My work is at Clayways!

Exciting news!  For the first time ever, my work is available for purchase from an actual gallery!  I currently have some cups, mugs, and a few odds and ends (a really amazing teapot!) for sale at Clayways's gallery.  If you want to stop by, its located at 5442 Burnet Road here in Austin (78756).  I hope to continue to keep pieces in the gallery, and this summer I will probably even be working at Clayways periodically.

Wedding Vases

Last Saturday was the wedding, and happily the vases were finished in time and they looked great!  The arrangements turned out really really wonderful; I am crazy about succulents, and I pretty much thought it was the coolest thing ever to put them with the flowers!  The bouquets were also arranged with the same flowers and succulents.  I received a lot of compliments on the vases :) 

I got to take a few of the vases home, and once the flowers wilted I planted the succulents (sorry, I don't know what kind they were :P ) in the vases.  They aren't perfect since they don't have any drainage (I briefly considered trying to drill a hole in the bottoms, but I figured that would probably go terribly wrong), but I think they look quite nice!

 

New teabowls, and other awesome things

I got some really great pieces out of the last firing!  It was a good one :)  These fountains are my favs, and I'm excited to get the pumps in them and get them running.  I am really happy with this green one, though it is a little darker than I really prefer.  I think I put this one in the Texas Clay Arts Association's six-pack show this year, its a good example of my style, and I didn't see any fountains last year, so hopefully it will really stand out (in a good way :P).  This is the first year I have put something in the show, so I've got high hopes!

This one turned out well also, I am having fun trying out pieces with the flashing slip and I plan on keeping it up, they are looking quite nice.  I'm hoping that branching out into some lighter, more subtle colors and surfaces will increase my sales.  I feel like my pieces are unique enough that they may only appeal to fairly small amount of people.  This is also part of the reason for my painted and wax-resist pieces, in addition to them being cheaper .

Some more experiments, these ones inspired by Ryan's new plates that are similarly decorated.  He has been incising designs and then putting the green glaze in and clear glazing the plates; I carved my plates like I normally do, then painted both the green and the blue glazes into the carved areas before clear glazing them.  I haven't really decided how happy I am with these yet.  I like the overall appearance and the colors (the blue turns a great deep blue/purple color under the clear), but I'm not happy with the way the carved areas look.  The clear is fairly thick, and now the carved areas just look blotchy, rather thna having that nice carved texture.  I may have to experiement more to get an end product I am really happy with.

Annnnd lots of teabowls!  Teabowls are probably my very favorite form. They are quick and easy, so they are a perfect form to experiement on, and they are so functional!  I use teabowls for pretty much everything I drink :)  With this set I was mostly doing different things with the glazes, in particular leaving bare clay vs the various glazes.  I am pretty happy with the results, although some of the pieces that have glaze on the top half bled a little into the white bottom.  I'm not sure if this is just because of the wax (I was having some trouble getting clean lines), or if it actually bled during the firing. 

Ryan's green glaze was absolutely stunning on some of these! I got some really beautiful oranges, which doesnt always show up (like the green fountain at the top).  The blue glaze turned out a little lighter than I really like, but the teabowls are still pretty satisfactory.

I'm also really happy with how this set of teabowls turned out.  Right after throwing them I used a  texture tool to make the ridges on the outsides, and then just lightly trimmed the bases without touching up the ridges at all once they were leather hard.  This was sort of an assignment for me, because I tend to get really involved in the surface and I have a hard time not touching up and smoothing things out.  But these turned out really well, and were super easy to make.  You will probably be seeing more texture experiments in the future.

I also finally got this vase and pitcher finished. They have both been sitting on my shelf for quite a while now, but now my shelf is COMPLETELY CLEAR. This hasn't happened in a very long time :P Time to start throwing more pots!