I only know of 3 people who have signed up for RSS or have other means of automatic notification of new posts, so you 3 have a 33.3% shot at a new mug in March! Excellent odds so far, I'd say. I still don't know how to tell who else subscribed, so if you are someone who has done so and I don't know about it, tell me. We are on the honor system.
It gives me a kick to be on the honor system. It's like taking a half-bushel of tomatoes from the unmanned roadside stand, and leaving your money in the little basket with the note on it that reads, "Pay here".
Monday, January 18, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
lottery to break the doldrums
Sometimes there's not much going on inside the studio.
Sometimes it's web site work that day, or other office stuff, or a trip for supplies.
Sometimes it's time to mix up new buckets of glaze from my dry materials and recipe list. Measure, measure, measure, mix, sieve, sieve again. This is very boring.
Sometimes the matzah plate made to match the seder plate from last week warps, and sends me back to the design stage. RATS. (That was this week.)
Sometimes other things need taking care of that have nothing to do with clay. Now happens to be the right time to delve into family history, for which I took a trip to my aunt and cousin in Long Island yesterday. Never got into the studio at all.
Those times, there's not much to blog about. So let me thank you for continuing to read even on days when it's more of a bog than a blog.
To reward you for your diligence, I am going to make you an offer. If you sign up for an RSS feed of the blog, I will put your name in a lottery. On March 17, 2010, nine weeks hence, I will do a drawing for a mug. This is either a blue and green mug with white interior, or a cream and chocolate colored mug. Either one holds at least 10 ounces. If you win it, and are in the US or Canada I will ship it, or hand it over if you're local. If you are in Israel, I will eventually send it via someone making the trip. (Other countries- sorry, guys. You just get a note saying thanks.)
How, you ask, do you find out about RSS feeds? Go to the URL box at the top of your monitor, where you have typed in the web address of this blog (URL). Right next to the URL box is a little blue square symbol. Click on it and follow through the sign-up process via RSS. It's not bad at all- I've done it, and I'm no tech wiz. Then, when I put up a new post, you will get notified automatically. You won't have to remember to check for something new.
Good luck!
Mimi
Sometimes it's web site work that day, or other office stuff, or a trip for supplies.
Sometimes it's time to mix up new buckets of glaze from my dry materials and recipe list. Measure, measure, measure, mix, sieve, sieve again. This is very boring.
Sometimes the matzah plate made to match the seder plate from last week warps, and sends me back to the design stage. RATS. (That was this week.)
Sometimes other things need taking care of that have nothing to do with clay. Now happens to be the right time to delve into family history, for which I took a trip to my aunt and cousin in Long Island yesterday. Never got into the studio at all.
Those times, there's not much to blog about. So let me thank you for continuing to read even on days when it's more of a bog than a blog.
To reward you for your diligence, I am going to make you an offer. If you sign up for an RSS feed of the blog, I will put your name in a lottery. On March 17, 2010, nine weeks hence, I will do a drawing for a mug. This is either a blue and green mug with white interior, or a cream and chocolate colored mug. Either one holds at least 10 ounces. If you win it, and are in the US or Canada I will ship it, or hand it over if you're local. If you are in Israel, I will eventually send it via someone making the trip. (Other countries- sorry, guys. You just get a note saying thanks.)
How, you ask, do you find out about RSS feeds? Go to the URL box at the top of your monitor, where you have typed in the web address of this blog (URL). Right next to the URL box is a little blue square symbol. Click on it and follow through the sign-up process via RSS. It's not bad at all- I've done it, and I'm no tech wiz. Then, when I put up a new post, you will get notified automatically. You won't have to remember to check for something new.
Good luck!
Mimi
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Rocks and Feathers, Function and Art
A machine-made pot is a more perfect pot, light and absolutely regular in form. Everyone’s place setting is exactly the same. We humans crave some order and balance. Machine made dishes also stack better in the cabinets, as my first college ceramics teacher, Dave W. Jones, pointed out. (He was a very fine potter, trained at that interesting juncture when Danish modern design and Peter Voulkos met with a bang and a slash in the 50s.) Dave was a realist about functionality. All the same, he pursued the art and craft of making pottery by hand, and so do I, because there is no real spirit in a machine made pot.
