That said, my basement laboratory is coming together and if i could just get my hands on some nephaline syenite, i would be all the way there. More news, and more posts, coming soon.

Marguerite Wildenhaim Spits Hot Fire

2009-11-18T15:03:00.003-06:00

Since life has a way of swinging us, as with the pendulum, from one end to the other, we find in our times that we are now a trifle tired of all those gorgeous colors, of all those decorations. We no longer believe in the values of those too sensuous surfaces, those impressionistic glazes that look like rainbows and cloudy skies, fiery outbursts of volcanoes, desert sunsets or Pacific blues. We are slowly looking for more subdued tones, for simpler and nearer relation to our original material again. Now that man has learned what he can do with his ceramic techniques, he begins to be selective as to what these convey to him in the expression of his whole life.

The modern potter is today trying again to find on his own some ways of forming, in a timeworn and often much abused material, those ideas that occupy him today.

-Marguerite Wildenhaim

I've been skimming over Pottery: Form and Expression the past few weeks and thought i'd share a quote. It seemed like a lot of potters in the midwest were influenced by this artist and spent some time at her studio/fort in California. She had a strong connection with Luther College in Iowa and produced a lot of potters. Although i find her pots pretty sleepy, she ruled with a stern hand she does not mince words:

In all ages there have been potters, some talented, and some not-so-talanted: at all times there have been good, expressive pots and live ones and also in-sensetive, unimaginative, and dull ones...Today, the effort of creation must be carried by craftsmen singly and often in opposition to the society in which he is living. This requires a much stronger personality and a greater amount of talent than in those times when the whole society carried the craftsmen.

Dolan Geiman Shout Out

2009-11-17T13:32:00.003-06:00

Thanks to Dolan Geiman for the shout out. He featured me in a list of handmade items he loves. Dolan was my neighbor last year at Uptown Art Fair. Dolan is a hard working artist with a distinct flavor. Chances are he is coming to a fair near you, taking best of show, and turning right around to do the same thing the next weekend. I have a lot of respect for artists who are out there hoofing it and making it work. Dolan is a good example of a young artist doing it his way. He also has a thing for birds, weathered wood, and rust.

What's Going On in the Studio

2009-11-16T15:31:00.002-06:00

Here is a quick image of pots in process over at Paul Heroux's studio. Paul has opened his studio to me, a basic stranger, and welcomed me in. It is generous of him to share the space and time. It also allows me to prepare for an exciting two person show at the Grand Hand Gallery this winter. More details on the are coming soon. I am working on some new forms, some old forms, and trying to get comfortable with the big move of spaces. Both mental and physical. I have been slowly pushing myself to work through some new forms, lately. I have not done much altering in the past few years, but am starting to move the pots more after they come off the wheel The heavily altered pot sometimes has a gimicky feel to me. It reminds me of something Heath Ledger said after being told that Philip Seymour Hoffman won the oscar for best actor: "I thought the award was for best acting, not most acting."

With that in mind, out came the paddle.

Etsy Site Back Up (for discussion)

2009-11-10T14:28:00.004-06:00

Etsy
Buy Handmade
aaronsober

My Etsy Site is back up for the holidays so go online and get some pots. My inventory is dwindling but pots are turning and there is work on the horizon. If you are not near a retail outlet this season, Etsy is a great place to find some of my work. That said, let's say some other things about this ubiquitous website.

Etsy has taken the craft, DIY, and hipster community by storm these past few years and my emotions about it are so mixed. On the up side, it has generated a new energy, excitement, and interest in craft, the likes of which i have never seen. It has breathed a new life into the craft community and has done great things to educate the greater population about handmade items and the people who make them. This is generating new craft shows and careers for people. Craft is kinda cool. What a victory. In my mind, the American Craft Council is struggling for relevance in the craft world today. They continue to fight the good fight with mixed results. Etsy is affecting the craft world in a way i just have never seen any organization do. This is amazing.

