Amanda's Wood Kiln

A few weeks ago, I participated in a wood kiln building workshop led by Gary Greenberg of Clarion University. The task at hand—to build Amanda's single chamber bourry box wood kiln. We didn't quite get it finished in one weekend, but we all learned a ton from "Greeny."

And despite the fact that we were laying bricks for three days in the 90° heat, it was remarkably fun. Pictured to the right are me with the rubber mallet, Professor Greenberg and Amanda's awesome husband, Mike.

Now it's just a matter of finding the time to finish what we started and fire it. I can't wait!

Bryant Street Festival

I have to admit, on some days I wish I lived somewhere else. But on most days, I love my neighborhood. Every year, the entire neighborhood of Highland Park engages in becoming one giant yard sale. And as a part of the festivities, the main business district plays host to a quaint little festival. I'll be a part of the Bryant Street Festival this year, selling pottery, of course.

So come on out and do a little bargain hunting. Then stop buy and buy some expensive pottery from me! Ha ha. Actually, I plan to have some "value priced" pieces for sale, in addition to my latest functional work.

Tea Set for Outspoken

After numerous attempts, I'm finally happy with a decal-decorated tea set. This will be in the upcoming Outspoken art show. The set will be on sale for $200, and 40% benefits BikePGH.


Outspoken is a one night art show and sale benefiting BikePGH, featuring paintings, photography, screen prints, sculpture, ceramics, furniture, paper cut and jewelry. The event takes place as part of the Cultural Trust's Gallery Crawl on Friday, April 29, 2011 from 5:30 - 9:00 at 805/807 Liberty Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. Visit www.sixtyfortyseries.com for more info.

The Vagaries of the Soda Kiln

A long time ago my friend and mentor, Jim, advised me against trusting one of my heavily carved pieces to "the vagaries of the soda kiln". As it worked out, that piece came out fine, but I've since experienced almost equally good and bad results from the behemoth behind MCG. In this most recent firing, I was fortunate enough to pull this gem of a mug (pictured) from the shelves, unscathed and perfectly toasted. Some of the other pieces were downright beautiful, but some came out questionable. Whether it was just such a heavy ash buildup that they dripped onto the shelf, necessitating grinding, or that they collected fragments blown around in the kiln. Worst of all, however, was the feeling I got from pulling out the piece that I had the most work invested in. Before I could even see the crack I could tell that the piece had suffered the dreaded dunting. There must be something about the draft that runs through the kiln as it cools that randomly causes pieces to crack in this manner. Whatever the cause, I just have to accept the bad along with the good. And remember the adage that I often tell my students—if you're making something important, make more than one.

Click here to view my latest soda-fired work.

NewBridge Firing Results

After just a few short weeks, I received three boxes of pots from Cleveland, where my good friend Junji fired them in the NewBridge center's brand new Bailey downdraft gas kiln. A downdraft kiln gets very consistent reduction, so I was excited to try out a variety of glazes. As I had hoped, I got some nice copper reds, lusterous temmokus, beautiful celadons and wonderful Shino finishes.

Check out the results in this Flickr gallery.

Oribe Green Glaze Test

I don't know why I never just make test tiles, but I don't. Maybe someday when I have my own kiln... In the meantime, I just experiment on my own work. Here, I'm trying to devise a relatively authentic Oribe green glaze. I started with a tried and true clear glaze that fits our studio's stoneware body, Baccerra clear, and added 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12% copper carbonate to 100g test batches. I'm most satisfied with the 5%, however I suspect that I either mixed the 7% batch a little too thick, or dipped the test pot for a little too long, as it seems to be as dark (or darker) than the 9% batch.

Carving Again - Work In Progress

Though it had been a while since I really did much in the way of carving, lately I've been getting into it again. I made a number of small pieces to decorate over the holiday break, and with so much free time on my hands, I decided to experiment even more. Inspired by a Hawaiian shirt, this mug took close to an hour to carve. What you're looking at is greenware, of course. The white stoneware is just dried beyond leather-hard. I'm going to experiment with a number of different glazes in this next reduction firing, and hopefully there will be some real interesting results.

