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2014 Hawai'i Craftsmen Exhibition

10/15/2014

I look forward to juried shows like this each year for a few reasons. It gives me incentive to try different ideas and a time contraint within which to get them done. It also gives me an opportunity to meet some of the best craftspeople in the state and to see some of their best work. I was especially excited about this year's show since my favorite local artist was one of the invited artists: Satoru Abe. Satoru is 88 and is internationally known for his sculptures in copper and bronze. The night of the show, I took an exhibition catalog of his work and asked him to sign it. He very graciously did and then asked me if I had any pieces in the show. "Sure," I said, "I have two pieces." "Where are they? he asked, "I want to see them." I felt more than a little sheepish showing him my stuff, especially since he couldn't move very quickly so it took some effort for him to walk around the room. I also felt funny since so many people were crowding around taking pictures of him looking at my pots. He seemed very humble and said some nice things about my pots. I then suggested that we go back and see his work. He slapped at the air as if pushing something aside. "No need," he laughed, "I've seen it already!"

Janet Koplos was the visiting juror. I was interested in hearing her lecture on Sunday night, October 5, because she's written so much about craft in America. When I went into the lecture, I didn't feel like I'd be disappointed if I didn't get into the show. I felt good about my pieces and had finished three out of the four designs I'd wanted to make for this show. After her lecture, however, I felt differently. She was so insightful, so smart, so savvy about the field, I knew I'd be disappointed if she didn't like any of my pieces. Made me sorry for a moment that I'd come! But only for a moment since I was able to get two pieces into the show. I felt pretty good about that and once again considered myself fortunate to have anything at all in the show.

The Hawaii Craftsmen show is typically the best display of craft in the State of Hawaii. The show this year, however, does not seem as strong in ceramics as in past years. I don't know what ceramicists submitted work, but many of the state's best artists were missing such as Esther Shimazu, Daven Hee, Shigeru Miyamoto, Russell Wee, Jon Vongvichai, Yoko Haar, Ken Kang, Kenny Kicklighter, Joey Chiarello, Clayton Amemiya and Licia McDonald. I know that some of the artists like Daven, Shigeru and Clayton are doing exhibits right now or have just finished ones, but I was surprised at how many of them were missing. Some familiar names were in the show like Jennifer Owen and Jerome Heck, but their pieces were certainly very simple and small scale compared to what they usually submit. I don't mean any disrespect to the ceramicists who were included in this year's show (including me), but I'm just wondering why so many of these other artists are not in this year's show. Still, there are some amazing things in all craft categories. Below are images of all the ceramics (I hope) that are in the show.

The 47th Annual Hawai'i Craftsmen Statewide Juried Exhibition began on October 10 and will run through November 1. The exhibit is open on Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00 pm, Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 am to 4:30 pm, and is closed on Mondays.

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The Short Films of : : kogonada

10/11/2014

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This post has nothing to do with making pottery, at least not directly, but it has everything to do with art. A few nights ago I was watching Psycho with my youngest daughter and her husband. It's been a family tradition for many years to watch scary movies and read scary books during October, and they'd never seen Psycho before. I've seen almost all of Hitchcock's films and many like The 39 Steps, Vertigo, and Rear Window I've watched many times, but this was only the second time I'd watched Psycho and the last time was more than 20 years ago. I'd forgotten what a great movie it is. After the film was over and we'd talked about it for at least an hour, I went online to read more about the movie. I did a Google search and a Slate article came up entitled "Gone Girl, Psycho, and How David Fincher Borrows From Alfred Hitchcock." Pretty good article, but somewhere while reading it, maybe a link on the side or on the bottom, I ran into a video called Eyes of Hitchcock. I probably wouldn't have watched it, but I noticed it had been made for The Criterion Collection. The Criterion Collection is a fabulous film collection, mostly foreign, so I was immediately intrigued. It was slightly less than 2 minutes, not much of a commitment, so I decided to watch it. I've seen some of these mash-ups and maybe they're good for a few laughs. Maybe. But this was not comedy, and I was surprised at how intelligently it was made. With that said, when I showed the film to my daughter and her husband, they chuckled through the whole thing, amused by the way the actors' and actresses' heads bob in rhythm with the music. I didn't find it funny because I've seen all of these films so each scene elicited a memory and a wave of feelings. Maybe that's what the filmmaker intended. Maybe. At the end of the short I noticed the filmmaker was a person named : : kogonada, so the next morning I decided to look up : : kogonada and found a series of short films he's done for The Criterion Collection and Sight & Sound. If you go to www.kogonada.com, you'll find links to them under "Projects." He has shorts like Hands of Bresson, Wes Anderson Centered, and Quentin Tarantino From Below. All of these are films about filmmaking, especially about perspective. My favorite was his short called [what is neorealism?], a film about how Vittorio De Sica and David Selznick shaped the same movie (Terminal Station/Indiscretion of an American Wife) in their own ways. By contrasting the way that De Sica put the film together for an Italian audience with the way Selznick put the film together for an American audience helps us understand what neorealism is. I also enjoyed the shorts about contemporary Japanese filmmakers and feel inspired to see their films. I don't know why, but Eyes of Hitchcock is not on the website, nor is Against Tyranny, a short about Steven Soderbergh's filmmaking, in particular the way he plays with film narrative. You can find both of these shorts on youtube. If you want to learn more about : : kogonada, go to this article at filmmaker: http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/kogonada/.

