Slaying Dragons

It's been a long, tough week. But looking up at those bronze pieces all ready to get polished up makes me happy. Makes me feel like something good got done besides dealing with dragons.

I made myself another bracelet this week. The bronze button on it was one I made a while ago for no particular reason. I'm really liking leather these days. I think it's bringing out the Xena Warrior Princess in me but minus the leather corset. I really don't have the figure for it and besides it seems much too hot a garment for the summer weather.

It's a pretty simple bracelet. Just a double strand of leather, button, lampwork bead, wrapped three times.It's a simple piece.  I think I needed a little simple.

Did you ever wonder if I might make any cermaic pieces again? Me too. That's where the slaying dragons comes in. I have this wonderful new stoneware clay. It's quite a departure from what I might normally use in my designs. I've been wanting to try out some new ideas and a few months ago decided to buy a new small kiln. A smaller kiln would allow me to do some testing and have a quicker turn around on results. I could do special orders more easily. Lots of reasons really why I wanted this.

I carefully researched kilns, firing specifications, wiring specifications, even did testing on the wiring in my studio to be sure that it met the specifications of the kiln. I decided on a model from a manufacturer who has a very good reputation. I have one of their kilns and it's been a good kiln. One that I like very much. I bought from a ceramics supplier that I use much of the time. I trusted these people.


I've lost most of two loads in my brand new kiln. It works but it does not actually fire to the temperatures that are specified by the manufacturer and the supplier. It comes close but not close enough. It's been a week of back and forth between the supplier, manufacturer, and myself. It's been pretty awful with both the manufacturer and the supplier indicating that the problem is mine. That I do not have the optimum electrical supply that this kiln would require. By the way, no one else in the US does either. It's summer, voltage drops, etc, I won't get into the specifics. The kiln does not reliably operate in the range that it should and even the manufacturer sort of admits this.

We may or may not be making some progress on this. It's been exhausting. There's been this niggling feeling that being a woman is not helping out here. Ceramics for many years was dominated by men, especially when it came to the technical side of thing like kilns. I thought we'd gone past that. But no, only when I put my husband on the phone did we begin to take even a tiny shuffle in any direction like progress. That's quite depressing. But the problem has still not been resolved. I feel like I am slaying dragons and desperately wishing that Xena might show up to give me a hand.

I could go on at length in this mini rant of mine. I don't usually rant on this blog. But just this once it feels quite good let some of this out. So thank you for taking the time to listen just a little bit.

Do you see that little bird up there on our feeder? It's a cardinal. They visit me every day. Today I'll be in my studio getting out some clay and watching for these little fellows to come by and pay a visit. They make me happy. They help me to keep life in perspective.

The key to ceramics 101

Those little keys up there are bronze toggles I’ve been working on. They are prototypes and that I am not entirely sure will make it beyond this stage. They are little horrors to make and I'm not really sure I like them. But I really wanted something to go with the oval filigree pattern that could work as a clasp. They are up there to lure you into this blog post.

But the ceramics part of this is an answer to a comment by Kelley. I’m so happy she asked about the ceramic process. You know, I often talk like everyone knows exactly what I’m talking about. A lot of times this is not the case, as my children like to point out, sometimes rudely. They also like to point out that to assume makes an …. oh well lets not go there on this nice clean blog.

So here’s what I do from start to finish to make a bead and a few definitions thrown in for good measure.

bisque kiln

The bead gets made, dried and cleaned. Then it and all its brothers and sisters go through the first firing, the bisque. The bisque is the firing that goes before glazing. It makes the bead hard enough to glaze without falling apart but porous enough for the glaze to sink in and bond to the surface. This is a pretty low temperature firing in terms of ceramics, cone 04 (around 1900 F). I’m not going to go into the whole Orton cone stuff, because, yawn, because heat work and cone bending is far too boring even for me. The pieces can touch at this point because nothing melts in this firing.

glazing bisque beads and pendants

Once out of the kiln, I brush glaze on the bead. Fresh out of my glaze jars, it’s a thick liquid. Fired to maturity, it’s a glass surface bonded to the bead. Lot’s of chemistry here, also far too boring to go into. But for those of us who have a bit of mad scientist lurking in our psyche, it’s pretty amazing stuff.

