I Dunno.

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Yes. No. Maybe? I dunno. It’s an indecisive day. I don’t know if I really feel like going to work, but I don’t know what else I would want to do if I didn’t go. This cool little pouring vessel is one of my hand-built pieces that I took with me to fire at the workshop. I ended up firing this one in the high temperature wood firing. I was really excited about how it turned out… the other side is even more colorful.

Ok, so there are 38 more days until fall semester starts… what can I do until then to make this summer great? There is a chance I could go to California, but I don’t really know. I guess it would be cool to go there, but the circumstances for going aren’t exactly what I would plan for myself. My dad wants to take us on a family trip… and the track record for family trips in the past makes me less inclined to go. They are always torturous, everyone yelling at each other the whole time inside the car where you can’t just go somewhere else and block them out. So I dunno. Maybe I won’t go after all. There are other things I could do… I could try to take advantage of hiking as much as I can, and huckleberry season will be on soon. I should play my guitar more often, but lately it seems harder to get it out and play.

The forest fires are still going, but I guess I’m less worried about it now because it has been going on for so long. I heard the fire siren this morning, followed by the sirens of cop cars and other vehicles. It only sounded like there were two or three of them.

I got a lot of work done at the studio. I made two larger platters, a big bowl, two ewers, two bottles, a bunch of cups, and I tried warping the form after I threw it a few times– one of the bottles, one of the ewers, and two of the cups. It looks alright, but I’m not sure that it’s my style. When I finished the ewer, it reminded me more of an old alumni whose work is scattered around the studio.

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Recharge Time

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Here’s a melty blue cup that came out of the soda kiln back in about… February? It was cold outside. I remember that much. Anyway, I didn’t realize just how much residual soda was in the kiln… so it was my “executive” decision to add about 1 1/2 pounds 1of soda ash to the atmosphere. I guess if nothing else, it was good practice for introducing soda to the kiln. It wasn’t my first time, but it wasn’t my tenth, either. Anyway, with these cups I thought I had a genius idea. I painted a band of slip on the cup, carved out the design, and dipped the still bare-clay rim into a copper glaze. It might have been genius, if the glaze wasn’t so close to the black slip, and if the kiln wasn’t over-saturated with soda ash. The result was this (above). The thin or non-existent barrier between the glaze and the slip plus the heavy atmosphere created a dramatic eutectic that made the glaze run to the bottom of the pot. There was a lot of heavy grinding in the studio after this firing… my glazes were nothing compared to what filled the rest of the kiln. I didn’t have to grind any shelves, but other people did. This cup was a fun experiment… I have some similar cups that I used a chrome/red iron oxide glaze on that look like green jolly ranchers were melted onto the surface of the pots. I might post them later…

Anyway, I am enjoying my short time on campus and back at the studio, and sales are getting better as far as my pots are concerned. Even on Etsy.com, I have a second order upcoming. It’s a good feeling to know that other people appreciate my work enough to buy it online and pay for the shipping. It’s definitely not cheap, but it makes my day 🙂 It’s not really about the money, either. I guess it’s nice to make enough to pay the fees and shipping, but I make more money selling pots in stores through consignment. Online is just a good way to reach more people.

This weekend has been great so far: hiking up the hill to the studio through what has felt like a rainforest for the last couple of days, eating triscuit crackers and expensive cheese and black grapes and my favorite fruit (Lychee chinensis), enjoying lunch with my friends at an awesome Taco Truck, touching basis with people around the studio, walking up the canyon, taking advantage of my Lockerbie kickwheel in my personal studio space, attempting two big platters and a couple of ewers, and even trying figure sculpting by throwing the form on the wheel first and then altering it… yeah, studio time is good therapy. I even made a couple of altered-form cups. They are weird… and I can’t figure out a good way to put shoulders on my figure sculpture torsos without it looking like it was joined together. It’s not only the seam, but the way they were formed or something. I will have to keep working on it.

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Brighter Sunrise

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Here is another sample of what I did at the workshop… and the prototype for my new direction. I don’t necessarily want to convert to soda firing, but I want to see if the same technique will work with the salt kiln that I’m so fond of. This cup is soda fired at cone 10, with heavy reduction. The extreme red flashing is from adding water into the kiln through diffusion from a brick. There are hints of carbon-trapping, too. I have been drawing inlay on my pots recently (I started doing it during the workshop because of various suggestions. They tried to convince me to use cobalt blue, but I prefer my black slip. The only thing that bothers me about inlay is that I end up wasting a little bit of slip, and it dyes my reclaim buckets gray. I guess there are ways around dying my reclaim gray like using a different bucket, but it still won’t prevent me from wasting the slip. I guess I will just use smaller and smaller brushes 🙂

