Playing with Fire

Jeff was part of the wood firing crew at STARworks last week during FireFest. He brought of few my pots to be fired in the salt chamber.

These were made with Highwater Loafers Glory. I had some lackluster ones and a few with some good toasty-ness. Of course the ones with the best color had other issues, like a slight separation at the handle join and one with an s-crack. I plan to keep the s-crack mug for myself, which I rarely do. The others are still sale-able but at a reduced price. That's the crap shoot of wood firing.

The plan this weekend was that when Jeff was done his shift of stoking the wood kiln, he would come back to Seagrove and bring me to FireFest at STARworks, in Star NC. I really wanted to see this year's giant sculpture, that was firing throughout the event, being unveiled. At 7pm it was drizzling and 46 degrees outside. I opted to stay home in my pajamas, curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine. Jeff had a few great photos and there was some cool videos posted to Facebook. The sculpture this year was created by Sunkoo Yuh. Firefest is an annual thing. You can read details about the event here: STARworks FireFest

One more new clay from STARworks Ceramics

This week Jeff and I are giving STARworks new Catawba clay a try. It's hard to tell from the photos, but it's sort of a greenish in color. I haven't thrown with it yet, but Jeff has. He created this 15" platter for me to carve. 

While carving large plates and platters, I like to brush the carving "crumbs" to one side as I work. On smaller pieces that I hold in my hands, I dump them into my slop bucket as I go. I try to not handle the larger pieces as much, preferring to keep them on a foam bat while I work. The goal is to keep them as flat as possible and without cracks.

The Catawba clay carves nicely. It's smooth without any groggy chunks to catch my trim tool as I carve away. 

New Clay

We recently bought some of STARworks Ceramics new Eastfork clay. Last fall we had a sample that we tested and really liked how it looked with Jeff's ash glaze. Jeff threw a couple of platters last week and brushed them with white slip. I spent this afternoon carving ginkgo leaves into them. It has a smooth consistency that makes it easy to carve, and I love the color even before firing. I haven't given the clay a try on the wheel yet, fingers crossed that I will like the way it throws.

I am still here...

Life's been crazy! I will post more on that later. We did manage to get out of town last Saturday night, and head over to FireFest at STARworks Center for Creative Enterprise. This is where we buy our clay, but it is also a business incubator with lots of other cool stuff going on, one of which is FireFest. FireFest is a two day festival celebrating the role of fire in the creation of art. Along with lots of workshops, there was glass blowing demos, a wood firing, an iron pour, music, food, and beer. 

Each year at FireFest, a large ceramic sculpture is created and fired. This year, Seagrove artist, Carol Gentithes built a sculpture of a magical tree trunk. It was wood fired in this bottle kiln, during the festivities.

The sculpture's unveiling was the grand finale of the festival.

It was a sight to behold, under a fabulous, full moon.

Jeff went back to STARworks today to help unload the wood kiln. He was able to snap this photo of the finished sculpture, in daylight...

Spring Garden

I have been working over at STARwork Garden this spring as a workshare for the CSA program. I have really enjoyed getting out to the garden in the morning and spending some time outside. Anne Partna, Blue Hen Pottery, runs the garden. She is teaching me what the weeds look like here in North Carolina so that I am not pulling up plants! Yes, there are some of the same weeds as in NH, but there are others that are different and actually look like they could be plants.

Yesterday after the veggies were picked, we cut flowers and made bouquets to go with each member's share. What fun! I am sure everyone was excited to see fresh flowers along with their vegetables. I put ours in my favorite vase. I bought this from Jeff nearly ten years ago. I love how pottery we bought from each other, traded, or gifted to one another over the years, now live in the same home again.

working...

We are going to be participating in a wood/salt firing in Carthage this summer, so I have been making pots for that in between the usual repertoire...

 The two bottles in the middle were made with STARworks new Seagrove clay. It's formulated specifically for firing in wood and salt. It was so different to throw with after using the Highwater Aurora clay. It's groggy and sandy, and throws quite well.

I finished a bunch of these bowl yesterday... finally. It seems like it was forever ago that I threw them. The humidity meant they took forever to dry enough to trim. These will be shino on the inside and gloss green on the exterior.

Lately it seems the weeks are flying by. It scares me a little because we have a 10  9 day show to do in NH the first week of August.

10  9 days = lots of pots to be made!

a trip to STARworks = new clay

yesterday we decided to close the gallery for a couple of hours and head to STARworks, in Star, to get a few hundred pounds of clay... aside from mixing their own claybodies with local clay, they are also a distributor for Highwater Clays.  i really wanted a few boxes of orangestone but the were out... they are expecting a delivery next week, so another trip is in our near future.
  since we were at STARworks in march they have developed a few more of their own clays so we decided to give them a try.  i have been experimenting with a darker clay and applying slips... so we came home with a few bags of this...

you gotta love the name... Grogwemee! i threw some platters and a couple of bowls with it... still have not settled on wether i like it or not.  i may not decide until after the work is fired.
we also purchased a few boxes of Aurora and Phoenix by Highwater.  i made a few pots with the Aurora today and really liked the way it threw.  tomorrow i will give the Phoenix a try.

it is 9pm and jeff is still out in the studio finishing pots...

hopefully he will come in soon and cook me some dinner :-)

a visit to STARworks!

located just outsided of seagrove, nc is the town of star.  star is the home of a really cool place called STARworks.  STARworks is a textile mill transformed into an entrepeneurial center for ceramic materials and research, a glass studio, biofuels center, as well as a micro-eco farm.  nancy gattovi, executive director gave us a tour of the whole facility.  this organization is really going places.  jeff said if he had access to a glass studio like STARworks, when he was in high school, he would be a glass blower today and not a potter!

STARworks ceramics is run by Takuro and Hitomi Shibata.  Takuro was gracious enough to give us an extensive tour of the clay facility.  not only do they sell Highwater clays and many materials and tools, they also manufacture clay bodies made from local north carolina clay.  we couldn't leave without filling whatever space we had in my equinox with bags of clay!!!

above is a pic of jeff standing in front of the huge filter press

this is in front of the BIG pugmill

one of the things i noticed while we were touring STARworks was there were bicycles scattered throughout the interior and exterior of the building... nancy told us that the bicycles are there for the people of STARworks to use to get around town! also in the front of the building was a jogging/walking path made of recycle rubber (i think it was tires).  jeff and i were so impressed by this organization and the people we met there... if you are ever in the area be sure to stop in.