Then it’s off to the glaze firing. I fire to cone 6 (around 2300 F). This one takes about 10 hours and another 8 hours to cool before I can unload the kiln. All of the pendants and beads are put on metal rods that won’t melt at that temperature. They get loaded so that nothing is touching, because if the beads touch they will become melted together in interesting but totally unusable ways.

cabachons and buttons on bottom shelf


pendants on middle shelf

beads on top shelf

18 hours later, shiny sparkly finished beads

So there you have it, ceramic beads in a nutshell.

One other little note. I do use metal clay as well and refer to that as a bronze/copper firing. Metal clay in fact has nothing to do with ceramics other than it’s plastic like clay in its moist state. And firing really isn’t what happens in a ceramic sense. In the kiln metal clay sinters and all of the stuff that held it together burns away and the microscopic particles of metal melt together. More geeky science here.

And if you made it this far in this post you need to head to your nearest ceramics studio and get your hands muddy. Oh and do join me on the Beads Of Clay blog tomorrow for a little behind the scenes as I get ready for my first ever bead show.

Thanks everyone for your lovely sweet comments on the bird and branch pendant. I love that feedback and it always inspires me to new things.

Hot out of the kiln

Hot! Well hot in West Texas. We're at 103F and I have no idea how to judge hot out of the kiln. I do know it was a short studio day. My brain turned to butter about noon. These are a few of the new textured pieces that came out of the kiln this morning. I must say that I'm rather pleased with the potential here. I am a bit dissapointed that some part of me censored one of the new textures. I have no idea why my brain shut that off. Oh well. Next time.

These are a couple of sample pieces from glazes I didn't think would work. I've got a few pendants waiting to be fired in these glazes tomorrow night. These were a happy surprise. I like these. Sometimes, I really enjoy a surprise.

And finally, the 'what was I thinking glaze.' Well I'm still not sure. This morning I loved it. This afternoon I hated it. This evening I'm neutral to loathing. It's very olive drabby, non descript grey. It could work. I'm just not sure how.

Time to find a cool place without a hot computer in my lap.

Cheers, LeAnn

The Gates of ....

Well I'm inclined to believe it might be the gates of that less desirable place. The kiln is loaded, it is firing, it is hot as h-e-double hockey sticks. I could have gotten more in this kiln but my brain melted about 5 pm and my will power was in seriously diminshed supply about 4 pm. It's mid 90F here which means out in the studio it is about 1058 degrees. No AC. Yuk. Tomorrow we're gonna break 100F. So I'm off to do a bit more work tonight while it is still 'cool.'

But stay tuned for the big reveal. There is all sorts of new things in there. New textures, new glazes, including a what was I thinking glaze.

Hope you all stay cool!

Barnacle Vase

Parts of it I like and parts I don't. One of the problems with working with the larger stoneware work is that I am used to the bright clarity of my glazes over porcelain. The barnacle section of this vase has been covered with a thin layer of porecelain slip but it is not enough to keep some of the rust colours coming through from the iron in the clay. So it is back to testing to getting the glaze effects I want. Oh well, that is in fact part of what keeps me moving forward. I like the challenge.


I like the form of it though. And it has given some ideas where to go with this work. It's not headed for the scrap pile.

This pendant has been glazed in one of 3 new tests I had put into my last firing. I feel a small obsession coming on. I love how the raised portions of the pattern are greenish and the deeper parts are a mottled blue. It would be perfect for the barnacle pot. Unfortunatly it doesn't do the same thing on that clay.

I've been feeling prop challenged lately. Or maybe just bored with photographing my work in a consistent way. The pile of shells in the last photo were gathered on many beach walking expeditions. I found them back on another of my rumaging expeditions in what should have been a clean up exercise.

The little bit of shell in the first photo is from my Gramma. It was part of my inheritance when she died many years ago. She did not have much but she did have this wonderful memento of her only visit to California to spend time with my Auntie. I don't quite know how I ended up with it. We are more than two dozen grandchildren and I feel like I got the best thing of all. Some day I'll show you a photo of the whole shell. It is very beautiful.