I really do want to try this new direction for my work… the soda fired cup is made with a porcelainneous stoneware recipe from my professor– I only bought a 50 pound bag of it during the workshop and used it all up. I am considering using up the rest of my salt clay and then switching to the new clay body– making a big batch and maybe even soda firing and what-not. It sounds so ridiculous when I say it, because on campus I have kind of been avoiding the soda kiln– one of the grad students has been stuffing it full of soda Gail Nichols-style. It’s really annoying for those of us who don’t use the same clay body and don’t want everything to be glassy with soda. I guess I wouldn’t have to worry about putting any soda in it when I fire… I could fire residual until he graduates 😀 Introducing salt is a lot of fun, but introducing soda seems tedious. Maybe it’s because they suggest spraying it in with a giant pesticide sprayer… and it just makes a mess. I would just make burritos or something, but I don’t know how effective it would be. Anyway, I head out of town tonight. I will arrive on campus tomorrow sometime earlier in the day. I can’t wait to get back to my Lockerbie kickwheel 🙂

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Always Waiting

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Here is the whole flask vase 🙂 I don’t tease without giving a reward eventually 😉

I don’t feel as anxious now. I found a few distractions. Plus, I leave this place tomorrow 🙂 My dad thinks that I had too much caffeine yesterday and that’s what triggered it. I think he’s wrong. I didn’t have any more than usual. He just doesn’t approve of coffee-drinkers. I think it had a lot to do with my allergies, which have been particularly bad this week. Another explanation is that hormones got out of check or something. Who really knows. I know it wasn’t the caffeine. Maybe it’s suffocation– from being cooped up here. Yes, I get out of the house, but there’s not much to do when I’m not at work. Basically the options are to go hiking, walking, or go to the grocery store. The gas station is fairly popular here, but you won’t see me there unless I’m riding with someone else. I get my gas elsewhere.

In other news, I sold a teapot on etsy, my first sale! 🙂 It’s a start. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong to not be selling more… but I’ve never been good at advertising my own work. Anyway, I can’t wait to get out of town tomorrow. I’m going back to campus to spend a few days in the studio. It will be good to escape for a bit and make some work in my space on my own wheel. I might be able to get some pots bisqued or something, but the chances of actually being able to glaze fire are slim. I will probably have to wait another month until I can do that, unless a friend happens to be firing and needs work to fill a kiln. I guess I might not even do that, because I really want to try something new with my next firing. I want to fire the salt kiln the same way we fired the soda kiln during the workshop. I want to give it more reduction (so there might not be much turquoise in the kiln) and try the water-brick idea that we learned from Gail Nichols’ lecture last year. I will keep soaking the brick and sticking it back in the kiln– slowly introducing water to the atmosphere to create more dramatic flashing on the surfaces of the pots. I guess I may not be able to fire the salt kiln this weekend, but I could try to fire some of my stoneware pots in an indoor gas kiln… I would have to check the kiln schedule right when I got there and sign up for one of the smaller kilns. I don’t think I could fill number 5. I do want to fire some larger bowls and maybe a pitcher… so I will need to try for number 4.

Honestly, this summer is going by slower than last summer. August 24th is a long way away. I still have 44 days of living here. What can I do until then?

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Carving trees and waiting for rain

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

This is a close up photo of a tree carving that I did on one of my flask vases that I made for the workshop. The transition between light and dark was created by the atmosphere of the wood kiln, and those spots that help the transition are actually circular crystal formations from wood ash depositing on the pot and melting on the surface, and then cooling rather slowly. I just thought it would be nice to show a peek of what I did at the workshop– like one photo at a time 😉

Well, it’s supposed to be a rainy day. But it’s not raining. I almost wish it were. Then I would have every excuse to just be lazy and watch movies or something… but I don’t have the motivation to do the things that I wanted to earlier today. It has been a weird day… waiting for rain makes me feel more anxious than I have been anyway. I don’t know why I’ve been feeling so anxious for the last couple of days. I mean, I know this place is boring, but I usually find things to do that keep me from going crazy. I’m still doing those things and staying pretty busy, but I think I might be going crazy. All I can think about is the next time I can get out of town… which is in about 47 hours. And one minute.

I also can’t stop thinking about the last time I had a pretty good time… it could have been better, but not by too much 😉 I guess there’s always a next time for most things… but next time isn’t soon enough. I walk through the forest almost every day, go to work, come home and try to get things done, but all of it seems too repetitive, and I’m ready for change.

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Move on, Move forward.

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

 

I’ve come to realization, I’ve been blinded by the scene

The sight of fantasy become real, the sweetness of the dream.

The only way to escape is to make a change

All these feelings residing need to rearrange.

Finding new ground, new ways to dream

New ideas to grasp, starting again- clean.

I fooled myself and forgot the rules

Now I’ve lost my freedom to choose.

I’m in a bind, imprisoned by my thoughts

What next? Take this lesson I’ve been taught.

Move on, move forward, new life awaits.

Get out, get over, before it’s too late.

Something makes me writhe, curdle, and cringe

The thought that inside me, control’s been infringed.

So I think to myself, how do I renew?

What solution is there? What can I do?

“Nothing yet”, my thoughts reply. I know they tell the truth.

“Nothing yet”, I deeply sigh. I’ve got everything to lose.

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Figure Sculpture! Why not?

