Thing #1: A couple of new galleries on the front page!

Interesting earlier works: Forms and Materials 2008

Recent Evolutions: Selections: Spring-Summer-Fall 2009

Enjoy!

Thing #2: Where I’ve been:

I’ve been on hiatus from the studio itself for the better part of two months. Workshop, firings, Thanksgiving, photography, writing, and a 1500-mile grad-school-visit road trip consumed the interim. Given this pause, the obvious question is, “what next?” Being behind the camera, then at the computer, put me in a more objective position. A myriad of conversations with an assortment of intelligent and thoughtful professors and students gave me new insights, drew out the thoughts I’ve struggled to capture for my writing. The sheer volume of interaction and thought, coupled with many, many hours of solitude, finds me with a new perspective. The experience has clarified and edified my ideas on what am I doing, anyway? Now, in Chicago again and without another immanent departure, I experience a sense of separation from all that came before. What next?

The first next: yesterday I spent many hours editing. With a hammer. A strange thing. Significant, but not easily reduced to a few words.

In seeking an understanding of what to make next, I find there are threads that run through the lacuna, things that continue to move and attract me. So, there’s that, another next.

And there remain the mundane but very real timelines of graduate applications. My statement of intent and artist statement remain incomplete, though elucidated by conversation and solitude. Another next.

And so on.

The final post in the October woodfire saga, which began with loading and firing and continued with unloading Gary the Groundhog. Thanks to Matt for the invite and also to Simon, since this all happened at his place. (Unfortunately, he was out of town for all but five minutes or so of the time I spent there!)

Caveat: These are only a few of the pieces. Missing here are a pile of teabowls – four of which went for a second ride in WCC’s anagama, Honey, to good end. The other group absent are the pods.

Forms. Clay has been amended with coarse grog, fine grog, sawdust, alumina, wollastonite, and possibly the kitchen sink.

Space.  My interests in these pieces are in the relationship between objects and space, the way that material and process inform the object.

Wall form. I enjoy this as a 2D image.

Wallforms. I started looking at getting the pieces to have more ‘front’ sides and made these. Added a bunch of custer to the clay, knowing that it would be a crusty and possibly cool firing. I’m happy with the satiny surface achieved, the good melt on the ash.  My notion in loading with ash bermed against them in some places was to start to get into a sort of geological stratification, which wasn’t successful here… but the idea remains one of interest.

The space between… again, my larger concern is the object-space relationship.

A pair. This is my favorite form at the moment. I wonder what other forms start to get at the same idea.

Detail. I enjoy how the texture informs without overwhelming.

And I close with this. It’s the one piece I would keep, if forced to pick only one. The hypothetical house-burning-down scenario. I enjoy the space that it holds.