I Made It Market - BikeFest 2010

Check out the 10 new pieces I just made for the I Made It Market, part of BikeFest 2010. The mugs will be $35 each, the serving bowls $50.

Another Sake Set

I've been on a roll with these sake pieces... Really, I'm making a special set for a customer, and I want to offer her a number of pieces to choose from. The stoneware cups were glazed with four different standard glazes from our studio and reduction fired to cone 10.

The flask is porcelain, electric fired to cone 10 and then decal fired once again to cone 05. The kanji is an old Japanese poem that nobody I know can translate.

The decal really makes the piece successful. Without it, the eye is drawn to every imperfection in the all white form. But now, it looks complete and the imperfection of the form just says that the piece is hand made.

Đặng Thùy Trâm Plate

This piece is a response to Andrew Pham's book Last Night I Dreamed of Peace, a translation of Đặng Thùy Trâm's diary. From Wikipedia:

Đặng Thùy Trâm (born November 26, 1943 in Huế, Vietnam; died on June 22, 1970 in Đức Phổ, Quảng Ngãi Province, Vietnam) was a Vietnamese civilian doctor who worked as a battlefield surgeon for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. She was killed, in disputed circumstances, at the age of 26, by United States forces while travelling on a trail in the Ba To jungle in the Quảng Ngãi Province of south-central Vietnam. Her wartime diaries, which chronicle the last two years of her life, attracted international attention following their publication in 2005.

The thing that I find most amazing about Thùy was her selflessness. Sure, she acknowledged and accepted her insecurity and her own longings—to be home in Hanoi, amidst her loving family, enjoying the comfortable lifestyle afforded to doctors and educators, and for the love of her life (a communist soldier). But more than anything she longed for peace and prosperity in her country, which is why she volunteered to become a battlefield surgeon in "The American War".

Her diary recounts gruesome details of the amputations and trauma surgeries she performed, but what's even more gut-wrenching are the recurring passages where she laments the deaths of her comrades and countrymen. While she is enraged by the invading American forces—she hates them, in fact—her heart remains full of love for her country, her family and even for the soldier whom she pines for.

She is extremely virtuous, too. As a beautiful young doctor, she attracts the affection of nearly everyone she comes into contact with, but is so wary of public opinion she won't allow herself anything more than the platonic love of a male friend. It almost seems like a propagandist's fairy tale—a young woman who committed her youth to studying before entering the medical field, who subsequently sacrificed the best years of her life to the war effort, and ultimately died for the cause she believed in.

As much as any of us are touched by the story of her tragic demise, nobody took the news of her death as hard as her own family. When her father, a surgeon and educator, heard of Thùy's death he instantaneously fell victim to a stroke and died.

Fish Bowl @ Art All Night

This Saturday is the annual Art All Night show. A celebration of art in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood, the event is free and open to everyone. There is no jury and no censorship.

I'll be entering this decal fired, porcelain "fish bowl" with a price tag of $50.

Table of Elements 2010

This weekend, The Manchester Craftsmen's Guild will be hosting a fundraiser featuring ceramic art by local and national artists (and some two dimensional works, as well).

I'll be donating a 20-piece bicycle-themed dinnerware set (5 pieces for 4 settings). I didn't actually get a chance to properly photograph the pieces, but you can see the ones I didn't choose on my Flickr page. Rest assured, the actual pieces in the set are similar, but tacitly superior. If you happen to be interested in something on my Flickr page, just drop me an email and I'll let you know if it's available.

Click here for more information on Table of Elements 2010.

Old Trees, Level Distance

I created this mug for my friend Junji.

The decal artwork Old Trees, Level Distance is from Guo Xi's ink painting from the year 1080. I got the idea to use this decal while watching a documentary on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection of Chinese art. The piece was created as a goodbye present for Xi's good friend and fellow coworker who was due to retire and move somewhere far from the city. Although it's not immediately apparent, the overarching theme of the artwork is eternal friendship.

Coincidentally, I had just learned that Junji would likely be leaving town to manage a studio several hours away. And while I'll be sad to see him go, I know the opportunity to run his own ceramics studio will be a dream come true. I wish him luck in getting the job, and I know that like Xi and his compatriot, we'll always be friends.

Empty Bowls Decal Workshop

This afternoon I led a ceramic decal workshop at the Winchester Thurston School in Pittsburgh. Organized by Mary Martin, I was one of four visiting ceramic artists working to help community members produce functional pieces for Pittsburgh's annual Empty Bowls dinner.

       

I created about 24 sheets of decals using Adobe Photoshop and images found online. Participants in the workshop, who ranged from grade school to senior citizens, applied them to pre-made pottery. I encouraged them to be creative with the decals, and I was truly impressed at the level of ingenuity they displayed.

If you would like to know more about ceramic decals, visit Justin Rothshank's website.

Decal Pottery - Round Two

This weekend I fired up the electric kiln for another round of decals. This time around all the pottery was gas-fired in a reduction kiln, so there were less surprises. Save for the happy accidents, that is.

With a little more knowledge of which glazes look good with reddish-brown decal designs, I was considerably more successful. One of my favorites from this batch is a tumbler with Hokusai's famous erotic woodcut, The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife. Hokusai is best known for The Great Wave off Kanagawa which he created as part of a series of Mt. Fuji landscapes in the 1820's.

One of the pieces that's special to me is this tumbler which features a drawing by one of my students, Lu Lu. He's a great kid, but he doesn't speak much English—hardly any at all. We often communicate with facial expressions and hand gestures. You see, Lu Lu is from Burma, and he's from a tribe that speaks the Karen language, which is obviously not too popular here in America. The drawing is of his home, and it says a thousand things he can't put into words I understand.

Check out the whole batch on Flickr.

Decal Mugs - Round One Results

I recently posted about my foray into the world of decal firing. Well, the results are in, and my efforts were met with both success and failure. One huge factor was that I used soda-fired pottery, which inherently produces various and hard-to-predict results. So some of the items cracked, warped or bubbled along the way.

The most successful pieces were the simple forms made with plain old stoneware and glazed with our most reliable white glaze. Shown at right is an example of one such piece, perhaps the best of the bunch. My favorite, however, was a lucky combination of Junji's white slip with clear wood ash glaze. It featured an image of Major Taylor. I gave it to MBC's new VP of Operations, Paulo Nzambi.

Decal Mugs - In Progress

Everyone at work has been inspired by Justin Rothshank's ceramic decal work, and now I'm the latest to try out his technique. These soda-fired mugs have their decals applied and are waiting for the final cone 05 firing. The end result will leave reddish-brown marks wherever the black ink was.