Yesterday I made a seder plate; not my first by any means. The seder plate has been an evolutionary item in my studio for at least 20 years. Its function defines it, like any item of Judaica. It is meant to sit in the middle of the table at the Passover seder and contain symbolic portions of the special foods of the meal. The first started out long ago on my wheel, too small and heavy, the design somehow never becoming “right” through modifications, until I took some time to plan it. I drew some 6-petaled flowers and abstracted the forms till I had one I liked. I made paper and upholstery foam templates and other tools to accommodate production. I make the plates from slabs now, instead of on the wheel. They are lighter, larger and I can make similar multiples. Making seder plates over the years is symptomatic of all of my journeys in clay, a very slow and sort of steady trip.
When you think of "accidents" of art, here is an analogous hypothetical situation to ponder:
Someone gives you a nice little box, and says, Fill this box. Do not overfill or underfill it. Fill it so that it remains a container, but make it more by virtue of what is in it, how well it contains, how it closes and opens, what it looks like. Go!
You fill it with rocks. The rocks are from the coast of Maine, all rounded and smooth blues and whites and grays, and so beautiful. They fit in the box just so. You admire the contents of the box and close it. Later, when you pick up the box to put it away, you stagger and the box bends a little under the weight. They look good in it, but rocks are the wrong load for this box.
You start again. You take the rocks out of the box, fill it carefully with your collection of hat feathers and cover it, and when you lift it, it is light. You open the box and a draft lifts feathers and settles them all over your sofa. The remaining feathers are all meshed together and you can’t sort out individuals by eye. Feathers are better in something other than this box.
So you say, the heck with this experiment, and the heck with the guy who gave you the box. You fit your jars and tubes of paint and pigments into the box. You needed to neaten up your easel area anyway. You have now used the box in a non-decorative way. You expect nothing more than a utilitarian arrangement, and you go have dinner.
Tomorrow you return. You open the box and you are surprised. The paint tube labels and the pigments in their clear jars are an explosion of color. The box smells interestingly of linseed oil. You find each item at a glance. This is a utilitarian arrangement, but also- Yow!- a still life. Now the box is part of a functional composition. Art! Your five year old could do it... couldn't she? Maybe- up to this point. Maybe not once canvas and brushes get involved.
You- hey, you with the box- already had an artistic spirit and a creative eye, which were working unconsciously as you gave up and accepted the box as a component of a life situation. Function balanced with- and this is the crux of the thing- the unnameable force from your arty ole head, and gave you your surprising still life.
This is really a clay story. Latent knowledge and conscious knowledge flow together as a potter works, aware of the functionality of each piece, our own voices coming through ever more strongly and even unexpectedly as we gain experience. Then just working through the everyday of clay and bringing one more challenge into the equation sometimes catalyzes into the Yow! moment.
Yesterday's seder plate is on a shelf in my kiln, drying. It's my best one yet, the most like my planned design but also with spontaneous elements. Don't want to move it while it dries, or I would take a better picture for you, but check out the raw pot in the picture. Who knows what the next one might have that this one doesn't.
Keep on doing whatever good thing it is you do!
Yesterday I made a seder plate; not my first by any means. The seder plate has been an evolutionary item in my studio for at least 20 years. Its function defines it, like any item of Judaica. It is meant to sit in the middle of the table at the Passover seder and contain symbolic portions of the special foods of the meal. The first started out long ago on my wheel, too small and heavy, the design somehow never becoming “right” through modifications, until I took some time to plan it. I drew some 6-petaled flowers and abstracted the forms till I had one I liked. I made paper and upholstery foam templates and other tools to accommodate production. I make the plates from slabs now, instead of on the wheel. They are lighter, larger and I can make similar multiples. Making seder plates over the years is symptomatic of all of my journeys in clay, a very slow and sort of steady trip.
When you think of "accidents" of art, here is an analogous hypothetical situation to ponder:
Someone gives you a nice little box, and says, Fill this box. Do not overfill or underfill it. Fill it so that it remains a container, but make it more by virtue of what is in it, how well it contains, how it closes and opens, what it looks like. Go!
You fill it with rocks. The rocks are from the coast of Maine, all rounded and smooth blues and whites and grays, and so beautiful. They fit in the box just so. You admire the contents of the box and close it. Later, when you pick up the box to put it away, you stagger and the box bends a little under the weight. They look good in it, but rocks are the wrong load for this box.
You start again. You take the rocks out of the box, fill it carefully with your collection of hat feathers and cover it, and when you lift it, it is light. You open the box and a draft lifts feathers and settles them all over your sofa. The remaining feathers are all meshed together and you can’t sort out individuals by eye. Feathers are better in something other than this box.
