Time to Reconnect, Recharge.

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

I haven’t done much drawing at all lately, although I have an inkling to. I wasn’t doing much reading for a few years either, but I’m buried in a book this week. Maybe I will rediscover my drawing tools today… if I find time to get around to it. I know that doesn’t sound so promising, but I really have been contemplating doing some figure drawings, or more portraits like this… or some bright and colorful weird colored pencil drawings 🙂 I had this weird idea of doing drawings of my pots, as realistically as I can. I think it would be a good practice, and then I could refine any surface details on my pots that I find I don’t like. It will be like taking a magnifying glass to my pots… figure out the colors, the flaws, the material grains in my raw clay. What I really need to do is take photos of pots, but that might be a full 5 or 6 hour project, getting the space all set up and ready to go, and then dragging about a hundred pots downstairs to photograph. I will try to draw my pots though.

I drew this just about a month ago, partially at work on a super slow day. Today might be similar. Anyway, I prefer to use non-smudging, non-erasable materials, like ink and colored pencils. Instead of using a graphite or charcoal pencil for the soft shading, I tend to use a black-colored pencil because I know my hand won’t smudge it. This drawing didn’t take as long as I used to on portraits… maybe just a couple of hours in all. It is a little rough… but I was just trying something new (drawing wrinkles).

Posted in Art, Daydreaming, Deep Thought, Drawing, Painting, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Worlds Away

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

It feels like when I walk away from somewhere or something, or if it walks away from me, it almost doesn’t exist anymore. It feels like leaving one world and entering another, and the one I just left is a faint memory, maybe even just a memory of a dream. I feel that way every time I leave the studio on campus and drive back to this place where I’m from. I feel that way every time my mom moves into a new house. I feel that way when I leave work and come home. Sometimes I even feel that way when the sun goes down at night. Everything changes.

Maybe I just put too much emphasis on physical surroundings… but I really do feel separated from my friends on campus and on a few gloomy days here, I have felt like I never even knew the trees and sidewalks and flamboyant professors that I’ve grown to love so much. I hate those days. I need to find ways to stay connected to every place I’ve ever wanted to know in my life (we all have places we would like to erase). I just feel so far away from the things that make me glow… like my kick-wheel in my studio space, all of my friends there, and another good friend who I only see every once in a long while because he lives so far away. Everything feels so… separate. Some things are better that way– I don’t really want to feel how I do when I’m here when I go back to the studio, but I would really like to take that golden feeling back from the studio. It’s not just the studio that I feel distant from. It’s everything that’s not here. I feel like I once knew my mom, but until I see her again, she is a distant memory. When I sit on the couch in the living room here, the forest feels hundreds of miles away when the sun goes down– even though it’s only a short walk away.

I don’t really know if there’s an explanation for me feeling so completely separate from everything, but I know I want to change it.

Posted in Art, Ceramics, Creative Writing, Daydreaming, Deep Thought, Nature, Philosophy, Photography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Distractions

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Yes, I have been distracted for a few days. It’s a good feeling to stay busy and try new things…

I guess I do have underlying things on my mind, but I have been so busy trying to find new ways to sell my pots and jewelry and such that I haven’t given myself time to think much beneath the surface. I made a list tonight– a list of reasons why I need to work this summer and why I am working where I am working. Some of the reasons haven’t come through for me. I was really looking forward to helping with the arnica harvest, but apparently we have an “overflow”, so my boss didn’t want to harvest more than 50 pounds or so… we usually harvest at least 100 pounds. I don’t really like working inside the store much… I find it boring. When I started the job, I was working out in the greenhouses with the plants. I felt more passionate about that. Even pulling weeds didn’t seem so bad compared with washing dishes and wiping counters. That’s why I decided to make the list. I know I need to make some money, and that means that I can’t get bored with my j0b just yet. I have to find a way to keep up pace and stay positive even though I haven’t been enjoying the work.

