Story time

Inspired by my friend Danette and our talks on the way to and from Cincinnati these last couple of weeks, I've decided to apply for a grant. This feels like an absolutely grown up and intimidating thing to do, but I'm doing it. I have to write a bit about my work, and I've pounded out a page so far, but it's a bit dry sounding. So far removed from what my work is like! I tend to write in a very dry, academic style when I write about my work, and I hate it. I've given up for the day, but I think I can sit down tomorrow with fresh eyes and make it better.

Thinking about how to describe my work, the simplest and most cohesive theme is that I like to make work that tells stories. I'm a reader, and I love comics and video games and movies. I love storytelling in any media, and I think that is what goes into my work more than anything. Or at least, that's the direction I'm aiming for.

I've finally got the first batch of finished items back from firing. It was a near perfect batch! Only one chipped pendant; no cracks, glaze faults, or washed out colors on anything else. I also finished the drawing on my first podling jar, and have plans for the next one germinating. It feels like little seedlings growing in my brain - little stories, little images, little ideas. They're playing freeze tag in there, and hide and go seek. It makes me want to lie back in a hammock in the summer breeze, close my eyes, and watch them play.

Speaking of storytelling, here is a ceramic artist I found on the Imaginative Bloom blog that is a creator after my own heart. "Ceramic art that tells the smallest stories". So inspiring!

New things, and glaze issues

Here's some crappy cell phone pics. Real, honest to god pics to come. Honest.

I'm pretty pleased with my test tile birds. I may continue to use bird forms for testing glazes. They're quick and easy to make, have nice texture from the serrated rib, and now I have extra quick sell things for upcoming art fairs.

(Ceramic tech geek stuff to follow. If you're not a ceramicist, this is the boring part. You can skip it.)

All the pink glazed stuff got messed up. The glaze crawled like crazy on the inside. I wonder why that keeps happening? I applied the glazes all the same way, pouring them on the inside of the cup, and brushing the outside. The blue and aqua glazes are fine, but the pink keeps crawling. I'm thinking I either need to thin the glaze, or just brush on the interior from now on. I also read that tin and zinc oxide in a glaze can make it more likely to crawl. I wonder whether the Amaco Pink has either in it? Don't both act as opacifiers and whiteners? I'm guessing they needed some sort of white to make that particular pink shade. (Just looked up glaze colorants, and tin oxide is used in chrome tin pink stains. Aha!)

Does anyone know whether there's anyway to fix a glaze that's crawled? I'm debating whether to sell them as seconds, or to put a layer of clear on and refire them, in the hopes that the glaze with settle down. Any advice would be appreciated.

Less talk, more rock.