Congratulations, Elvira!

If you're involved with ceramics in Pittsburgh, you know Elvira Peake. The owner of The Clay Place, Elvira's store and showroom have been a staple of the local clay community for 37 years. And Elvira has been an inspiration for even longer. She's given countless local artists their first show, and encouraged many of us by allowing us to show and sell their work in her gallery.

Tonight the community came together at The Clay Place for Elvira's retirement party. And while it was all well and good to say "congratulations," Elvira was certain to point out, "I'm not going anywhere!"

When I asked Elvira what she was going to do with all her newfound free time she quipped, "I'm going to clean my house," and laughed.

The Clay Place will continue to operate under the ownership of Standard Ceramics, with Elvira as Director Emeritus and most likely under the watchful eye of the wonderful Ms. Carla Flati.

Oh Sweet Temmoku

In this most recent firing, I experimented a bit more with the carved decorations I've been doing.

I had some encouraging success glazing similar pieces with my Shino recipe, but I was a little less impressed with the results from this firing with the same glaze. It's not that I'm unhappy, but I liked the stark contrast of orange against white that I achieved last time.

Thankfully, I also tried using the studio's Temmoku on a heavily faceted piece, and loved the way the glaze "broke" along the edges. So I tried it on a few of my new carved pieces (shown to the right) and I couldn't be happier.

Interestingly, the carved diagonal lines, I realize, are reminiscent of the Jomon-style rope impression technique that was often seen in the work of Tatsuzo Shimaoka, one of my favorite potters of the Mingei movement.

Finally, the tiny ochoko shown at the bottom right was glazed with a Temmoku recipe from Malcolm Wright's website. The recipe is quite different than Mark's Temmoku (used on the other three pieces) as it incorporates wood ash, high-iron clays and relatively little pure red iron oxide. If you look very closely at the piece, you'll see variations in color and pattern in the dark, blue-black glaze. I'm now anxious to test it on a carved piece. Stay tuned...

Soda Firing November 2010

I didn't put many pieces in this recent soda firing, but I took the opportunity to experiment a little with texture and some different glaze techniques. At right, there are two stoneware tea bowls that I sprayed with a mixture of wood ash and whiting (about 5 parts to 1). I was trying to emulate the look of a real wood-fired piece, and I came fairly close.

The two tea cups feature carvings. The lower one is straight stoneware, whereas the upper one was dipped in a white crackle slip before being incised. I'm pretty happy with both.

You can see more on my Flickr page.

Holiday Gift Show in Highland Park

She took one year off due to that little thing known as "the miracle of childbirth" but my friend Lisa is back in business this holiday season. She'll be opening her beautiful home to the public on December 4th and 5th, showcasing her crafts, along with mine and those of a handful of other talented Pittsburgh-area artists.

I personally will be showcasing some of my older items and less expensive pieces, all priced to move at $4 to $15.

Visit OneStarAway.com for more information.

Gifts from the Guild - Holiday Arts Sale

Gifts from the Guild, the annual MCG Youth & Arts holiday arts sale will take place December 3-5, 2010. Staff and student artworks will be available for sale, including ceramics, photography, screen printed t-shirts, jewelry, stained glass and handmade cards. Proceeds support MCG  Youth & Arts programming. Cash, checks and credit cards are accepted.

• Friday December 3, 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
• Saturday December 4, 2:00 PM – 9:00 PM
• Sunday December 5, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Visit www.mcgyouthandarts.org for more info.

So Much Shino!

I did kind of go wild with the Shino this summer/fall. We finally unloaded the reduction kiln, and I couldn't be much happier with the results. Check them out on my Flickr page.

The recipe?


