Terry Parker: Pottery Shards » Workshops

It used to be 30 but now it is 10…

lomaprietapottery — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:14:52 +0000

Remember when you were supposed to have an elevator pitch for what you were about — something that could be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride or about 30 seconds. Well – one of the things we learned from Alyson Stanfield was that the elevator pitch has been replace by the 10 second introduction. With all of the information we ask our brains to assimilate in this fast moving world, 10 seconds is about the all the attention span we can expect to get from someone before their mind wanders. Alyson has lots of hints on what a good 10 second intro should include and how to write one. One thing she suggests to keep in mind it should include words that intrigue your listener so that they will ask questions. In my current version I say after introducing myself by name “I’m a studio potter. I make high fire functional pottery that people love to use as much as they enjoy looking at it”

You can also include something current like an exhibition you are in or something about a new work you just finished. Like when I made these tumblers as a special order, I could add “I just made some terrific tumblers as a special order that were so comfortable to hold, I’m just had to make some more”.

I made tumblers like these as a special order. It's a new shape for me.

I’m still working on my 10 second introduction. We were asked to create one for the Hollister workshop and since that time, I have formed an Art Marketing Salon with 4 other artists whom I met at the workshop. Our first meeting focused on critiquing our 10 second introductions. Not surprisingly, we all still needed to work on them a bit more — either the words or the delivery. So we determined that we would continue to work on them and start each of our meetings by delivering them.

And now you ask – What is an Art Marketing Salon? How do you form one? What does it cost? You can read about what it is and how to from one at www.artbizconnection.com . It only costs you your time as you need to make the commitment to fully participating. And at the end, you and your fellow salon members will have a complete art marketing plan. You provide the committed group and Alyson provides the material at no monetary cost.

Our art salon met for the first time last week. Ours is a small group – five members – two ceramic artist, two watercolor artists and an artist who specializes in woven art. They are all wonderful artists and I look forward to meeting with them again this week. At some point, I will post about each of them so you can see the wonderful artwork that they are currently producing.

One interesting thing came out of our last session. As we were rattling off our 10 second intros, Mark (our host’s husband) who had been listening to us, brought a timer into the room, saying that 10 seconds was longer than we thought! And it is an evolving entity. Alyson says it took her two years to come up with her intro and it still changes a bit as time goes on.

Workshop with Mata Ortiz potters

lomaprietapottery — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:50:25 +0000

Coil just above the rim of the mold.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving found me and a small group of local potters participating in a hands on workshop with a group of Mata Ortiz potters at Crystal Creek farm in the Santa Cruz mountains. First we watched the technique of hand building the pot using a small plaster bowl. A small slab is formed from small bowl of clay and pressed into the bowl form. Large coils are formed and added to the a shown in the first several photos.

Adding a coil.

Well underway.

We were then given pots to practice sanding, oiling and painting.

A painted pot

Oiling a sanded pot.

Painting

And finally, the pots were fired.

Cooling the finished pots.

Placing the pots on the wire screen on a bed of coals

Firing in progress.

Learning about Japanese Wood-fired Ceramics

lomaprietapottery — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:25:24 +0000

I had the opportunity yesterday to attend a workshop given by Masakazu Kusakabe and Marc Lancet on Japanese Wood-Fired Ceramics. I almost didn’t sign up for this in spite of my love of both the forms and the firing technique. The usual list of excuses – too busy, evening dinner engagement, should be cleaning the house and anything else I could rationalize as a reason not to spend the day being fascinated by hearing the stories these two had to tell and the wonderful techniques they had to show us.

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.