So you say, the heck with this experiment, and the heck with the guy who gave you the box. You fit your jars and tubes of paint and pigments into the box. You needed to neaten up your easel area anyway. You have now used the box in a non-decorative way. You expect nothing more than a utilitarian arrangement, and you go have dinner.
Tomorrow you return. You open the box and you are surprised. The paint tube labels and the pigments in their clear jars are an explosion of color. The box smells interestingly of linseed oil. You find each item at a glance. This is a utilitarian arrangement, but also- Yow!- a still life. Now the box is part of a functional composition. Art! Your five year old could do it... couldn't she? Maybe- up to this point. Maybe not once canvas and brushes get involved.
You- hey, you with the box- already had an artistic spirit and a creative eye, which were working unconsciously as you gave up and accepted the box as a component of a life situation. Function balanced with- and this is the crux of the thing- the unnameable force from your arty ole head, and gave you your surprising still life.
This is really a clay story. Latent knowledge and conscious knowledge flow together as a potter works, aware of the functionality of each piece, our own voices coming through ever more strongly and even unexpectedly as we gain experience. Then just working through the everyday of clay and bringing one more challenge into the equation sometimes catalyzes into the Yow! moment.
Yesterday's seder plate is on a shelf in my kiln, drying. It's my best one yet, the most like my planned design but also with spontaneous elements. Don't want to move it while it dries, or I would take a better picture for you, but check out the raw pot in the picture. Who knows what the next one might have that this one doesn't.
Keep on doing whatever good thing it is you do!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
If You Build It
“If you build it, he will come.”
Remember Field of Dreams?
The main character, on a dream quest, realizes along his travels that he has to go home, plow under his cornfield and turn it into a ball field. One night after he is done, he turns on the floodlights over his bases and bleachers, and suddenly a long stream of headlights appear in the distance as people are drawn to it like an epicenter of meaning. It answers something elemental they long for.
I’ve got the pots.
Got the space to display it in a homespun physical gallery. The web site… you may be growing tired of hearing it is almost here. Once it is, though, then ads supporting it go up, and it can become my virtual gallery. It is something I dream. Making and then having a way to sell my stoneware vessels. If I build it, will they come?
I am paying attention as always to the lips of mugs, the curves of handles, the weight of lids, the lift of feet. I am fretting over the interplay of elusive colors, the sheen and texture of surfaces. Someone must find some satisfying thing in a pot that connects with them somehow. Otherwise there is no point in paying good money for it. The user completes the effort of the maker. The maker is incomplete without the user.
Friday someone told me she was thinking of my hobby. Of the kiln in my basement, how wonderful to have that. She didn't say, but she meant: the means to follow a dream. She is a cashier at a grocery store where I often shop. When she was in high school she came with her class for several sessions of clay work with me. Now she is a young married woman with a baby, and brings a bright spirit to an unsatisfying job. I see her, conscientious and capable, as the months go by. I cannot take offense that she thinks my work is a hobby. To her it is a fantasy. I cannot make her see how hard I try to make my work possess that something that- if I build it- will bring the people to it.
She is building her family.
We all want something. If we build it, it might happen.
Remember Field of Dreams?
The main character, on a dream quest, realizes along his travels that he has to go home, plow under his cornfield and turn it into a ball field. One night after he is done, he turns on the floodlights over his bases and bleachers, and suddenly a long stream of headlights appear in the distance as people are drawn to it like an epicenter of meaning. It answers something elemental they long for.
I’ve got the pots.
Got the space to display it in a homespun physical gallery. The web site… you may be growing tired of hearing it is almost here. Once it is, though, then ads supporting it go up, and it can become my virtual gallery. It is something I dream. Making and then having a way to sell my stoneware vessels. If I build it, will they come?
I am paying attention as always to the lips of mugs, the curves of handles, the weight of lids, the lift of feet. I am fretting over the interplay of elusive colors, the sheen and texture of surfaces. Someone must find some satisfying thing in a pot that connects with them somehow. Otherwise there is no point in paying good money for it. The user completes the effort of the maker. The maker is incomplete without the user.
Friday someone told me she was thinking of my hobby. Of the kiln in my basement, how wonderful to have that. She didn't say, but she meant: the means to follow a dream. She is a cashier at a grocery store where I often shop. When she was in high school she came with her class for several sessions of clay work with me. Now she is a young married woman with a baby, and brings a bright spirit to an unsatisfying job. I see her, conscientious and capable, as the months go by. I cannot take offense that she thinks my work is a hobby. To her it is a fantasy. I cannot make her see how hard I try to make my work possess that something that- if I build it- will bring the people to it.