The main question is whether Etsy is good for Fine Craft or not? There is a vast quantity of work out there. There are gems, and there is an ocean of trash (its true). To me, craft is taking a material and changing it in a basic manner to make an object. Craft is heating metal, or dying wool, or joinery. There is an appreciation, respect, and belief in material. On Etsy, craft can be buying an American Apparel T-shirt and spray paint, or selling a vintage lamp. To me this is not enough. If you make that T-shirt and spray paint it, i am totally good. This is a fine, but major distinction Etsy has not, and I believe will never, address. I don't want the general public to think that decorating a store bought t-shirt, and doing what i do, is the same thing. It is an elitist position, no doubt. I'm just saying, though.

Etsy is an easy way to set up an online storefront. It does not, i'm afraid, elevate the art form beyond commerce. This is a fine, knitpicky distinction and for every example of store bought, slapped together garbage, there is a serious maker, making a living on etsy. So i have to remain divided. Until then, though, i'll continue to use it to sell pots. It is not a tremendous amount of sales, but it is enough that i cannot ignore it.

I would shudder if etsy even considered a jury, as the Artful Home does. I'll also never browse it. So while i'll list items and fill the occasional order, i'll also continue to believe that Etsy is trouble for people selling fine craft.

I'd love to get some other opinions, so if your out there bloggers/crafters, what to you think?

Where to Get It Over the Holidays

2009-11-05T09:59:00.002-06:00

Work will be available at few Holiday Shows this season. I am in Tis a Gift: The 19th Annual Holiday Exhibition, at Northern Clay Center. This is a great collection of a lot of really good makers. So for you folks in the twin cities, i left a pile of nice pots for this exhibition before i cut out of town. On the East Coast, work is going out the door to Baltimore Clayworks Winterfest. This is my first time having pots at the Clayworks in Baltimore and i am psyched to be included.

The photo above is promotion from Northern Clay Center and you can just make out my bowl in the pottery sandwich. I'm not sure if i am the bread or the filling, but i'm sure it makes no difference.

In Defense of Maine

2009-11-04T14:35:00.004-06:00

I have been blessed with living in some very pottery rich areas for the last few years. I consider Western North Carolina and Minnesota to be the two best places in the country to see and possibly make functional pottery. The proof is in the pudding. I wont go through the laundry list of top notch potters working in both places, but there are some giants out there on those two horizons. How did these two places become such fantastic places to work? Certainly University of Minnesota and Penland School of Crafts are responsible for much of the fuss. Both have had profound influences on hundreds of potters and most importantly, has made artists locate themselves close to these institutions. Having a critical mass of working potters in one area, year after year, can make a real difference. But, i digress. This blog post is in defense of Maine. Not necessarily as a mecca for the working potter, but just as a place. An abbreviated list is as follows:

1. There are no billboards here. None.
2. This is one of the least populated states in the Union. Space abounds.
3. The coast.
4. The forests here are growing faster than they are cut. There are literally billions of trees.
5. A strong tradition of do-it-yourself, steely eyed independence.

Place is important for a potter. Even in the age of national juried shows and internet showrooms. While my local following here is restricted to relatives in Maine, I hope to start building customers closer to home, rather than farther. In my experience, this is important to most potters, but not all. That's all for now. Happy turning to all you hairy potters out there (i'm looking at you Dan, and wishing you a quick recovery).

Sam Bass in Antarctica

2009-11-03T06:55:00.003-06:00

In blog news, my brother-in-law will be keeping a travel journal of his trip to Antarctica this month with Skiing Magazine. Sam is an editor there and will be traveling with a group of educators, scientists, explorers, and skiers. The rest of take trips, but this is a serious expedition. The link is here.

Gossip Girl Here

2009-10-30T08:34:00.006-05:00

So what is going on with Aaron Sober Ceramics? As i enter a rebuilding period following the sudden relocation to Maine, things around the pottery (my basement) are not as they used to be. Without a steady method of firing yet, i am retreating from booking shows for the time being. This means i will not be attending any of the American Craft Council shows in 2010, which was an important part of my year. This is not to say i have not been busy. As i am making a change over from salt-firing to electric, i am putting together a glaze mixing area for the first time:

