Saturday, February 18, 2012

Ceramic Glaze Porn


All of these wonderful vessels are by Hideaki Miyamura.  I'm totally in love with his glazes.  Here's a link to the 411 on this amazing artist:  http://ceramicartsdaily.org/ceramic-art-and-artists/ceramic-artists/hideaki-miyamura-in-search-of-iridescence/?floater=99

Monday, January 30, 2012

No Faces...



This is a slight variation from my Crowd of Faceless People glaze but I love the look.  It's a little darker and has a bit more warmth.  (Sorta looks like the surface of the moon, huh?)  Anyway, I like it on this little porcelain bowl. 

Now, here's the teaser:  There's a couple of things I've been working on that are starting to come together.  Pray with me y'all that it happens soon.  I think you'll like it.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Lids...


Working on lidded vessels...  I'm happy with the way these turned out but I'm working towards a different shape. 

Saturday, January 14, 2012

A Crowd of Faceless People Glaze...

If you're able to zoom in on these pictures, the glaze looks like a crowd of faceless people.
Freaky...

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

My Little Apple

 :)

This is the last piece I did at school.  It's light as a feather, I'm happy to say.  I didn't trust it to any of the glazes there so I brought it to Hands in Clay to glaze it.  The color is called Brick.  I love it on that class clay and it's absolutely gorgeous on porcelain.  I use it a lot in my work. 

My second favorite thing is the foot.  I finally got it perfectly level and tiny.  Yay me. 

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I sing you to me....




I finally got a bunch of pieces back from school today.  As you can see, there was heavy running glaze.  Again.  The first three pieces are Roo Blue under Pink Rutile.  The second two are temmoku under Pink Rutile.  They ran the worst.  That poor kiln shelf didn't have a chance. The speckled pieces are what happens with clear glaze on class clay.  The clear definitely stayed true. 

I've been playing around with stamping and am enjoying stamping the foot rim of the bowl. It's a fun little surprise on the bottom of a bowl.  I think it's perfect for customizing, too.

"I sing you to me"  and "cheeky bowl" (This is paraphrasing.  The line is actually "cheeky Bulls") are from one of my favorite movies, 'Australia'.  I have more stamped things in production.  (Meaning, sitting on my shelf at school waiting to be glazed and fired.)  I have soooo many ideas but not the swiftness I would like, to produce them.  One day when I have my own studio.....  Until then, you get to come with me through all the mistakes.   Haha.

Overall, I like everything but the temmoku, glaze-wise.  I'm epecially pleased with the speckled look of the clear glaze.  I'm so torn about whether or not to take this class again.  If I lower my expectations and only figure 2 to 3 firings per semester, maybe I could deal with it.  Stay tuned....

Oh, I just purchased laser decal paper.  There are some really beautiful images I want to try and transform onto my bowls.  Let's see if it's as easy as the instructions sound. 


ps.
Please forgive the casual-ness of my blogging.  I blog from bed and use my iPhone to take the pics.  

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Blue Beauty



Sometimes I like to post pics of other artists work that I love. That said, this is Fritzner Alphonse's, 'Blue Beauty'. A friend once told me I look like her. *Blushing bashfully* I don't know how true that is but I frequently use her as an avatar when posting online.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Texture

Impressions

Impressions from home... I think this would be lovely on a wheel thrown bowl.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

I found something unusual today in a Marigny thrift shop. I have no idea what the characters mean or if this has a specific use (other than being decorative). Looks like a blue celadon glaze on terra cotta. I think....
I bought it cuz its pretty. 

Pretty sketchy

I am so inspired by Linda Ellett at L'esperance Tile Works that I sketched an image to try out on a piece of clay.
This is my maiden voyage into the world of carving.
Here goes...I'm practicing Fearless Ambition....

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Good evening, all. I'm testing my mobile blogging abilities. Please bear with me. Plain white porcelain bowl on my mantle. :)