One of the main reasons why I have been distracted for the last few days is because I finally decided to start up an “Etsy” account on etsy.com (http://www.etsy.com/people/kiracall?ref=si_pr). I think it’s a good idea to work on marketing my pots, because I just brought 7 more boxes of pots back with me from campus. I need to sell them somehow. There isn’t any cupboard space left for me here either. I have to store my dishes in the back room stacked out on the counter. Anyway, I feel like I have so much to learn… at work and with etsy. I’ve never really done any shipping before, but I am learning how at work and as soon as people start buying my pots on etsy, I will have to ship stuff out.

Yesterday was my day off for the week, and I decided to take a trip to Jackson Hole. It’s a cool place to visit, and I feel like I fit right in with the locals… the hippie locals, not the cowboy ones. I had a few things that I wanted to get done yesterday, even though I was tagging along with my dad. I wanted to stop by one of the shops that used to sell my jewelry on consignment and see if they would consider taking a few of my pots to sell. I didn’t expect much, so I didn’t get let down in any way. He said that he would take about 20 of them. I also wanted to see the new art center… I wasn’t expecting much there either. I thought that they might have a few little electric kilns, and maybe a couple of wheels. They had a high temp soda kiln, a high temp gas, a low fire soda, and electric kilns. I was glad to see that they had a couple of soda kilns. When I got there, I met an old friend at the door 🙂 it was nice, and she showed me around. I asked if the visiting artist was there yet (the same one from the workshop I just got back from) and she took me right into the kiln room where they were loading a low-fire soda kiln. It was cool to see him again, and the ceramic tech guy was there too… so I asked him if he could show me around and stuff. The visiting artist bragged me up a bit… it was nice because I knew the tech guy would listen to him when he said that I could fire a kiln. He said “yeah, she really knows her stuff. They all know their stuff up there” (back on campus). I offered to help out with a soda firing sometime, and he seemed more than happy about it. He even asked me if I would want to teach a class sometime. That would be the coolest thing… even if it was just a lifespan sort of class, just the idea of it blows my mind.

Anyway, I feel like I made some good connections yesterday. It is kind of a long drive up there, but it would be worth it to get experience firing a different kiln off campus and meeting new people and maybe driving up once a week to teach a class.

Oh, and the drawing is one that I did during my freshman year of college, and it gave birth to my final 2D design project that year. This is just an ink and colored pencil drawing… my favorite kind 🙂 I used to draw a lot of mushrooms and weird plants in bright colors… there were some of my best doodles, so I’ve been told.

Posted in Art, Ceramics, Daydreaming, Deep Thought, Drawing, Painting, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Curious Alice

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Here’s the Alice drawing I mentioned yesterday. I had a lot of fun drawing this one… during my intro to philosophy class, where I was already on the professor’s bad side anyway. I don’t know why he disliked me so much… maybe it was my spiky blonde hair 🙂

So I called in to the car service place to schedule an appointment that is way past due… I’ll take it in tomorrow. Right now, I am making mandarin ginger muffins, since I have the time. I don’t leave for work for another hour. I think it’s strange that my boss scheduled me not to come in until 11:30 every day, because I know she could use the extra help. Almost everyone else is leaving or already gone. My main coworker is moving to Oregon, and her daughter is going there for a while too (her daughter helped out around the store a little as well). Also, the other high-school-aged girl just left to Europe yesterday. That means that I am the only one left to help out indoors for a while. I’m kind of glad to not have it so crowded anymore though… I like having more to do than just sweep the floors. Now I can bake, get the orders ready, help ship them, process soaps, make salves, take care of customers, and help out with the stuff I was doing before. Staying busy is better. Who knows, if it kept going the way it was, I might have started drawing again out of boredom 🙂

Posted in Art, Daydreaming, Drawing, Food and Drink, Nature, Painting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wine Tasting #2