Warm regards, LeAnn

Spring Cleaning and Odd Lots

You would not believe the state of my dining room. Actually, you would if you were my friend JoAnna. She's been in there. She has been kind and not offered any hint of revulsion or even pity. It is out of control with studio spill over. I can't remember the last time I saw the top of the side board. Easter is a week away and I'm having 7 people to dinner. What was I thinking?

In an effort to get a little control I've put up a few odd lots of beads and pendants in my Etsy shop. In fact this was a wee bit of procrastination disguised as effort. It has not made one tiny bit of dent in my mess. My first house guest arrives on Thursday. I better get moving!

Oh and I've got this great sewing project that is destined to take over the dining room table once this mess is taken care of.

Have a great week!

LeAnn

Barnacle Beads & Prototypes

I've been experimenting a little with the barnacle/fossil texture on small things in porcelain. The pots I made are in a rugged stoneware that works very diffrently form porcelain. You can see little tiny stress crackes in the bead's texture. The technique needs a bit of work.

I participate in a show called Llano Estacado Wine and Clay each June. Our clay guild organizes it and a local winery hosts the show. It's a fun show with wine tasting, cheese, and the works. For a while I've thought how cool would it be to make wine stoppers for the show. But I'd never been able to find nice stoppers at an affordable price. That's where serendipity and Sue comes in. Sue had up on her blog yesterday these really great pics of a canape set with her beautiful lamp work beads. She kindly shared her supplier for the findings, Karen Thomas. They've got really great things there that can be beaded, including very reasonably priced wine bottle stoppers.


So this biggy bead is a prototype for the wine stoppers I want to make. Now a more patient person would wait until she actually had the stopper in hand before heading off to make the parts for it. But patience is definitely not my middle name. The idea was there and I needed, really needed to do this right now. I did in fact make the 45 buttons that needed to be done. So I am feeling slightly virtuous.


By the way, patience is not in fact on the list of virtues. I don't actually remember what is on the list. But patience is not one of them and I am sooo relieved.


And I have to show you this pic of my babies. This is a rare occurence that they snuggle. Bob the old brown dog is not entirely happy that we got baby Alice when he was 8 years old. It's that only child syndrome. But I think he was just chilly enough to let sweet Alice curl up on him. It did not last long.

Happy weekend everyone! LeAnn

Information Pots

Much of my studio practice entails heaps of testing of glazes, techniques, etc. I sometimes make what I call information pots. I can do little tiny samples on test tiles but in reality the pieces are usually just too small to get a feel for how a particular effect will work on a large surface.




This is an information pot. I've learned a lot from this oval bowl . BTW, it was going to be a throw away from the beginning, it will never appear publicly anywhere but here. Actually, these don't really get thrown away. I use them in the garden for succulents and things like that. It's an interesting place, my garden.


The good news from this pot is that the bits on the rim that I broke (twice) can be repaired! This is fab news as this technique is fragile. A bit of paper clay slip works like wizardry! Even just before glazing. Yeah!


The bad news from this pot is that the clay it is made of does indeed have a really poonack colour (technical term, there). To get the colour clarity I want is going to require another step. But at least I know now before I commit some really big pieces to the fire.

For this series of pieces, I wanted to get at the raw clay feel to acheive a 'fossil' feel. Almost there. But that poonack clay colour rears it's ugly head. Back to the testing. A few test tiles, information bowls, and I'm just about there to commiting to some larger pieces. Why use this clay? Well, it is just superb for scultptural pieces. And that is where this is headed.

The thing with working with clay that is so maddening is that there is just no going back once it's gone to the final firing. I can fix things up a wee bit with a second try at it but it's just not ever going to be quite right. But still I love working with clay. I love the feel of it, the smell of it.

But today, I worked with things that are familiar. That I've done before. That was satisfying. It left me open to thinking about other more distant work. That sort of balance between the familiar and the new keeps me creating new things.

I'm curious. What keeps you going?

Cheers, LeAnn

Fossils and Sea Things

Last week I was working with some wall tiles that had flower buttons "planted" on them. It struck me then how much like fossil coral they looked. This bowl is what came out of that.