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Firing Temperature Chart

10/9/2014

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I just found the most helpful chart for seeing at a glance how the different "cones" relate to each other (Cone 022 to Cone 10) and what their firing temperatures are (approximately). There are also notes on the side that may be helpful but can also be misleading, so use them critically. For instance, the chart points to Cone 10 and says that "Oxidation takes place in the Electric Kiln" and "Reduction takes place in the Gas Kiln." I think I know what they're trying to say, but the novice might think that reduction is only taking place once Cone 10 is reached which is not correct. Reduction is a long process that usually begins much earlier than Cone 10, especially if you're firing copper reds. The chart also suggests that bisque temperatures for pieces that will be used in sawdust firings should be in the 018 to 016 range. I bisque my pots for pit firing to 018, but I know many potters who bisque their pots for these firings at much higher temperatures, hundreds of degrees hotter, around cone 010. But with these caveats in mind, the chart is still useful. Here's the link: http://www.bellevuecollege.edu/artshum/materials/art/Husby/FiringTemperatures.pdf.

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Pit Firing 10/04/14

10/6/2014

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I just completed my second pit firing this past Saturday at Steve Martin's place in Kaneohe. The last one was in April of 2013 (see blog on April 30, 2013) and I had pit fired two pieces with good results. I had scheduled pit firings on two different days since then, but they were both rained out. I'm definitely hooked on this process and hope to be able to pit fire on a more regular basis. I also plan on experimenting with different forms (large bowls, for instance) and using different materials.

This time I tried a few ideas I learned from watching Sumi von Dassow's video on Pit Firing & Burnishing as well as her book Low-firing and Burnishing (part of the Ceramics Handbook series published by A & C Black and The American Ceramic Society). In the images that follow, I show each step I took in this firing and what the results were.

I fired 3 pieces and Steve fired 4. The clay I used was B-Mix with grog. I like the whiteness of the clay but I also like how the grog helps the pots to resist thermal shock. At least that's the theory. Steve uses Soldate 60 because he thinks it offers even more protection against thermal shock. Some authors write that clays with grog can't be burnished as well as clays without grog. I'll have to try something like plain B-Mix and see what happens. In my experience so far, however, I haven't had a problem with grog roughening the surface during buffing or burnishing because I smooth out the surface with a plastic rib as the last step in throwing a pot. Steve and I both use terra sig that we purchase from Jeff Chang, a local potter who makes it himself. Next time I plan on using my own terra sig and see how that goes. I brushed on the terra sig and used a plastic grocery bag and a soft cloth for buffing. I didn't burnish any of my pieces, but Steve burnished his using vegetable oil and a rock. His pots do have a deeper shine than mine, though mine come close once I apply wax after the firing. Both of us bisqued our pots to 018. The theory is that the lower the bisque, the more porous the pots will be and the more easily they will absorb carbon and other materials that are fumed. It also means the pots are more fragile and liable to break.

The pots were placed in two different containers, mine in a half barrel with fairly high walls and Steve's in an old kettle from the kitchen of a school cafeteria. Next time I'll try a barrel with lower walls to create more exposure to the wind. We placed fine wood shavings on the bottom and then laid our pots on them. Whatever part of the pot is lying in the shavings will be exposed to more carbon which will produce black surfaces on the pot. So I placed them in ways that would make black patches on some places and not on others. I also learned a nice trick the last time we pit fired. After positioning the pots on the wood shavings, I lightly mound some of the wood shavings on the sides of the pot. At first, these areas will turn black from the carbon in the wood shavings. As the shavings burn away, however, these areas will be directly exposed to the fire. If the fire is hot enough, it will burn most of the carbon away in those areas but leave a "halo," a dark outline with an inside that's whitish grey. If the carbon burns away when there's still material that's vaporizing around them, you may get some color from fuming. It gives the pot a kind of air-brushed look in those places. You can see some examples of this in the images below.