Also, i have rehabbed my basement into a studio. This was a necessary step to keep costs down this year as i put a lot of time into research and experimentation. I have a clear view of the oil tank, kitty litter, and a small slice of sunlight. But, it is expansive compared to my old studio and it is at home. i have been feeling more and more that the only way to make this work, is to work at home. When i looked at last years expenses at my old studio, it amounted to about a enough to build a salt kiln. Add this up, year after year, and what i see is a depressing misuse of cash. So although the studio is in the basement, i am happy to have it at home, and put that money into things that last. Here it is:

Finally, Paul Heroux, a local luminary, potter, and teacher, has generously extended me use of part of his studio for awhile. It is a bright, airy place to make some pots and get out of the basement. Here are some photos of the work space and the view out the window:

I have ordered a small test kiln with which to test the winter away. Although i am deep into salt firing, i am excited to make a switch to a lower temperature. There is a lot of possibility in making such a drastic change. Also, check out the link to flicker to see more pictures of the studios and some photos of some paintings (what!?) i have been working on. Thanks for checking in.

Change of Plans

2009-10-14T15:41:00.002-05:00

After careful consideration, the warehouse was abandoned and i am setting up a studio right here at home, in lovely Brunswick. The studio space was expansive but intolerably drafty, dank, and just too big for me. So, after a full refund and several trips worth of gear, i am moving the whole operation into my basement. Most, if not all potters have spent some time working in the basement. It is not romantic, but it is close to home. Also, after paying rent for several years on top of firing fees, it is time to put that money back into the studio. I'm not sure about other potters, but profit margins are tight, and a years worth of rent really registers at tax time. So, i am busy getting the place lit, building out furniture, putting in water, and seeing about a getting a kiln wired in. This is going to be an interesting year as i make a leap from salt firing to electric kiln ceramics.

The picture above is from the Cumberland County Fair. This is the place that inspired Charlottes Web and is a great spot in my new adopted state. I felt a little bit like a one of the racing pigs last week. Things are moving forward now, though.

A short list of things that are in my way

2009-10-08T16:12:00.003-05:00

1. The electrical "situation"
2. Hesitation
3. The layer of down covering everything from the last guys upholstery operation.
4. The heating "situation"
5. Whatever happened in the bathroom before the last guy left his upholstery operation.
6. Plywood

Starting New, Starting Over

2009-10-07T15:04:00.006-05:00

Just a short recap to bring us up to the present:

1. Finished up the show season in Jackson, Wyoming in mid-August.
2. Got married in Maine in late August.
3. Flew back to Minnesota in early September.
4. Packed up the studio and everything else and moved to Maine in mid-September.
5. Unpacked in late September (still working on this.)
6. Rented a studio space in early October.

In short, my wife was of offered a job in her native Maine and we jumped. This was, to say the least, disruptive for pottery production. However, settling into life in a small town has so many perks compared to life in a larger city (more on this later). One of these major perks seems be a warehouse space. I have rented space in an old warehouse in Lewiston, and am beginning the major work of setting up shop. This is the first time i am starting to work without being in the safety net of an institution. To me, this is a major step in maturing as an artist, and also tremendous leap into the unknown. They used to make sheets here and who knows what else. There is a mocassin factory upstairs and a thread maker next door.

The space is a little raw and the bathroom is unmentionable. The price, however, is right. All said, it is about 2000sq. feet. So let this be a call to artists looking for space: It's just sitting here in Lewiston, waiting for you.

So, as we progress along, i hope this massive change in working conditions and everything it entails will be a good motivator to do a little more blogging. Maybe it can shed a little light on starting over from scratch. Potters need to have their feet pretty firmly planted in the ground to be productive. Here is the spot where i am going to start from.

As you can see, the space and the building are old and used. This is what warehouses used to look like in St. Paul, pre-gentrification and condos. And, what else could a potter want more than his very own loading dock. I guess it will take a little getting used to the fact that my old studio was smaller than my loading dock, but real estate in Lewiston, ME is not the same as Minneapolis.

So this is what is new. Stay tuned.

Paulus Berensohn Interview

2009-09-22T18:24:00.002-05:00

Hear a fine interview of Paulus Berensohn on Studio 360 here. Paulus talks about his path to clay through dance, and how they both continue to inform each other. This is amazing in that he finds a path to the art form in a way few people do. There are so many different ways to make a perfect omelet and he talks frankly and concisely about his path. Check it.