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Taste-testing time! Ok, the first one I tasted was a suggestion from a friend… a cheap and easy way to make an okay table wine… I went and bought 2 half-gallon bottles of Welch’s white grape juice and added sugar and yeast to them: one dessert wine, and one drier wine. The dessert wine is perfect, but young… of course. I will rebottle it and store it for clarification and aging. The dry white wine was also very decent. It’s amazing that just 1/3 cup of white sugar can make such a difference in flavor. I still don’t have a hydrometer, so I know that they probably have varying levels of alcohol in them. Anyway, the next taste test was hard iced tea (wine). I made peach flavored black tea and added sugar and raspberries right into the fermentation tank. It’s nice, although I think it could be slightly sweeter. I added more sugar and I will let it ferment for a while longer… at least a couple of weeks, then I will store it for aging and clarification. The flavor was awesome… peach and raspberry tea 🙂 delicious. The next taste test was a huckleberry dessert wine… I took a total gamble on how it might turn out. I used a frozen huckleberry ice cream topping sort of thing… just mashed huckleberries with sugar, and added it to the fermenter with a tiny bit of extra sugar. It really is pretty sweet, but the astringency of the dark huckleberry skins balances it out. The next taste test was a hibiscus tea wine… really sketchy, but I thought it might be fun to try. It does resemble a cherry wine, but maybe a cherry wine made with dried cherries versus fresh ones. I think it needs to ferment for a little longer… or something. I guess that’s all of the wine tasting for now… there are two wines left, but I will save them for another time. I’m going for a nice walk in the park 🙂

Posted in Folk Wine, Food and Drink, Home Brewing, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Time Machine Time

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

I just had a flashback to the second semester of my college freshman year somehow… I was listening to a song on Jango.com, and it sent me back to drawing 1 and 2 class. Maybe it’s because it resembled the music we listened to during class. Anyway, we had some good times in that class… and this drawing is one of the many sketches from my 2D Design class from the same semester. I kind of miss just doodling with ink on paper, but I haven’t had the time to really think about doing it. I used to do it during lecture classes to stay awake, or whenever I got bored. I never really took time out to draw at home or anything. This is an abstract of a karate figure in action. The idea was to create the figure using all oval/circular blobs and enclose it like an amoeba or something. After that, I abstracted a section of this drawing to create a big acrylic painting. I still have it in my room 🙂

Those days seem so long ago… the days before my hands knew the touch of wet clay. I remember feeling bored and lost and not wanting to major in painting and drawing. I just knew I had to major in art, and people were pressuring me to choose an emphasis. When I finally applied to the art program, I had a few of my intro ceramic pieces to put in the portfolio (and they weren’t terrible, just terribly heavy 🙂 ). I do miss carrying a sketchbook full of really weird drawings with me all the time. I used to draw truly macabre things… like a hand growing out of the ground with bloody roots, and a foot to match 🙂 I used to draw dark forests with creepy trees and eyes peeking out from the shadows and eerie animals. I once drew my dark version of Alice in Wonderland, she was walking toward a mushroom cottage (Amanita muscaria) and there were skulls covering the entire background. I might post it later if I can find it…

The workshop is over, I am back in the valley, and I go to work at noon. That means I still have a couple of hours to kill before work… I could clean, or I could hurry and get dressed and go to the park and ride the back trails to see what has changed in two weeks… hmm. I think I know what to do 😉

Posted in Art, Daydreaming, Deep Thought, Drawing, Music, Nature | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Passion in my Smile

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Freedom is wherever you let the road take you to. Freedom is not letting other peoples’ opinions or rules stop you from doing what you feel. Freedom is a forward direction, always changing. Freedom is not laziness. Freedom is courage, or the way for courage to be acted upon. Freedom is doing without asking for an opinion. Freedom is making a difference without waiting for others. Maybe freedom is selfish, but freedom is progression. It only takes one free person to make a difference. I try to make a difference with the small things– like helping out on an organic farm or making a nice dinner for someone else, or by painting something full of light that inspires someone to think differently about their outlook on life. Or maybe not painting, but drawing or creating a clean and dramatic form that draws people in. I make a difference with my positive attitude. When I’m in the studio, people tell me that I am always smiling. When I am in the studio, I have every reason to be smiling. It is my happy place, my place where I have the freedom to create absolutely anything that physics will allow me to. I smile because it feels right. I know that I’m doing something that keeps the world just a little brighter in the midst of dark world news forecasts.

