For the second consecutive year some very fine local potters, Steve and Bonnie Barisof ,  have organized this event to benefit schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. All proceeds go to the Central Asia Institute created by Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools.

In the words of Steve and Bonnie:  If you haven’t heard of him or the books, you have been missing some really wonderful and uplifting reading.  It is about an attempt to climb K2, the 2nd highest mountain after Everest, how things went wrong for a climber on his team, how they had to quickly descend, and his getting lost. He somehow came to a very remote Pakistani village, was given food and shelter, and after he recovered asked what he could do to repay them.  They asked for a school for their children!  The rest of the story is about how he managed against great odds to actually do it.  Today, about 17 years later they have helped to build 130 schools in Northern Pakistan and Afghanistan, and they are all safe!  Why?  How come?  Read the book, all of our foreign policies could take a chapter out of his books.

More information on the February 11 event can be found in this  on the 3 Cups of Tea website .

So pleased to be included with this group of talented artists:

Seventeen very talented artists

Felix

During open studios, one of my very good customers asked me to make a pig (actually two pigs) for gifts to her relatives that have pig collections.  I figured I could come up with something and she is a very good customer so I agreed to this order. I started with the same bottle shape as my fish but a little larger and I did not flare out the top.  When the bottle is a “soft” leather hard, I trim the bottle a bit at the bottom, create a flat spot on the side so that the bottle sits at an angle, cover the top of the bottle with a slab (the snout), impress rings for the snout openings, add eyes (multiple round layers), ears, a mouth, two flat disc rear feet, two front feet by attaching  a triangular wad of clay to prop up the front of the bottle and carve out an opening once the feet are attached. I also strategically pinch the bottle bottom front and rear sides to make a piggish body shape. And last, but not least, add the curling tail!

Ferdinand

So the first two came out so cute, I made 4 more. And there are two more larger bottles that I think I’ll turn into banks.  Hope the little pig tails don’t turn out to be as much of a problem as the tails on my fish. Need to be very careful when loading the bisque.  Sure would hate to lose any of these guys. Probably need to name them, too.

We need new homes!

This is a good shelf!

Here I am with the two mugs I sent off today to their new owners.

So tomorrow will find me waiting the arrival of my new mugs and more importantly, awaiting the results of this historic election.

Kusakabe-sensei demonstrates throwing a tea bowl off the mound.

Throwing traditional forms

Masakazu Kusakabe demonstrated the throwing and trimming of traditional Japanese forms while he talked about the philosophy of why he was throwing and altering each form the way he was as well as the how of what he was doing.

Preparing slabs for tossing

Tossing surface decorated slabs

Simultaneously Marc Lancet was preparing thick slabs of clay from the 25 lb. blocks of Grogzilla, a clay made by Clay Planet where the workshop was held. He was texturing the slabs using a variety of methods and brushing slip on one of the textured surfaces. A needle tool was then used to draw on the surface after the slip was dried with a torch. The torch was used both to speed up the process, but also to limit the depth of the dry layer.

Slab has been textured, coated with slip which is allowed to dry, and then drawn on with needle tool. Slab prepared by Marc and drawing by Kusakabe-sensei.

The thick slab was then tossed several times, rotating the slab with each toss. The lines of the drawing stretched out to give the effect of the thick and thin lines of a Sumi-e drawing and the textured sides of the thick slab thin out to become a frame for the finished slab. As always with any art piece, one has to know when to stop!

Tossed from slab textured by Marc and picture drawn by Kusakabe with needle tool

And another one

I have not tried tossing a slab.  Marc made it look easy but I’m sure it requires a bit of practice. He did give us a hint on throwing them – aim for having the middle of the slab strike the plaster first.Several slabs were prepared in the course of the morning. The process went quickly once the slabs were prepared and ready to go. Here is another slab from drawing to finish:

Drawing on slab with needle tool.

Slab with needle tool drawing.

And here is the finished slab:

Masakazu Kusakabe and Marc Lancet showing the results of their collaboration to the class.

So now what do we do with the slabs:

I likely would have just stopped there and called them wall plates. But they are destined to become sculptures. Each slab was wrapped around a wooden table leg after first wrapping newspaper around the leg and removing the cylinder immediately after wrapping and sealing the seam.  Some of the cylinders were finished by adding bottoms, rims and handles. Others were added to the pieces that Marc had thrown and altered in the morning session.

While Marc was working on the sculptures, Kusakabe-sensei was demonstrating trimming the tea bowls and we were given the opportunity to try some of the different trimming tools he was using – an oyster shell, small scraps of beveled wood on one of the tea  bowls ourselves. So we even got to get a little clay on our hands.

Masakazu Kusakabe demonstrated trimming several of the tea bowls and had us try one each.

Definitely a worthwhile day. Lots of ideas. Here’s a link to more pictures on Flickr if you would like to see more of the day: More pictures on Flickr And if you would like to know more about the how-to of  Japanese Wood-fired Ceramics including how to build kilns for wood firing, buy their book entitled “Japanese Wood-Fired Ceramics” or if you can read the kanji “The Secrets of Japanese Wood-Fired Ceramics”.

A few of the cylinders formed from the slabs.

Marc assembling a cylinder and a thrown altered form.

]]> http://lomaprietapottery.com/2008/09/learning-about-japanese-wood-fired-ceramics/feed/ 7 http://lomaprietapottery.com/2008/09/hello-world/ http://lomaprietapottery.com/2008/09/hello-world/#comments Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:03:54 +0000 lomaprietapottery http://lomaprietapottery.com/Wordpress/?p=1 Just now setting up my pottery blog! This is a new world for me so please be patient and check back to see how I am doing in a few days!