So Long Minnesota, Hello The Future

2009-09-14T19:04:00.002-05:00

I am bidding farewell to Minnesota tomorrow to move to Southern Maine. What? Yes. The studio is shut down and cleared out, pots are packed and heading in multiple directions to galleries, shops, and some of the best i am going to keep this time. All that is left to do is french kiss the salt kiln, curse, and dust off the hands. Stay tuned for more pottery related news, including where to buy some pots over the holidays in minnesota, a few new galleries in the southwest, and what, exactly, is happening in Maine. The pottery tools are cleaned, the wheel is clean, and the rest is a mess of boxes. Lots of new developments are developing so stay tuned!

Monsters and Margos Pottery

2009-08-22T14:24:00.002-05:00

After Art Fair Jackson Hole, i took a much needed break and caught a few monsters on Snake River. Here is one of the giants. Then it was on to Margos Pottery where i had a wonderful visit and dropped off a healthy amount of pots. Margos is a beautiful gallery and i saw a few real gems looking around. If you are ever near Buffalo, Wyoming it is worth a having a look. There are a lot of great pots.

Hitting the Road

2009-08-10T21:11:00.002-05:00

I am on my way to Art Fair Jackson Hole. Besides the hard work that is doing outdoor shows, I plan on taking some much needed R and R after the fair. Last week was the infamous Uptown Art Fair here in Minneapolis and it saw record crowds, tornado warnings, and a thorough drenching on Friday and Saturday. The show circuit can be both brutalizing and empowering. Sometimes both on the same day. I am looking forward to some time in the mountains and hopefully a good show with abundant sunshine. The truck is loaded complete with brand new springs and a fresh oil change. I'll try to post some road pics as i go.

Summer Haze

2009-07-16T17:04:00.003-05:00

I am still here. Still working and getting ready for a show in beautiful Stockholm, WI this Saturday. If you happen to live anywhere near this little town, hit the road and visit the booth. This show takes place on the shores of Lake Pepin and is a good, mellow little show. No drama expected. I am also getting ready for a firing next week in anticipation in of a busy August. I am always 1-2 months ahead of myself in planning, so summer is almost a done deal and christmas shows are starting to rear their little heads. Of course there is actually a tremendous amount to do before then. Again, no drama expected. But of course it sometimes comes... I guess there is not so much to report other than slowly decorating. I am going to air my dirty laundry and tell the world that i watch tv while i decorate pots. I stand by this technique as a tried and true method for working and also as a karmic pass for watching too much television. It is what it is.

In other news in the blogosphere, thanks to Scott Cooper at St. Earth Pottery for linking me and a lively discussion on pricing pottery. The discussion is sure to keep raging for as long as we all sell retail but it is nice to hear other perspectives now and again. Until later...

Sam Sober on the Cover

2009-06-25T16:28:00.002-05:00

for Neuroscience. My big brother landed himself on the cover of the magazine for neurobiology. Sam, in addition to being a capable potter, also hooks bird brains up to machines and records their songs. This picture features one of sam's birds being played back audio other than its song, while sam peers into its brain to see what is happening. It would be like speaking with your voice but actually hearing Gilbert Godfrey's voice. This is a very technical explanation and i'm sure the article has a more layman's explanation of bird neurobiology. Well, i am proud of my brother for peering into the chemical unknown of our brains and probing the depths of nature's secrets. He is also a proud father this year with his very own Baby Blog. There is hope that Sam will get back into pottery one day but there is also a lot of evidence that he is pretty busy. Congrats on landing the cover!

2009-06-22T17:21:00.001-05:00

The firing went very well. It was smooth sailing. The big news was that i fired without putting the kiln into body reduction at all. This makes the slips pop more and makes for nicer contrast with the black underglaze. No one ever told me you were allowed to fire a salt kiln without a body reduction. I'm still here, though. A good portion of the kiln is shipped off to three galleries in North Carolina: Grovewood Gallery, Heartwood Gallery, and Greenleaf Gallery. It is nice to ship some work to Western North Carolina. I consider that area to be one of the richest and best areas to make pots in the country. It is a close tie with Minnesota for talented functional potters. In either place, you can't throw a rock without hitting someone taking craftsmanship very seriously.