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Yes, I thought that I might try something new… something that I’ve often thought about trying before but never had the guts because I didn’t think it would turn out the way I wanted it to– figure sculpture. It is very time consuming. I made these more quickly than I expected to, but it still takes a lot more time than just building pots. Today, I made a couple of taller cups and finished a figure sculpture that I started yesterday, then decided to go completely all out with it and just make a really big figure sculpture– as big as I could think of that I could still make out of hand-thrown slabs and put together. It ended up being almost 2 feet tall, and it’s just the torso. I guess the next step is to go life-sized. The sculpture I made today is more realistic than these… just a little more detail, like a deeper belly button and nipples. I like how it turned out so far… I just need to finish cleaning it up and decide on whether I should leave it blank and glaze it white, or do some sort of inlay on it. I am leaning more towards leaving it blank. These smaller ones look kind of cool with the inlay designs on them, but I don’t feel the need to put it on everything. I worked hard enough on the big sculpture that I don’t want to ruin it by putting imagery on it and deciding I don’t like it.

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POW!

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Yeah, that’s right. That sums it up. Pow! (This mug actually does say pow on the other side… don’t know where that photo went) This is a soda fired hand built mug, and I painted the buildings right on the side of the pot, freehand.

In about 20 minutes, I’m gonna be a red head. Well, my hair will be auburn. It will hopefully spice things up a bit 🙂

“Pow!” applies to other things, too. I am getting things done, slowly, but surely. I have a huge list of to-dos, but I’ve got two done so far, and the night’s not over yet. I worked outside on pots for a while, and had a great sculpture idea. “A bird in the hand” will be the title, referring to the old saying of “A bird in the hand is two in the bush”. I was just trying to think of a cool figural sculpture I could do that wasn’t huge and didn’t have to involve the whole body. I made a small torso, just for practice, then tried a larger one and squished it and laid the slab of clay over my foot instead. I started forming the toes and it really did look like a foot until I tried messing with it too much. then I made a new slab and cut out a hand shape. That’s when I got the genius idea. It didn’t work the first time, so I restarted and now I am making the hand, one joint at a time. I made the wrist, palm, and part of the thumb. It needed to set up before I could work with it anymore.

I also just applied the hair dye that I bought over a month ago. I have been waiting for my darkest color to grow out a little before applying the new one. The next thing on the list is to make some herbarium sculptures… it’s long past due. I need to have something to take to the herbarium when I go in about a week, and I haven’t made a thing. The next big thing on my list after that is to make a photo setup and photograph as many pots as I can so I can have photos to add to my digital portfolio, and to sell more pots on Etsy. One step at a time, I am getting things done, making things happen…

POW!  😉

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No Sunset on the Horizon

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

I woke up to the faint but unmistakable smell of wood smoke. I knew it couldn’t be a neighbor burning garbage or someone having a campfire, and nobody would be using a wood stove this time of year. As soon as I walked out my back door, the smell filled my nostrils. The sky is hazy, and there’s not a cloud in the sky or anywhere in the forecast.

My dad called me later last night to tell me that he and my little brother planned on staying the night near Jackson, camping. He told me that there was no way the fire would ever get to our house. It’s gotta be close enough if I can smell it. I’ve seen hazy skies from distant wild fires plenty of times before, but I never smelled the smoke. And I NEVER saw the giant column of smoke before. Today’s humidity is 53%. That gives me some fraction of ease.

Even if the wild fires don’t reach me, I can’t help but think of a few of my friends who are much closer to the fires… I have at least one friend who I know is in Colorado right now, and another who is close to there. He told me that he saw the column of smoke 2 days ago. I keep hearing about new Wyoming  fires, and how they can’t get the Colorado fires under control. I wonder what is happening to my friend in Boulder… I haven’t heard from her in a little while. The world is burning all around me, and no one seems to be able to stop it.

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It’s a Burnin’ Thing.

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

I didn’t take this photo, but it was taken recently, maybe a couple of days ago. This is the fire that is burning ever closer to home. It has grown since then, but I couldn’t pull over to take a photo of the smoke that I saw. I was totally in shock, and it was rush hour…

Usually, I think of fire as a tool, one of my favorite tools. Today, I think of it as a predator. I can’t help but wonder if it can reach me… the giant wild forest fire that I can see just over the hill. I can’t see it right now, because there is a mountain in the way. I was driving home from work as happy as ever to be going home for the day, when I looked up at the sky. I almost drove right off the road.

There it faced me, the giant menacing column of heavy white smoke, threatening to come ever closer. It was too far away and behind the mountains for me to see the base where the flames were, but I was still shaken up a bit. I couldn’t help but think, what if? What if today was my last day in this house that I grew up in? What if tonight was my last chance to pack up all of my belongings and leave? What if my story became the same as those in Colorado? After freaking out and going to google weather warnings and seeing that my town is in fact under a severe fire weather warning, I asked my dad whether “what if?” was a possibility or not. My dad reassured me that “We don’t live in a forest, so we are safe from forest fires.” That still doesn’t make me feel much better, because we live right at the base of a canyon. He said that the fire is still a really long way away, and that I shouldn’t worry about it.

Maybe it’s paranoia from listening to NPR all day at work. I’m still worried. I have half a mind to start packing valuables… but that would be crazy, right?

 

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