She is building her family.
We all want something. If we build it, it might happen.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
And the Seasons They Go Round and Round
Last week I noted this:
Studio shelves beginning to fill up. Do I need to buy more shelves?
Too many new stoneware trays for the available plate stands- where to buy?
Is it time to take more photos of pots for the web site?
After a week of being down with bronchitis I was ready to get back to work.
Made a list in preparation:
What is missing from inventory? (Components of havadalah sets. Seder plates. Plates in general.)
What can I make with my new slab roller? (Seder plates!)
Lists. We who make the list work by the list.
We who are highly distractible swear by the list.
So I glazed some more pots, fired another load in the kiln, cleaned up my gallery area of dust and detritus, put on carefully-thought-out price stickers. Shopped for shelves (Lowe's stopped carrying the ones I want) and plate stands (no luck at B, B & B). No photos; I put away my photo setup to make room for more pots. Looked longingly at the new slab roller, but one thing at a time. Next week, I assured myself, I will start making my seder plates from neatly rolled slabs.
Chanukah approaches. Christmas approaches. Where could I advertise quickly for the last minute gift-giving locals? I put a notice in the weekly synagogue e-mail bulletin. Does anyone read that thing but me? Will it bring anyone to the studio gallery? I put a mention on Facebook, but most of those people are family (-can anybody say discount? -love you anyway, guys) or aren’t local (can’t drop in and shop) and my new, improved retail web site is still almost up. My estimate of “within a week” a few weeks ago was the silly fantasy of a wishful potter.
Another missed sales season?
My salesperson hat is not fitting my head and it is giving me a headache.
Studio shelves beginning to fill up. Do I need to buy more shelves?
Too many new stoneware trays for the available plate stands- where to buy?
Is it time to take more photos of pots for the web site?
After a week of being down with bronchitis I was ready to get back to work.
Made a list in preparation:
What is missing from inventory? (Components of havadalah sets. Seder plates. Plates in general.)
What can I make with my new slab roller? (Seder plates!)
Lists. We who make the list work by the list.
We who are highly distractible swear by the list.
So I glazed some more pots, fired another load in the kiln, cleaned up my gallery area of dust and detritus, put on carefully-thought-out price stickers. Shopped for shelves (Lowe's stopped carrying the ones I want) and plate stands (no luck at B, B & B). No photos; I put away my photo setup to make room for more pots. Looked longingly at the new slab roller, but one thing at a time. Next week, I assured myself, I will start making my seder plates from neatly rolled slabs.
Chanukah approaches. Christmas approaches. Where could I advertise quickly for the last minute gift-giving locals? I put a notice in the weekly synagogue e-mail bulletin. Does anyone read that thing but me? Will it bring anyone to the studio gallery? I put a mention on Facebook, but most of those people are family (-can anybody say discount? -love you anyway, guys) or aren’t local (can’t drop in and shop) and my new, improved retail web site is still almost up. My estimate of “within a week” a few weeks ago was the silly fantasy of a wishful potter.
Another missed sales season?
My salesperson hat is not fitting my head and it is giving me a headache.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Metaphorical Hats
Many metaphorical hats are rotated on this potter's non-metaphorical head.
The John Deere-type cap: That's good for the heavy lifting and mixing parts. That's where I bring home the raw materials, mix the glazes from recipes acquired over time, plan the ware, make it from lumps of clay.
How quickly that last sentence was typed. How slowly the process occurs to get me there. "How long does it take you to make that?" "24 years so far, and 40 minutes."
A bandanna: Load the kiln. Bisque fire, unload, apply glaze, reload and glaze-fire the pottery. Time to glaze and load: over the course of a couple of days. Gradual heat up, slow cool down: about one day.
Factory hairnet: Sort good pots from seconds. Mostly they are decent pots, for which I am grateful.
Just a headband to keep my curls off my face: Photograph the pots for the web site. I have a pro photo setup now as I gradually learn the ropes with my digital camera settings, backdrop and lights.
Pith helmet: Edit photos in iPhoto or Photoshop to compensate for inexact lighting, crooked framing of the shot, dust on the backdrop, etc. Very cool. This is for allowing the pots to look as they really do, not for faking perfection. It's a jungle among the photo options.