This weekend i sold some pots at Stone Arch festival of the Arts. It is a nice little fair on the Mississippi, here in town. I am putting my summer show face on. I haven't exactly been practicing that face in the mirror all winter but i'm sure i will find it. Selling pots outside, as anyone who has done it can tell you, is a singular experience. Summer is on us here and it is getting midwest hot already.

In the spirit of making blog entries about something other than my own production cycle, here is a poem by one of my students:

The Plain Speech

After twenty years the love we make
we braid into the hair of the day.
Sometimes i watch each stitch in the quilt

white hairs pecking the days out,
sometimes i cry and stop you
to talk about death. Still you start

telling your beads of memory
into my hand. That day
next to the slough you say

we napped in the car. Buffalo cows
stepped out of the rocks, stopped the calves
in a half-circle behind us. We could not move

or turn. They loomed at us out of the mirrors.
You wrap me in this story, a man coming home
coat full of red cyclamen. Clay strung to the roots.

After some struggle to find the true north of their lives
great and small wings return. White throated sparrow
slow beats of cranes crossing Dakota. Orioles take

fruit we have left on a human plate. Like a farmer
suppressing his muscles for church, behind you
the uncurtained window, beside you the iron bed

you stand in your black pants, shirtsleeves,
a patch of wrinkles smelling of damp and the iron.
You call me in the plain speech we use at home.

Answer me earth, mercy
Answer me rain

-Mary Rose O'Reilley

Making Art in the Real World

2009-06-10T14:06:00.004-05:00

The kiln is loaded and candling today. It it a simple load: Plates, bowls, vases, cups, and mugs. And condiment dishes. When you say it simply, it seems pretty simple. In actuality, a lot goes into getting all that work together and into the kiln. It's not complicated, but it does require concentration. I had a teacher once say that craft was great for people who like to concentrate. He also said that he liked to make cool things and look cool while he made them. Craft isn't always deep and thoughtful. Also, it is usually not that romantic. It has its moments, like anything else, but for this potter, it feels a lot like normal life. There are ups and downs, but normally i am working somewhere in the middle. In honor of making art in the real world, i am including a favorite poem today.

Here You Are

It's such a relief to see the woman you love walk out the door some nights
for it's ten o'clock and you need eight hours of sleep
and one glass of wine has been more than enough
and, as for lust-well, you can live without it most days
and you are glad, too, the Ukranian masseuse you see every Wednesday
is not in love with you, and has no plans to be, for it is the pain
in your back you need relief from most, not that ambiguous itch,
and the wild successes of your peers no longer bother you
nor do your unresolved religious cravings or the general injustice
of the world, no, there is very little, in fact, that bothers you these days
when you turn first to the obituaries, second to the stock market,
then, after a long pause, to the book review, you are becoming
a good citizen, you do your morning excercise, count your accumulated small blessings, thank the Lord
that there's a trolly just outside your door your girlfriend
can take back home to her own bed and here you are
it is morning you are alone and every little heartbeat
is yours to cherish the future is on fire with nothing
but its own kindling and whatever is burning in its flames
it isn't you and now you will take a shower and this is it

-Michael Blumenthal

New Work at Earth and Fire Gallery

2009-06-07T14:12:00.002-05:00

A new round of pots is available for purchase online at the wonderful Earth and Fire Gallery. See new work from myslef, Wellem Gebben, and Simon Levin here.

The Weekly Roundup, Vol. 5

2009-06-04T17:58:00.003-05:00

Rather than showing another photo of my cluttered over-used studio you will just have to trust me that every square inch of available space is filled. A firing is overdue, and necessary. I am almost ready to load and just need to glaze a few more larger pieces and that will be that. I am trying to get the camera out of my little space and share some photos from the road. Here you find me at a show in Marion, Iowa where i met up with one of my old models.

After the show i was lucky enough to spend an hour with Clary Illian in Ely, Iowa. Clary recently made the switch to earthenware clay after a long career in high fire. We had a good talk about the state of the art and how potters today are often more focused on building careers than businesses. As a potter making a lot of work and hoofing it around the country, it is especially good for me to meet people who have made a life from selling pots. Her new work looks great and it was a pleasure all around.