Shino - Cone 10 Reduction

Soda Ash 7.25%
G200 Feldspar 35.5%
Spodumene 32.25%
Silica 2.5%
EPK 14.5%
OM4 8%

October Soda Firing

Wow, it seems like it's been forever since the last soda firing. The truth is, our kiln shelves were getting really bad, and the next firing could have caused one to crack or warp bad enough to collapse and ruin a large quantity of pottery.

Thankfully, the budget finally allowed us to buy some new shelves, and The Wolf fired up the "behemoth out back" aka the MCG soda kiln.

I've posted some of my best pieces on Flickr, and I'll post a few more once the subsequent decal firing is completed. Then later this week, we'll open and unload the gas reduction kiln...

Throwing A Bowl

I found myself doing a video demo for work, and edited this little clip for the intra-web. Mind you, this is by no means the best bowl I've ever thrown... Or even a good one, for that matter. I smashed all of the demo pieces as soon as the camera stopped rolling. Making pottery on film was surprisingly nerve-racking.

Shino, Shino, Shino

Apparently they say every potter has their dalliance with Shino. And why not? The mysterious glaze is both stable and reliable, yet beautiful and somewhat unpredictable. You can be reasonably certain it won't run, but you never know exactly how it will look. Will it be white? Will it be orange? Will it have carbon trapping? And it's easily decorated with iron oxide, or with gosu slip underneath.

I've been making a lot of work in the past month or so, and glazing most of it with a Shino recipe that I modified. I honestly can't recall where I got the original recipe, but I've went and added a little more silica and a little less bentonite to reduce the crazing, and a tiny bit more EPK and a tiny bit less OM4 to make it more white and less orange. We'll see what happens after the next firing...

Facebook Guinomi Giveaway Contest

Here's the rules... To enter, you'll have to "like" or "friend" my Facebook Fan Page and then post a comment.

I will be giving away five guinomi (that's small cups in Japanese). On September 1st, I'll put names in a hat and draw five winners. I'll choose what you ...win... Most likely they'll be ash glazed, and perfectly imperfect.

Winners will be responsible for shipping charges. Local (Pittsburgh) people can pick them up in person.

Guinomi Party!

This recent gas firing was one of the most anticipated of my pottery career. Not only did I have several dozen pieces in the kiln, most were glazed with recipes that I had mixed from scratch. Traditionally, it's a good idea to test glaze recipes on tiles before applying them to actual work, but since we fire Big Al so seldom, I went ahead and glazed nearly all of my work with un-tested shino, wood ash and fake nuka glazes.

The results? Some good, some not so good. On the whole, I'm really happy with the shino pots. 

The wood ash provided both exciting successes and rather heartbreaking failures. This is to be expected, though. I learned a valuable lesson with this recipe—respect the fluxing powers of iron oxide!

The fake nuka was rather disappointing with the exception of one pot. I am going to give it another shot, though, as I suspect it might look and feel better in the soda kiln.

Anyhow, have a look for yourself over at my Flickr photostream.

Big Al is Loaded!

It seems like it's been an eternity since our last reduction firing. That's how it goes when you've got a beast like Big Al, though. Big Al is the nickname given to MCG's large Alpine HF60 updraft kiln. With a kiln this big, you've got to make a lot of work to fill it. Thankfully the summer program students did their best, and Bill Strickland has taken care of the rest with his large bowls and platters.

As for my work, this time around it's mostly small tea and sake cups—guinomi and yunomi. I did make the large bowl (bottom left) for one of the students, and the tall lamp body (top shelf, rear) while working alongside the kids one day this summer.

I'm particularly excited to see how some of the glazes I mixed will turn out, all of which came from John Britt's book. I added 3% red iron oxide to Richard Aerni's basic wood ash recipe, which I'm hoping will be interesting... I mixed up the Fake Nuka #1 recipe, and a carbon-trap Shino, too. I applied each of them to buff stoneware, dark stoneware and porcelain pieces, and placed them in various locations throughout the kiln so I can see the effects of reduction.

Watch for new photos on Flickr after we unload on Thursday.

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.