Thinking cap: Selling a 3-D thing in a 2-D medium is a challenge. I have to compensate with words for the lack of touchability. So I write out descriptions & sizes for the web site visitors.
Old-time accountant's eyeshade: Price the pots- not too low to justify the time and cost of making them, not too high so as to discourage purchasers. Trial and error applies here wherever experience doesn't cover.
Mailman's hat (they really used to wear those): Send the photos to my web builder to upload to the web site, which is still developing.
Everything takes so long. People are asking to see the pottery and the site is not ready. Web-a-Deb and I are working on it. Hope the people will come back when it is ready.
Businesslike chic hat, think Audrey Hepburn, 1950's: Send photos to people requesting pottery. Thankfully, there are some of these people around.
Just a pen behind my ear, like an adman, which isn't really a hat, but an accoutrement nonetheless: Think how to promote the web site.
Creative, colorful kerchief with funky colors: Meanwhile, put pots on Etsy.com, under the categories of pottery, stoneware, ceramics (largely redundant), handmade, and Judaica, in the hope of cultivating a market.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/mimistadlerpottery
How many hats can I wear? Plenty!
Can I wear 'em all well? Not always. Juggling a little slowly the last few years, and it ain't because of middle age. It's that the constant changing of many hats wears me down. Now it's back to the glazing board and back on the wheel for the next making-cycle Monday. On with the John Deere tractor cap!
The John Deere-type cap: That's good for the heavy lifting and mixing parts. That's where I bring home the raw materials, mix the glazes from recipes acquired over time, plan the ware, make it from lumps of clay.
How quickly that last sentence was typed. How slowly the process occurs to get me there. "How long does it take you to make that?" "24 years so far, and 40 minutes."
A bandanna: Load the kiln. Bisque fire, unload, apply glaze, reload and glaze-fire the pottery. Time to glaze and load: over the course of a couple of days. Gradual heat up, slow cool down: about one day.
Factory hairnet: Sort good pots from seconds. Mostly they are decent pots, for which I am grateful.
Just a headband to keep my curls off my face: Photograph the pots for the web site. I have a pro photo setup now as I gradually learn the ropes with my digital camera settings, backdrop and lights.
Pith helmet: Edit photos in iPhoto or Photoshop to compensate for inexact lighting, crooked framing of the shot, dust on the backdrop, etc. Very cool. This is for allowing the pots to look as they really do, not for faking perfection. It's a jungle among the photo options.
Thinking cap: Selling a 3-D thing in a 2-D medium is a challenge. I have to compensate with words for the lack of touchability. So I write out descriptions & sizes for the web site visitors.
Old-time accountant's eyeshade: Price the pots- not too low to justify the time and cost of making them, not too high so as to discourage purchasers. Trial and error applies here wherever experience doesn't cover.
Mailman's hat (they really used to wear those): Send the photos to my web builder to upload to the web site, which is still developing.
Everything takes so long. People are asking to see the pottery and the site is not ready. Web-a-Deb and I are working on it. Hope the people will come back when it is ready.
Businesslike chic hat, think Audrey Hepburn, 1950's: Send photos to people requesting pottery. Thankfully, there are some of these people around.
Just a pen behind my ear, like an adman, which isn't really a hat, but an accoutrement nonetheless: Think how to promote the web site.
Creative, colorful kerchief with funky colors: Meanwhile, put pots on Etsy.com, under the categories of pottery, stoneware, ceramics (largely redundant), handmade, and Judaica, in the hope of cultivating a market.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/mimistadlerpottery
How many hats can I wear? Plenty!
Can I wear 'em all well? Not always. Juggling a little slowly the last few years, and it ain't because of middle age. It's that the constant changing of many hats wears me down. Now it's back to the glazing board and back on the wheel for the next making-cycle Monday. On with the John Deere tractor cap!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tapping Into Another Plane of Consciousness
Released (Distracted)
Slipping under my hands
Away from me, failing-
I couldn't throw pots in the morning
With the same clay I've used for years.
After I came back from a break
Sat again at the wheel
An old drawing of my childhood bedroom
Catching my eye, held my speculation.
Gazing, and musing, other thoughts,
I made piece after piece without thinking.
Slipping under my hands
Away from me, failing-
I couldn't throw pots in the morning
With the same clay I've used for years.
After I came back from a break
Sat again at the wheel
An old drawing of my childhood bedroom
Catching my eye, held my speculation.
Gazing, and musing, other thoughts,
I made piece after piece without thinking.
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