More pics from the firing coming soon.

East Coast VS. West Coast

2009-05-19T15:02:00.004-05:00

Work is shipped, or being been shipped this week to a number of shops and galleries on the east coast. Although i have no beef with the west, i feel more love for the east. Find work at the following galleries soon:

Fire Opal
Left Bank Gallery
Artisans Gallery
Earth and Fire
Susan Maasch Fine Art

And a message to J, Sorry i couldn't make it to the wedding, your teapot is in the mail.

The Weekly Roundup, Vol.4

2009-05-10T18:12:00.001-05:00

This week i was back in the studio throwing seriously again. It took a few days this time to gather myself and get back in but it is going well and i am enjoying having wet pots in process and working on some new forms. Sometimes it takes a second to break the seal and start a new production cycle. The process of throwing large amounts of pots is meditative. I am not a cerebral potter and the repetition of throwing, slipping, and repeating can be good tonic for the soul. I used to want to make pots full of meaning and gravitas, but more and more just want to make something that is like a favorite pair of jeans: Worn in, comfortable, and without pretension.

I was reading an article by Malcolm Gladwell about the balance of skill and effort when it comes to accomplishment. He says:

"We tell oursleves that skill is the precious resource and effort the commodity. It's the other way around. Effort can trump ability because relentless effort is in fact something rarer than the ability to engage in some finely tuned act..."

This struck home, as making art is much more like work than anything else. Relentless effort is something that some have, and others don't, and it seems like an essential part of making and selling pots. It reminds me of the old saying that when people wish they could create a great piece of art, they are actually wishing that that they had created a great work, because the process of actually doing can be painful and difficult. Making pots is work, no doubt about that. Sometimes the most important thing is to show up and suit up, as they say.

Next weekend i am going down to Marion, IA for a one day show and this will kick off the season. I am excited for the travel and the show, which is suppose to be a real one day hurricane of a craft fair. I'll post some photos of the studio and show soon. Until then...

Summer Show Season

2009-05-03T19:05:00.002-05:00

Well, it is that time of the year. Summer means lots of shows. My schedule is pretty much fleshed out for the season and the truck is tuned up, AAA has been called, and i have my sneakers laced up. Getting outside and selling can be great, exhausting, humbling, terrifying, and exhilarating. Sometimes all these things in the same day. Last year i saw hail storms, flash flooding, and some cloudless days with a cool breeze and calm, friendly neighbors. It's a mixed bag. So, with no further ado, here is summer 2009:

Marion Arts Festival, May 16th, Marion, IA
Stone Arch Festival of the Arts, June 20-21st, Minneapolis, MN
Spring Green Art Festival, June 27-28th, Spring Green, WI
Art Fair on the Square, July 11-12th, Madison, WI
Stockholm Art Fair, July 18th, Stockholm, WI
Uptown Art Fair, August 7-9th, Minneapolis, MN
Art Fair Jackson Hole, August 14-16th, Jackson Hole, WY
Peoria Art Guild Fine Art Fair, September 26-27th, Peoria, IL

Hope to see you around the way.

The Weekly Roundup, Vol. 3

2009-04-30T17:15:00.003-05:00

Salting in WI, 2006

This week has seen the start of a new production cycle which usually means a few days of mugs. They are good for a lot of things and for the most part, a pleasure to make. It wasn't until the 1,000th or so handle that i found one that worked. It may have been 2,000. They remain the one piece of pottery that i am sure to pick up each and every day, no matter what. I like to make what i use, so there you go.

This weekend i am doing two very different shows. On Friday a 4 person show opens at Season on St. Croix Gallery . This is in conjunction with a multiple studio art tour in the area. This gallery is real nice and has a wonderful view of the river, a hot glass studio, and ceramic studio to boot. I will be there in person on Friday for the opening and then again on Sunday. On Saturday i will hustle over to Craftstravaganza at the Minnesota Fairgrounds. This show is a much younger, hipper, and indie crowd. I did this show last year and was suprised and impressed by the turnout. It is sometimes weird bringing traditional craft to these shows but not without its upsides. Reconciling the Etsy crowd with older ways of treating materials is, in my mind, an ongoing challenge in the craft world. Etsy has the energy, craft has the ethos. Most days i don't even know what to think about the way craft is represented in the media. People talk about DIY like it is something new... Anyways, please come on by and say hello at either event. Wine and cheese at one, pirate underwear at the other...