After the pots were positioned in the barrel, I began putting in different materials to act as colorants. I don't know if there's any particular order that's better than another, but this is the order I used for this firing. I would say in general, however, that when you're using chemical powders or salt, it's best not to throw them directly on the pot. If placed directly on the pot, they may leave dark crusty patches on the pot instead of fuming them. But if that's the effect you're looking for, then throw them on! Organic materials such as corn husks, banana peels, coffee grounds, and seaweed can be put directly on pots. However, they will have some effect such as shielding certain parts of the pot from other colorants (at least for awhile) and they also contain carbon that will mark pots as well. In other words, their effect is a complex one and complex in this case can be good.

The first thing I threw around the pots was salt. After salt, I sprinkled on used coffee grounds that had been dried, then Miracle-Gro (the turquoise stuff), and then vermiculite that had a little copper sulfate mixed in. I put on a few corn husks that had been soaked in salt water and dried (probably too few to make a difference) and then put on a bunch of dried banana peels. I laid fine steel wool on one side of each pot and laid pieces of drift wood on top. Finally I laid larger pieces of kiawe wood on all the pots and then a mound of kindling. We used a blow torch to get the kindling started. Next time I'll use a little more wood as the fire didn't seem to get as hot as it should have been. Last time I pit fired we stacked the wood up just as high as we did this time, but the pieces of kiawe were much smaller so it created a denser pile that ended up burning longer and hotter.

As the fire burned down slightly, I threw some Miracle-Gro on the sides of the pots to provide more color. One thing I didn't do that I should have done was to mix copper carbonate with wood shavings and throw that over the whole fire after the flames got going. As it is, my pots ended up with very good peaches and yellows from the sodium (table salt and salt in the driftwood) and potassium (banana peels and coffee grounds), but they didn't get many burgundy patches from the copper.

When the fire had been going about 2 hours, it started to rain. We set up pieces of corrugated roofing to protect our pots and we're glad we did. After the wood and ash had fallen away from the upper surface of the pots, we pulled them out of the coals using the same tongs we use for raku firings. Steve set his pots on pieces of kiln shelves and I set mine down on a thick piece of wood. Within an hour they were cool enough to handle. I noticed during the firing that one of my pots had developed a major crack just above the base that was about six inches long. I don't know why this happened but I threw that pot away. Using this technique, the whole process takes about six hours.

The next day was Sunday, October 5. I cleaned both of the remaining pots by running water over them and using a wet paper towel to gently rub them down. I didn't try to remove every crusty spot on the pot. I kind of like those spots! I placed both pots in the car and because it was a sunny day it took only a few hours for them to dry and heat up. When they were dry and hot, I took them out and rubbed Johnson's paste wax all over them. I buffed them with another cloth and they both looked pretty good. I decided to take one of them to the Hawaii Craftsmen 2014 Annual Statewide Juried Exhibition at the Honolulu Museum of Art School (juried by Janet Koplos) that was open for entries that morning, and it was one of two pots that I got into the show. Whew! Just in time!

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Upcoming Ceramics Auctions

10/3/2014

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A cluster of great ceramics auctions are coming up in October and November. The first is on October 6 at Audap & Mirabaud in Paris. You can find the catalog online at www.auction.fr under Céramiques et Verres Contemporains (Contemporary Ceramic and Glass). There are 278 lots, mostly ceramics, accompanied by images of each piece. If you'd like to see some great pots being made now by artists in France, check out this auction.

A second auction is coming up in London on October 30 at maak contemporary ceramics. The catalog will be available online on October 9th at www.maaklondon.com. maak was started by Marijke Varrall-Jones, the former Head of Contemporary Ceramics at Bonhams. Catalogs focus primarily on British potters and list pots in roughly chronological order beginning with artists like William Staite Murray and Bernard Leach and ending with artists like Edmund de Waal and Julian Stair.

A third auction is coming up in Cincinnati on November 7th at Cowan's Auctions. The catalog will be available online about 2 weeks before the auction begins at www.cowanauctions.com. Most of the pots are by American artists, but there are usually many pots from European (mostly British) and Japanese potters as well. The quality of the pieces is always exceptionally high since Cowan is working with Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio to make selections.

I don't buy pots through these sales, but I collect images of pots that inspire me in my own work. Take a look at these auction catalogs and maybe you'll get inspired too.

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2014 Hawai'i Craftsmen Exhibition

The Short Films of : : kogonada

Firing Temperature Chart

Pit Firing 10/04/14

Upcoming Ceramics Auctions

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