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If you were clever you would figure it out.............. =)

20 Hour Review Show

At Kent, a grad student must pass a preliminary thesis review, called a 20 Hour Thesis Review. Passing gives the grad permission to work on their true thesis work and show. All grads and graduating BFA students are assigned boards of three faculty members, one being Kirk, within the School of Art that review their work for graduation. Recently two of the three 2nd year grads had a combined 20 Hour Review Show. The 1st is Derek Hambly. His work is based on the tools used in antiquity and prior to work with clay. Essentially clay tools to work on clay pieces... though I'm sure I'm not explaining it properly. He made pedastools and display pieces to showcase the actual tools he used to make the piece it's displayed on. The 2nd grad is Jon Stumpf. Stumpf went very folky for this show, using a classic amber glaze made with wild clay. He's a more traditional potter, but makes a really kick ass beer stein.

Derek's Work

Detail of the top piece.

Stumpf's Work

Eva checking out (aka critiquing) the casseroles.

Some pieces were fired once, twice, or three times, which explains the variation in color.

The beer stein

Fall Semester so far

Because I haven't updated since Blossom...

Visiting Artist Kurt Anderson's work. He's currently an artist in residence at THE Ohio State University, and came to visit us for a quick 2 days. I missed the 2nd day due to hockey travel, but saw him throw everything the first day. He's a quick worker, and does this quirky thing to make the rims of his pots ungulate. It was cool. And he's a cool guy too.

A big platter. An idea that's been with me for a while.... still working it out. Hopefully my clay body holds up through the firing.

Cups... more cups... some teacups.... some tumbler cups... yay for antique drawer pulls that make lovely stamps!

Cups with inlaid design and mugs. Still trying to work out handles... though i'm actually quite happy with the handles that are on these mugs.

The quote written on the throwing room wall. Love.



Love, from Kent, Ohio.

EDIT:
I'm not really sure how to comment so my response is...

We mix our own clay from dry. (or you can mix from slop if you want a mish mosh of everything and then some.) I use smooth white stoneware. EPK, Neph Sye, OM4 Ball, Gold Art (an Ohio white stoneware), and occasionally some free silica. It's simple enough. Although I have some issues with the plasticity of it, being raised in super forgiving boxed clays and all.

And Ethan...

I'm thinking of something translucent because of the underglaze decoration. Also, I may play around with underglaze colors. I really have no clue. I haven't thought about it a whole lot because I've been focusing on form and quality. I also haven't done any glaze testing this semester either. I want glazes that run just enough to mix with eachother, but not run off the pot and fuse to the kiln shelf. (causing much grief over grinding) Over the summer I tested a few things, including some of our class glazes from high school. Either something is off with the kilns here or I mixed them poorly because none of the class glazes came out of the kiln as they should, which was disappointing. I got good results out of a lavender glaze, a light mustard-colored matte yellow (nice glaze, but a color i would never use), a dark green with metallic spots (Val Cushing Starshine), and a few others that are not so notable. Lavender is the only one that I'm that excited about. So who knows how my cups will turn out in the long-run...

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Lititz Springs Art Show

Come visit Nick and I at the art show on Saturday July 25th 9am - 5pm (aka tomorrow). Pots for sale include work from high school, alfred summer '08, and kent blossom summer '09 (very recent!).

Examples...







Love from Lititz, PA.

The Official Summer Photos

Blossom work... I had 8 days to do wet work, and these are some of the best pieces (or selected favorites) of the 2 weeks; fired, finished, and even sanded on the bottoms. PS. I got a Dremel tool, and it is the best thing that ever happened to ceramics since the Lockerbie Kickwheel.


Of all of my salt fired pieces, this came out of the kiln absolutely flawless. It was on a shelf near the bottom of the kiln which tends to get a lighter salting than the top half. Unlike most of my other bowls and flower thingys, the celadon on this didn't run for it's life down to the base. (or like one other bowl, to the kiln shelf and of course completely fused) The celadon responded beautifully with a tonal variation, and there was little bare clay exposed due to decent glazing on my part. (though i really like the grayish bare porcelain in the salt kiln)


Pitcher with cups and tray. Oxblood in oxidation to cone 6. Trays are a new thing, as is the darting. The darting idea came from a demo by Josh Deweese. I can't shake the thought of Nick Joerling's work when I look at them though, so we'll see where that goes.

Cups with tray. I am intrigued with this idea of cups being held inside a tray, which is why I will definitely be playing around with this in some way in the future.

Another pitcher with cups and tray. A glaze I got from one of the guys in the studio fired in reduction to cone 6. The pitcher is darted a different way than the last one I posted, and not molded any other way besides the darting. I'm also playing with the little lip or extension on the bottom of the pots. I'm having issues with chipping them from knocking them together since they're bare clay and therefore a bit more fragile than the glazed areas. Obvious simple solution: avoid knocking them together.

Flower thingy. This idea is an extension of ewers I made last summer. The spodumene glaze looks gorgeous, as half of it melted completely to translucency and the other half is still quite opaque. This was salt fired to cone 6 and reduced lightly. The way the very bright white glaze is in direct contact with the natural, darker surface of the bare stoneware with salt heightens the beauty of the spod, I think. Plus, this flower thingy only warped a tiny, tiny bit compared to other flower thingys that came out of the salt kiln.

Any questions, comments, suggestions, hate mail... give me some feedback!!!!!!
please and thank you!



Love, from the Ceramics Lab on the campus of Kent State University.

In a Nutshell

The Kent State ceramics department can be summed up in one photo...


And the Lord sayeth unto Mangus... The sins of the potter shall not be placed upon the cup.

Love from Buffalo, NY.