I moved on from there to this large vase form. It was handbuilt over a 2 liter soda bottle. This photo is the naked start of the vase. It's only got its rim in place, thin 3 mm thick strips of most clay.

The next day I started the process of applying sprigs of clay to build up surface pattern of the vase.

And two days later and many hours and many hundreds of tiny little balls of clay, the vase is wrapped up and drying in my living room. Luckily no one in my house really minds having incomplete pottery 'decorating' our home.

The idea of working with fossil imagery has been with me for a while. I've always loved fossils and the idea that beneath us is this huge hidden sea from long ago. When I was a little girl I dreamed of being a paleontologist. Yes, I was a strange child. I've got a little box of fossils from my childhood camping holidays. There are brachipods and ammonites and coral in there. Just tiny little specimens. I think this new work must be what is resurfacing of my childhood dream.

I don't know where this new work is going. But that's OK. I do know that this is not the production work I need to get done by the end of the month. So for now, the next pieces will be slowly forming in my mind and I'll go back to making some things that will help me meet my deadlines. At least for a day or two.

Have a lovely week,

LeAnn

Cristi, 2 If By Sea

My friend, Cristi, posted these 2 pieces a little while ago. But I just could not resist writing my own little bit about them. The daisy pendant is a pendant. I made it as a pendant. I could see it as a pendant. But I did not see it with the lovely play of green leafy beads and deep purple beads that Cristi put into the necklace. And if you look really closely the beading wire has got little teeny beads on it where it connects to the chain. Cristis’ attention to detail is one of things I like most about her work. It is these little details that make her work so delightful.

And the bracelet, aaahhhh, this is the first time I’ve seen one of my buttons used in a clasp. I especially like the shape and colour of the wood beads against the pattern in the button. This is, by the way, one of my personal favorite button styles. It’s one of the first patterns that I developed when I started focusing more on texture in my work. I just love the way Cristi has used the button. For me it has always been just a button. But Cristi has elevated it beyond its original rather utilitarian design.

Cristi’s jewelry has this wonderful sea breeze feel to it. It is elegant and crisp at the same time. Much like waves on the beach. I am always thrilled to see the vision others have for my components. It inspires me to think beyond the confines of my own little world.

You can follow Cristi’s blog to see more work in progress or you can go straight to her Etsy shop, 2ifBySea to purchase these lovelies.

Thanks, Cristi! These are beautiful.

LeAnn

Into the Studio

Yesterday was one of those glorious spring days where the sun is bright, the temperature is perfect, birds are singing, the dogs are behaving, and all is right with the world. What that means for me is I get to spend time in my real studio. The one that is outside and looks a lot like a garage with kilns and big studio stuff.

I’ve had in mind a few things that I’ve wanted to do with my functional work for a while. And with a show coming up at the end of April, well it was just time to get moving. Nothing like a few deadlines to spark a bit of creativity.

I think that carpet of flowers in front of our cabin inspired me to create my own little version. Among other things I made a tray and little serving dishes that have got a flower pattern stamped into it. If you think it looks a little like the zinnia buttons you would be right. I made stamps a from the button molds and finally was inspired to use them. These are all ready to go into the kiln.

But what I am really excited about is this tile. It was bound to happen. The buttons would make their way onto the surface of something else. I see bright colours on this one!

This tile is made from lots of very thin, very moist, slabs of clay, a little less than 1/8” (3mm) thick. These are a bit tricky to work with. They are delicate coming off the slab roller and I did find out pretty early on that one does not pick up a large sheet of clay by the edge and try to carry it over to the work table. Harsh words were used when one particularly large slab of clay dropped onto the icky dirty floor.

But I’m pleased with the results. I like the plumpness of it and the sense of the inner void that it has. Making it was a lot like sewing. Each piece is cut, shaped, rolled up, and pinched together. Then I put on a back with a keyhole opening for hanging it. Now it is drying slowly. Too much drying too fast and it will crack apart into a zillion pieces. OK maybe that is an exaggeration.

Wishing you all a great spring day!