No Help At All

No Help

Sometimes I go to see a film but I already know in my heart that it's bad. Still, I see it because I want to have it in my arsenal to be able to critique and complain about it with intense, haughty authority. First, I had to gather all of my evidence. I read the book. (That's just my thing. If there's a book, I like to read it first to be able to compare the two.) Despite my disappointment, I further tortured myself with viewing the film. Everyone raved about it so I took a leap. (My intuition screams, "No".) I saw it, partially hoping that the director would save it, secretly hoping that he wouldn't. (I have a dark side.) Maybe I did this because both were loved so much and I like to be able to tell anyone who likes it that not only are they short-sighted but they're being brainwashed into appreciating and perpetuating stereotypes. This is not something I normally do but I had a connection to the characters and I couldn't leave it up to main stream media to include my perspective in their telling of this little story. This undeservedly loved film had tapped me on my shoulder and like Lot's Wife, I turned to look.
My very first introduction to 'The Help' was the trailer where I spotted one of my favorite actors, Academy Award nominated Viola Davis. She's the reason I paid this film any attention at all, really. My excitement that she had a film about to debut coincided with my distaste that the character she was playing is a maid. I told myself that she would and could make this enjoyable. She led me to this book/film combo like the smell of fried chicken leads me to Popeyes. All of the media promotion touted Emma Stone as the lead. At the time I didn't know any better. Hollywood sure loves those twenty-something starletts. They feast on them. No slight to Emma Stone but at this point, I now know differently.
Now, let's get to the particulars of why I don't like this film. At first glance, it's another movie where upon a white character is placed in the role of hero and comes in and saves the day of the poor downtrodden blacks. (Let me interject here that I am of the generation where I use the words "white and black" to describe these races. It may not be politically correct but it's what I grew up with. It's less of a mouthful.) In this classic layout set in the early 1960's, the white character, Skeeter (played by Emma Stone), a recent college graduate, returns home and finds a job as an advice columnist for a local Jackson, Mississippi newspaper. She is supposed to respond to household cleaning queries sent in to the paper. What happens is that she knows nothing about cleaning but knows plenty of ladies who do, so she enlists the help of the only one of those ladies she feels comfortable talking to, Aibileen. Aibileen (played by Viola Davis) is the maid of her childhood friend. I don't want to give too many spoilers but it has to be done. So, here goes. Aibileen agrees to, basically, spoon feed her the responses. In these exchanges, Aibileen reveals a more personal side to herself and Skeeter snatches an idea of a book from this. Aibileen agrees (again) to help Skeeter with that stolen idea and becomes the major proponent that induces other maids to join in on this "collaboration", thereby creating the book, 'The Help', a personal account of the black maids and what it's like for them to work for white families. This, in my humble opinion, is why Viola Davis is really the lead in this film.
I can't decide if I'm more disappointed in the misplaced praise of Skeeter in the actual movie OR the fact that in 2011 black actresses are still playing maids to get work OR the lack of outpour/outrage from the public over the latter OR that despite all that, the movie is a hit by Hollywood standards (Those standards being 118 million dollars at the box office so far.) indicating that the public loves and is comfortable with us in this role. As a chubby, middle-aged black woman, I feel like this stereotype should be played out by now. In 1939 Hattie McDaniel was the first black actress to get an Academy Award. It was for her role as "Mammy" in 'Gone With the Wind'. Mammy was a maid also.
Films have a huge impact on society. They not only entertain but they set trends, they teach, they inspire, they open our minds to new possibilities, they impact the populace in a multitude of ways. But for the chubby, black women they're still singing that same old Negro spiritual. To that I say, "O lawd, I needs me a new job."
By the way, I just found out that another Academy Award nominated, black actress, Gabourey Sidibe, has a new film coming out next year called 'The Heist'. She's playing a maid. :(

Sneak Peek


Here's a couple of quick pics of two pieces I threw today. I'm working on size and lids. (I've got enough small bowls. I love them but I have to expand.) The first piece is 8lbs (I could have made it a little bigger but my instructor wanted me to leave the walls fairly thick. I also left a thick bottom because porcelain is so finicky and I'm also working on a deeper foot. You'll see why later.) and the second is 6.5.

The porcelain was very cream cheesy today but I managed. I've never centered that much clay before. Yay me.







Saturday, November 5, 2011

Bad Teacher...


I had such high hopes this semester. I had taken ceramics this summer and was able to really get in a lot of raku experience. Little did I know that it was because there was another student who was equally eager to raku. So, we raku-ed all summer. Yes, it was hot as hell but we loved every sweaty moment of it. Based on that, I signed up for this class again. Big mistake.

Without my classmate (she couldn't return-too much of a heavy academic load) I was left without a partner. No raku for me. In addition to that big disappointment, the "teacher" made no glazes. We had to scrape the bottom of the buckets for what little was leftover from the summer. I offered to do so only to find that there weren't enough ingredients to make any of the recipes I had found. "Teacher" could never remember to bring the recipes he claimed to have that could be made.

In addition to that, all of the firings (3 so far) were done incorrectly and everyones pieces were ruined. This is a carryover from the summer fiasco that was blamed on weather. Thanks "teach". We even ran out of clay once this semester. I won't even get into his attitude and the fact that he actually taught nothing. Not one thing. I honestly think he is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's.

I won't be taking his class ever again! Tulane grad????? It doesn't show.

Anyhoo, these pics are of one of the ruined pieces. There's lots of pitting and bubbling which makes this bowl nonfunctional as anything but a tchotchke.

I'm back at Hands In Clay and loving it. I'm working with porcelain again and have some new things I can't wait to finish and post.

See ya soon!