When I’m not in the studio, sometimes it feels harder to smile, and the studio seems like it’s a million miles away. Away from the studio, everything is different. The world outside of the studio is about survival. Part of survival is interacting peaceably with other people, whether I like them or not. Outside of the studio, other matters loom. Friends in trouble or need, family in feud, brothers lost to virtuality, and finding enough money to make ends meet. Sure, every artist has the dream of supporting themselves with their own work, but the reality is that a second job is necessary. The freedom in the studio feels somehow lost and I am left to find my confidence elsewhere. Lately, the only time I am truly happy is when my hands are in the clay or I am walking through the forest on a sunny morning. I know there are things missing from my life right now, but when I am working with clay, I feel complete.

Posted in Art, Ceramics, Daydreaming, Deep Thought, Nature, Photography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Long Road to Peace

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

The reason for this lovely picture of Nick Bivins’s “Coffee Time” set is because I am making good use of a nice little green and white liquor cup of his that I got at the Seattle NCECA gallery upstairs tonight. I should take a photo of it, along with a few other cups that I got at NCECA and post it, but it seems like the lighting and timing are never right when I think about it and have all 5 cups with me. Oh, I should also post a pic of the nice cup that I got from Bede Clarke (our visiting artist for the workshop this month). We had a cup trade at the potluck last night. It was randomized, pull a number out of a hat and see which cup has the same number in it… and I was lucky enough to get his (I swear I didn’t cheat, I didn’t even know what numbers were in the cups. Even more ironically, he got mine! He seemed fairly happy about it, too 🙂 He came over to give me a hug. It was the only time that happened during the cup trade– we were the only ones that got each others’ cups.

What can you possibly say to help a friend who is living in agony when you’re 200 miles away? I have been extremely happy for the past two weeks, but now other things are seeping into my thoughts, making me remember the things that were wrong before I came up for this awesome workshop. By the way, the workshop officially ended yesterday. We unloaded the last two kilns and did a complete cleanup. Now it’s time to prepare to go back home. Home? I meant to say… my summer job, my dad’s place, the middle of nowhere. I feel like this is my home here, near the studio, in this town where all of my friends and my passions are. I will leave Sunday morning, or maybe sleep in… and go to my mom’s place for Sunday dinner. She is planning a Father’s Day thing at her place, and it’s on the way back to my dad’s place anyway. I bet it will be alright, and it will be good to have the whole family together again. I am thinking about giving my dad one of my latest pots for Father’s day, but I just remembered that I should probably give my mom a late Mother’s day present too… and I have the perfect pot for each of them 🙂 I am thinking of giving my dad this cool sculptural pitcher thing that I made last week and soda fired this week… it started out as a wheel-thrown vase and was so soft that it flopped when I took it off the wheel, but I saved it anyway and squeezed it together and carved a hole through it and smoothed it out. When my professor saw it and I told him how it came to be, he said “Make some more ‘failed pots’ ” 🙂 It is completely different from most of what I’ve been making, including my hand-built stuff. Speaking of, I was thinking of giving my mom another hand-built vase that I made… a flask vase. She is always asking me if I will give her nice pots to decorate her home with, but the cabin just wasn’t the right place to display my articulate pots. If I made “country pottery”, it would have been absolutely perfect. Now she lives in a house with a cleaner design, and I think I have the perfect pot for her coffee table 🙂

Anyway, I’m worried about one of my closest friends because of his current dramatic living situation. The reason why I’m worried is because I know he is in pain and he is trying to distract himself from it. I hope he can find a way out of there soon. I really don’t know how I can help him when I’m so far away. He said that he has a couple of options for new living situations, but everything is up in the air at this point… no real plans, no real relief. I really would like it if he were to visit again soon, but there’s no telling what will actually happen at this point. I feel like he needs distractions, like new friends or hobbies or something. A new place should help…

