Turquoise or green...?

Bermuda green is a mason stain, which is added to satin white glaze for this pale turquoise effect on a stoneware.

These all have the same "celadon" glaze one them, but the mug to the left is made of white clay, Little Loafers, while the set on the right are made with a stoneware, Speckled Brownstone.

If it's Thursday...

I MAY go to Highwater to pick up clay and glazes, if they have made the clay I'm waiting for (and so are some of my friends.)

I MAY pick up some more plate holders at A.C. Moore if I'm driving right by there going to Asheville.

I MAY have survived last night's Clay Club pot luck meet at the BMCA studio.

and I MAY have taken some photos of the fun...which even if only 3 of us were there, I am sure would have happened.  (I'm writing this before the meeting while waiting for cupcakes to cool before frosting the for the party.)

I MAY find the 2 little pots that I glazed earlier in the week are out of the kiln, thus I know whether or not the Celedo glaze is working again.

I MAY and for sure will be at the clay studio from 1-4pm as I am for Open Studio time every Thursday.

I MAY glaze the other little wonky pot that I know is somewhere lost on the bisqued shelf.

I MAY have some of my greenware loaded for the next bisque firing.

I MAY just put one foot in front of the other and at the end of the day sit here and know that life is good.

and I MAY make something new that I've never done before.

Do you know Don Reitz?

From his New York Times obit earlier this year...

Don Reitz, an internationally renowned artist in dirt and salt, died on March 19 at his home in Clarkdale, Ariz. He was 84.

A ceramicist — with typical puckish pragmatism he preferred to describe his chosen medium as dirt instead of clay — Mr. Reitz was one of a small cadre of midcentury artisans who expanded the medium to include immense, intellectually provocative works of abstract art.

At his death, he was an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he taught for a quarter-century before his retirement in 1988. His work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and elsewhere.

You may read more of that article if you wish, HERE.

He was known in particular for reviving the centuries-old technique of salt firing, in which salt added to a hot kiln yields textured surfaces far different from those made with conventional glazes.

Mr. Reitz’s style was characterized by “a kind of tension between a respect for classical pottery form and a really kind of brash, impetuous approach to working with wet clay,” Jody Clowes, the curator of “Don Reitz: Clay, Fire, Salt and Wood,” a touring exhibition of 2005, said in an interview on Friday.

 From The Times...

Donald Lester Reitz was born on Nov. 7, 1929, in Sunbury, Pa., and reared in Belvidere, N.J. Dyslexic, he preferred working with his hands to schoolwork.

Enlisting in the Navy in 1948, he spent five years as a salvage diver and afterward plied a series of trades — truck driver, sign painter — before settling into a career as a butcher.

“In a way, it is an art,” Mr. Reitz wrote in a 1991 autobiographical essay in the magazine Ceramics Monthly. “You have to know how to cut and display your product, everything from putting bootees on lamb chops to arranging a crown roast. I could cut rosettes on a ham so that when it was baked, they opened up in beautiful patterns.”

But with time, he began to chafe among the meat. Enrolling at Kutztown State Teacher’s College in Pennsylvania, he studied painting; after earning a bachelor’s degree in art education there in 1957, he taught in the Dover, N.J., public schools.

Mr. Reitz had discovered ceramics in his last semester of college, and that, he soon realized, was his true calling. Installing a wheel in his house and a kiln outside it, he began making pots, which he attempted to sell at a roadside stand.

No one stopped until he also began offering homegrown vegetables. People bought the vegetables, and he gave them the pots at no charge.

From the New York State College of Ceramics, part of Alfred University in western New York, Mr. Reitz earned a master of fine arts degree in 1962. He joined the Wisconsin faculty that year.

  
Don Reitz taught in the University of Wisconsin–Madison art department from 1962 to 1988. In 2002 he received one of the highest honors in his field when the American Craft Council awarded him their Gold Medal.

But the proof is in the pudding (to use a really lame metaphor).  A University of Wisconsin publication about him (photo below) is now out of print.

NC Clay Club (this came from the web)

 

So we are having a short video of his firing an Anagama in Arizona with Charles Freeland (our manager) for the Clay Club party/meet on Nov. 12 at the Black Mountain Clay Studio.  Just wanted you to know a bit of what he was like, in case you didn't know yet.

White, red and green

Remembering last Tailgate again

Ready, set, go...

Let's see, make 4 mugs today...not a big goal, but should take my 3 hours of  open studio time.

 

Throw the cylinders on bats, set aside to firm up to leather hard. (Some days this takes over night)

Pull some handles, usually a couple of extras, and set them aside to firm up (but not become leather hard.)

Trim the bottoms of the mugs, (usually a next day job.)

Tomorrow, attach the handles. Note, if I have to wait over night I cover the handles with plastic so they stay flexible.

Grateful sales

I'm glad that i took this photo before the market started.  I sold four of the pots that are depicted here.  Yay me.  I'm so grateful that people in Black Mountain purchase pottery!  Yay them!

Last Tailgate market 2014

(Well, there's still the Holiday Market on Sat. Nov 22, 10-1...which will have many of the same vendors and be in the same place!)

Just so you don't slosh your drink while trying to admire your ladybug, there's an overhanging leaf that comes inside these mugs (and a few that go to the bottom as well!)

A whole passel of pots

Early morning set up at Tailgate on Saturday.  This is the last Tailgate Market for 2014.

We do have one more sale on Sat. Nov 22, a holiday market...so it will have goodies for the Thanksgiving feasts, as well as gift buying opportunities!

Home showing

With the last Tailgate market this weekend, I'm readying my home for showing my pottery during winter months. Appointments can be made to come see my work and purchase it any day of the week.

Impressionistic glaze

Sometimes glazes surprise me (most of the time!)  This overlay of Raspberry on top of Floating Blue gave an impressionistic cast between the two, since they didn't bleed as they have in the past...but have little speckles happening.  I took these "mug-bowls" to the Tailgate Market last weekend and sold 2 of them.  Whoohoo!  Considering it was a beautiful day, we had very light turnout at the market.  We've only one more market, and I've got soooo many pots.

The last of the series

I may continue to make most things my friends request, but these are the last 2 toothbrush stands.  Period.  I just can't sell them for a compensation that meets the amount of time and work they take to make.

So of course these will go for peanuts!

A vase of a different shape

Four squooshed vases...which I think will take arrangements very nicely.  What do you think?

Sugar & Creamer

OK, lots of folks don't use one or the other...but this is a traditional set which will grace someone's table for the holidays.

I'm yarning for you

When a friend liked these multi-green bowls, she was so disappointed that they were yarn bowls.  She wanted cereal bowls.  Ah, time to go glaze some more cereal bowls like that!

But as a knitter, I have been so happy to have a yarn bowl to keep from chasing that ball of yarn all over the floor!

Stacking them up

There are some new little things in the house.  They are always getting stepped around and upon by the two pawed critters who disdainfully live with clay and their owner (me).

But maybe soon there will be less of them (the Christmas ornaments, not the cats).

A couple of sales this weekend...the Tailgate at Black Mountain has just 2 more regular weeks.

And the St. James Episcopal Church arts & crafts sale...which I haven't seen advertised, so I hope the congregants show up at least!

I Heart Mug

No, I didn't add an eye, nor a "U"...but it's definitely the style for saying that message.

And it's a different shape for me as well!  Most of my mugs are tall and thin, so this is for the drink-lovers who like a more open and squat shape.

Vase with autumn tree

Different decorative techniques, yesterday using the "Designer Liner" over glazes, and then some Maco Stroke and Coat also over a glaze, and the base glaze overpowered the Stoke and Coat...but the liner worked.  Today just Stroke and Coat glazes, over a lighter base glaze.

At least the Bermuda Green glaze (mix of Satin White with a mason stain) stays pretty much the same color.  I don't know why yesterday's glaze with Celadon came out looking so dark on the bottom half, while the Bermuda Green is consistent on the top rim.

Vase with tree

Just go to the studio

...or as Art Biz mom, Alyson Standfield said, "Just Show up," in that studio. (Her blog is here.) Whatever you then do, (or me as I always am telling myself this) is better than sitting at the computer, or gazing across the water at the clouds.  My creativity is in that studio, so I'd just better be there.

Monarchs among us still

orry these aren't professional level photos...but you get the main impression.
The glaze was applied in a different fashion...the black a bit thicker than I would ordinarily, so it bubbled up.  I'm taking that as a design plus, rather than a flaw, don't ya think?