#2

2009-04-24T08:50:00.003-05:00

The kiln is cooling from firing #2 this month. This is a lot of firing, even for me. I am currently working with a minnesota car kiln which is a pretty common design up here, as you could guess. This kiln has taken a long time to learn to fire. Certainly things didn't start to really click until after the first year. Firing even front to back and top to bottom has been a challenge, as well as finishing at a reasonable hour. There have been some late nights/early mornings and a few time i would have certainly liked to squeeze out a few tears if it hadn't been so hot. The internet has a way of making it seem like working with clay is an unending series of successes. As any potter can tell you, it just is not that way. This last round went smoothly and hopefully (knock on wood) i'll see some good results in a few days. I was reading an old copy of Pioneer Pottery yesterday and came across this fitting quote regarding kiln firing. Old Mr. Cardew says it best.

Being your slave, what should i do but tend
upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time to spend
Nor service to do, till you require.

New Pots and Show

2009-04-13T19:37:00.003-05:00

Here are a few details of pots from the last firing. Please come and check out the rest of them at the American Craft Council show this weekend at the St. Paul RiverCenter. It is a great show, maybe the best in the area and worth the price of admission. I have some great new work with crows all over it, lots of bunnies for spring, and tall prairie grass in a strong wind. Hope to see you there.

The Weekly Roundup, Vol. 2

2009-04-04T16:06:00.004-05:00

My studio right now is 10 feet by 8 feet. When i reach the end of a production cycle, it is often because there is no more room to put a pot down. I am gearing up for a firing next week and ACC St. Paul. This firing will clear the studio out and the cycle starts over again.

Betty Woodman on Studio 360

2009-03-23T16:52:00.002-05:00

Here is an interesting interview of Betty Woodman discussing her manner of working and the innovation that can come from repetition. It was featured in Studio 360. This link goes directly to the producers blog where you can hear the short clip.

The Weekly Roundup, Vol. 1

2009-03-21T18:49:00.006-05:00

This week has seen spring finally bloom up here in the midwest. This inspired some Warren MacKenzie pots to find their way out to the porch. One advantage to suffering through endless winter is regular and steady access to MacKenzie's pots. His contribution to the state of the art is endless, but up here in Minnesota he is responsible for the regular person having at least a working appreciation of pottery. Also, he wrote what has become a guiding principle for me: that the urge to simply make pots will replace the feeling that one is making important pots. A reminder for me to keep it simple and not take myself too seriously. They are just dishes after all...

In other news i am proud to announce that work is now available at The Grand Hand Gallery. I dropped off a huge load of work this week. This gallery is the place to buy contemporary craft in the twin cities. It is worth a trip in. Also, brochures just came out for the 2009 Art Opener: St. Croix Valley Studio Tour. I will be showing there as a guest of Joe Christensen. He is a big pot potter and makes great big, architectural vases.

Finally, work is multiplying in the studio as i prepare to fire in a few weeks. My fingernails are ground down to the quick and things are happening fast. This is a quick cycle for me as i will be firing one month after starting to throw. While i make pots, i feel as much like a workman as an artist, which suits me just fine. Finding work that agrees with you is a gift. Happy spring.

Remington Crow Target

2009-03-14T16:39:00.003-05:00

I came across this old shotgun target poster in a store today and had to take a photo. I think an image like this says just about everything regarding why crows stick with us. Crows are intelligent, threatening, and reassuring all at the same time. They are animals so full of contradictions, you got to love them.

More New Images

2009-03-07T15:40:00.002-06:00

This just back from the photographer. I am especially keen on the espresso cup. I enjoy trying to make small pots look big and big pots look small. To me, this tiny shot of espresso looks like you could swim in it. I am going to get back to work now and roll my sleeves up, stop blogging, and start making some pots. Until later...