Sunday, December 16, 2007

Here is a start on a dinnerware set: plates and bowls so far. The glaze is Touchtone Red, which I use a lot, with blue glaze accents applied with an ear syringe. The bowls are 8 inches across- a good soup/salad size. The plates are ten and a half inches in diameter.



Monday, October 29, 2007

This is Walter, our new dog. He was left at the local animal shelter with a note written in a child's handwriting, saying: "I'm a fox terrier, DOB 7-24-06, Good dog, just not with young kids. Housebroken. Love to run, play fetch, and car rides." We have had him almost two weeks and are enjoying him. He is not an indiscriminate barker, he actually comes when you call him, and sleeps all night outside of our bedroom, in his dog bed. He will sit on command, and expects a little treat for it.
Our previous dog was Jack, a smooth fox terrier, and Walter looks quite a bit like him, but doesn't have quite the right shape of head, or the perky stance that Jack had....so I don't think he is 100% fox terrier, but he has a good disposition, seems to care about pleasing us, and has figured out how to get us to play with him.

I think he likes living here.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

I've posted pictures of a show of works by members of the Lompoc Sculptors Guild, which is installed at the Grossman Gallery, adjacent to the Lompoc Library, for the month of October 2007. We have ten members, and quite a variety of styles and use of materials. We called this show "Wall Art" because we were given the restriction of "no pedestals". The gallery is also a multi-purpose room for the library, and they said everything had to go on the walls. After a little moaning and joking about calling the show "2.5d"....we all managed to come up with pieces for the wall. Below is the graphic designed by a member, G.R. Stroup, for the posters and invitation cards. ...a welded aluminum piece by Eric Morlan, at the entry of the gallery
...during our reception October 6

This is the west wall of the galleryArtwork by Judy Clifford, G.R. Stroup, Dee Frasher ...a tile piece by Noreen LaPointe, metal piece by Ron Barrows, and a slate and aluminum piece by Eric Morlan
Masks incorporating gourds by Dee Frasher




This is the east wall with pieces (l to r) by G.R. Stroup, Carol Moore's soft sculptures, Eric Morlan , my 18" platter, Dee Frasher, Judy Clifford.


This is by G.R. (Rocky) Stroup



...a soft sculpture by Carol Moore, my flat teapot, which was the first thing I decided to make when hearing we were having only wall art, and a welded metal piece by Ron Barrows.
...a larger view of "Fanciful Teapot". I made the shadow box of redwood, to keep it light.Pieces by Judy Clifford, Ron Barrows, Noreen LaPointe....a ceramic piece by Noreen LaPoint, soft sculpture by Carol Moore ...a grouping of my related "meander" pieces. The framed one is a beach ball, cut along a meandering line, creating two puzzle pieces.


The white pieces are by Judy Clifford, and the ceramic one is by Noreen LaPointe.


...ceramic and driftwood by Dee FrasherWe also were given the use of a glass cabinet in the main body of the library, where we placed "pedestal pieces". It all looks confusing in the picture-not bad in actuality.




Wednesday, October 03, 2007

This piece is called "Separation" and is one of the pieces just installed in a local gallery- The Lompoc Sculptors Guild is having a show during October '07. Everything has to be on the wall, because the room is also a multi-use room at the library, so we called the show "Wall Art". Our reception is Saturday Oct. 6, and I will post some pictures of others' works as well
A friend ordered two baking dishes. I did standard dips while glazing them, and the glaze ran just enough to form those "corners".
-a ten inch high vase, iron red glaze. I think I posted a picture of this earlier. I re-dipped and refired it- it's redder now.

This is another re-fire. It had the same combination as the bowl above, which I didn't care for on this vase. So I gave it another layer of a creme glaze and since I happened to fire this load a bit hotter than usual (don't ask) it ran nicely.

more refires, same load.
I planned the alternating runs on this bowl and the plate below, by brushing areas of flux before striping.




Friday, September 21, 2007

Here is an 18" platter, fired a bit hotter than I meant to, so the colors are softer, but that's ok. It is intended for a show next month, where it has to hang on the wall, so I will be either buying or rigging up something .

Friday, July 20, 2007

I did a glaze firing a few days ago (cone 7). The four pots below are some of the ones I showed at bisqued stage a few posts ago.
Overall height of the teapot is 15". It is only about 4" in depth. The other side has a carved peony and leaves.

The bottle is almost 14" tall. The slip under the glaze is Laguna's Death Valley clay.


This vase is about the same height, almost 14 inches.



The bowl is 15" in diameter. It, like the vase above it, have a base glaze of Touchtone Creme w/volcanic ash spots, and re-dips or pours of Touchtone Red, which turns brownish over this glaze but does feather runs if I hold the temp. long enough.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

The 3 pieces following, are of earthenware, with a creme glaze and California poppies. Will be packing up to sell at the Lompoc Valley Flower Festival this weekend. Looks like the weather will be foggy and cool in the morning, nice later.



Sometimes I enjoy looking at pots in their bisqued state-picturing what sort of glaze would be best. ..a light color for the teapot, I think.
I had to make enough tall things to fill up the shelf holding the teapot. It's 17" tall at this point; will shrink somewhat in the glaze firing.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The pots in this post are all from a firing last week. (oxidation, cone 7)

...2 views of a departure from "round". -about 12" diam.
The next 5 photos show the use of a slip of Death Valley Clay from Laguna, applied at the leatherhard stage. I'm getting color variations from brown to blue and lavender. The covering glaze is a creme color with specks of volcanic ash from northern California.The bowls are 9-10 inches in diameter. The plate is 10.5".Nine inches in diameter. The creme glaze doesn't show off the carving too well.This pot is 7 inches high.


Six inches high.
These cups were from my last firing, but I decided to make saucers for them, so they reappear here.
The tops of these sets were all dipped in the creme glaze.
The coffeepot is 7" in height.

This is a glaze test of something called "Old Seto Yellow"...didn't work for me, obviously! It has only 3 ingredients: feldspar, ash, & yellow ochre. The little sample piece is only an inch & a half in diam- I used the macro setting to take the picture. You can see a few specks that are y. ochre color.

...a small pitcher w/ meander design, 5.5" in height. This one is 8" in diam.