LeAnn

Two Questions

I’ve been playing around with making sets of beads/components for a while now. Sort of like what you see here. It was my daughter who suggested, actually maybe demanded a little, that I make things in sets. You see she is actually the reason I started making beads. She’s been making jewelry for several years and wanted to use my ceramics in her work. But a lack and alas she’s got little time for beading now that she is a fully certified and practicing ICU nurse.

So my question is, do you prefer your pendants and focals to come with beads and small components that match/coordinate?

From a ceramics perspective it’s easier to put things together in sets as each glaze firing will vary slightly, so no two things will be exactly the same. Sometimes they even vary from one section of the kiln to another. Being the perfectionist that I am, I like the glazes on components to be the same if they are being used together in a piece of jewelry. I can really only do that if it’s from the same firing. Maybe this isn’t so important?

From an Etsy listing perspective, it’s a lot easier to put together groups of things in order to keep those pesky listing and PayPal fees down. That 50 cents total listing and selling fee can really start to bump up the costs of what I think would be reasonable prices for individual items.

My second question is about technique. Again, my daughter influenced my ceramic practice. She doesn’t like the fired wire loops on my pieces. She doesn’t like them because they don’t match the brass wire and findings she prefers. She is very opinionated! I like them because the pieces are cleaner looking without holes in them. Does it matter to you?

Sets or not?
Wire loops or not?

I’d really love to hear from all of you!

Thanks and have a wonderful Friday, LeAnn

I opened the kiln and

as usual I have mixed feeling. There are pastels in their. I am not a pastel person. But when I was glazing I felt all sort of springy. And one thing just lead to another. I will have to get used to them. Do you ever stray off your usual path just because the sun is shining and the air is warm?

The good news is that someone actually liked one of my spring daisy buttons and it was gone from my Etsy shop this morning. I am just a little sad about this one though. I liked it too. I will have to make another.

On another note. There are things in there ready for my little give-away. But it is still a mystery. Well not to me. But just as soon as I summon up a bit of energy, I'll post some pics. And no that bowl of bisque is not all glazed and fired. I am slow. It will take me a while.

There is still time to get in on the give away! Just stop over here.

Happy Sunday, LeAnn

The Kiln is Firing

The kiln is firing and the kiln god sits watching the magik. Well maybe it is not magik, maybe it is just chemistry. And maybe it is not really a kiln god so much as a kiln gargoyle. He used to have 2 ears. In fact he still has 2 ears but one fell off on our move back to the United States from Australia. Someday the ear will be attached again. I did not make the kiln god/gargoyle. My son made him for me when he was about 15 years old. Sometimes, I think he should be the one doing ceramics. Clever boy!

The kiln god always sits on my kiln in gaurd of the works inside. Pure superstition.

So in this kiln is a whole lot of new things. New glazes, new combinations of glazes. Lots of blues, greens, and blue greens (I think). I never know what will come out. I sometimes wonder why I do all these new things on an entire kiln load. I've got new things in there. Not just buttons, some pendants and linky things in new designs.

So stay tuned...the kiln will open tomorrow...I'll post....But I may or may not post the failures. My ego you know.

Cheers, LeAnn

What is that?

Up at 5 am, unable to sleep.....did I pull it off? You see I've got a guild member show going up this weekend at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts and I yet again I am pushing the limit for getting my piece done. How long have I known about this? Ummm, a year. Did I have sketches, ideas, things I've been working on? Ummm, yeah. Did I do anything in a safe, predictable, even timely way? Ummm, no. Do you ever do this to yourself?

This little pile of tiles is totally new work in everyway. Only the images and textures are the same as used in my other work. They are made in clay I've never used before, they were constructed in way I've never done before, they are glazed in a method I've never used before. Oh my this was a recipe for disaster. BUT, yipee, they came out all right. Not perfect, but OK. Relief, but now I have to figure out how to arrange them. Being modular, with 12 tiles in 2 sizes there are lots of possibilities. So I'm just gonna push that one to the limit again. And decide at the last minute, like tomorrow nite, when I deliver them. Living on the edge, once again.

And what about those buttons? Soon, I promise.