Posted in Ceramics, Deep Thought, Food and Drink, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sunrise Summer

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics


 

I’ve gotta say, even though it’s only halfway through June, this feels like one of the best summers that I’ve ever had. Maybe it’s because I’ve finally found my happy place being a potter, or maybe it’s because I figured out how to not worry so much as I used to. Or maybe, it’s because I can feel good things still floating in the air of possibilities. I can feel good things in the future, like the next time I will feel full of life and have a good time making out– I know that it will happen before the month is over. Maybe it’s because I am giving myself a two-week break away from average responsibility (like making money or following someone else’s rules). Maybe it’s because I am letting myself let loose a bit and just enjoy whatever comes at me– or deal with it if it’s not enjoyable. Maybe, just maybe, it’s my vibrant turquoise glaze that I am falling more and more in love with. Nah, it must be the making out 🙂 Or maybe it’s everything!

It’s a good summer. I am learning new sides of this town that I never knew before, and it makes my world feel just a little bigger. I am eating out at new places that I used to make excuses about not going to, I am driving down streets that I have no idea where they lead, and I am taking chances to grow personally and take more responsibility for myself and for others. I am definitely growing up a bit this summer. I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I know I am where I’m supposed to be right now. Working in the studio, firing pots,  hangin’ with other artists. kickin’ back with a few beers, and just having a good time making art matter. Also, I think I’m heading to where I want to be in my own personal romantic life, and it feels good. I am doing it the slow way because it seems like the best way.

In other news, the workshop is finishing up. We are all kind of just sitting around at this point because they fired off the last kiln today. Last night was my last firing night. I helped with the first half of the last firing (the soda kiln) but was relieved by another soda-firer just after midnight– when I started the body-reduction. I was also helping with the wood firing… kind of. I didn’t do much besides make sure flame wasn’t coming out of the chimney. We had the fire department all scared because a few people called in about a flame on the roof that they thought was a spontaneous fire. After they left, we had to figure out how to continue without sending flame out the chimney (even though we were still trying to push cone 9 down in a couple of places and we planned to hold it between cone 10 and 11 for a few hours). It was a long and tedious night for the wood-firing crew. I was mainly watching the soda kiln, but offered to be the “flame-checker”.

We went up the canyon and had a nice little barbecue tonight, and the plan is to have another get-together tomorrow night… all of this party-shopping has me going crazy! But I’m having a great time, so I suppose it’s worth it. I just don’t know what I should make for the potluck tomorrow… it has to be good 🙂

Posted in Art, Ceramics, Daydreaming, Deep Thought, Food and Drink, Photography, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Flying by the seat of my pants… as always

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Kira Call Ceramics

Yup. There’s gonna be a potluck party tonight, and I went all out. I made stuffed mushrooms with all-fresh ingredients. Brown mushrooms (for more flavor), sour cream, feta cheese, fresh garlic, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, and a dash of garlic salt. I hope my friends like them 🙂 I am also taking a gamble by sharing my chamomile-honey wine, which I think is pretty good. I made it less sweet… so it tastes a lot better than it did. It really is light and refreshing, and I am considering making another batch. If they don’t like it, that’s what the mushrooms are for- they are guaranteed to be loved 🙂 The potluck party is in honor of our visiting artist, Bede Clarke. He is a pretty cool guy, so the party should be fun.

We loaded the salt kiln today- finally. We are supposedly loading a wood kiln within a couple of days, but who knows. I’m confused, because it seems like people just stopped making work, even though we still need to fill the soda kiln and the train kiln. Wait– I think the soda kiln will be full already… a couple of people reserved all of their work for it. Anyway, the train still needs pots. I’m excited that we are doing a high-temp woodfire, but I can’t really think of what to make to fire in it. I should make some more hand-built things, but they take time and I’m not sure how much time I have. I will post pics of pots as soon as I take some 😛

Posted in Art, Ceramics, Folk Wine, Food and Drink, Photography, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments