fresh minded work

So I have taken about the last 4 weeks or so off.  I have been gone on a few trips since I have came back from penland and it has really been a great time to clear my head.  I made twenty plates of this size and did a whole bunch of loose sketches before hand.  These are a few of the slip designs I came up with.  The red slip is a slip made from a local clay, the black is a black slip, amd the white is a slip I made from a different clay body I use.

This is a coin I recently acquired from a good friend of mine.  Her father used to be my scoutmaster until he died when I was about 13 or so.  She and her sister are selling a bunch of things from his antique collection.  

The scout slogan is "do a good turn daily" and the point of this coin was to promote it.  You left the coin in your left pocket until you performed a good turn (helping an old lady cross the street, or something of the sort).  Upon performing the good turn you "secretly" move the coin to your right pocket.  I thought it was a pretty cool object.  I hope you do as well.  

Penland Parade!!!

A very large crowd came around for the 4th of july parade at Penland on the 1st.  Everyone stayed around afterwards for some really awesome fireworks.

So our thai float won an award and the trophy we won is pictured above being held up by the glass flame working instructor.  I think everyone was pretty surprised we won the thing.  About five of us from the class wore sarongs and did a dance to some traditional thai music.  We were with our float which was a small truck with brice sitting in the back of it turning a large jar on a wheel with his feet.  We each also wore one white glove in memory of Michael.  

These are a few members of the photo class.  Pretty sweet costumes eh?

The teaching class which was in lower clay has the coolest float ever!  This awesome huge old lady.  

Here is the float by the drawing class.  Just a golf cart with some of their pieces taped to the sides.  Sometimes it is best to just keep it simple I suppose.  Overall the parade was a real success.  I had an absolute blast. 

Large Jar Class at with Daniel Johnston

Here is a picture of Daniel making the biggest jar he made while he was teaching the class at Penland.

A group shot of most everyone in the class with their jars warm from the kiln.  We had to finish making these pots by Thursday of the first week in order to start loading on time.  Everyone got about one pot in the large wood kiln.  

This is one of the best large pots I made the whole time I was there.  I was pretty pleased with it so I drove it home green glazed buckled up in the passenger seat.  Needless to say it was a bit of a stressful curvy drive home.  Hopefully you will all get to see this one after being fired.

This is Remo who was my wheel neighbor.  He is from Banner Elk and really gave some great advise and provided some humor as well.  He is un bricking the kiln in the picture.  My pot is the one with the rainbow like decoration on the shoulder.  

Here is Brice un bricking the kiln hard at work as we all were the whole time.  

I learned so much about making large pots in the short two week class with Daniel.  It was incredibly humbling to watch him work and I guess the thing I learned most was how much work it is going to take to be able to make large pots that are even worth a darn.  I suppose it was like a starting point of a long pursuit of large pots.  I hope to get a hold of a separate wheel just for making big pots soon.  I plan on doing my senior show just in large jars and other big pots.  In my head it is all beautiful, but I suppose we will see what happens as it comes.   

  

New Pots in the smaller category

I just figured all the new pots I posted earlier were pretty big.  The little ones are beautiful too so I figured you would like to see those as well.  Even the little jar pictured is about the size of one of the mugs.  

Even More New pots!!

I really like the shape on this pot, but the yellow glaze did not turn out quite right, but I figured I would post it anyway.

SUPER salty ash glaze jar.

Large ash glazed jar with some slip trailed flowers on it.

Hope you enjoy the new ones!!  If you are interested in buying one please let me know.

More new pots!!

This is the first grave marker I have ever made.  I was inspired after going to Mark Hewitt's place a while back.  I also made a somewhat similar piece for a fountain that was requested by a man that attends my church.  I will have to post about that some time soon.

nice little ash glazed ginger jar

Another one of my composites.

New Pots!!!

These files are quite big so I could only load 3 at a time.  I have a few of the best ones I will show though.  This one above is a planter.  The salt did a little better than I thought working with the alkaline glaze. 

I have not done much manganese before, but this particular one turned out just the way I wanted it to.  It got super salty and got some nice texture.

I went a little composite crazy on this firing.  I made a whole bunch of them just because I thought they were fun to make.  Hopefully they will sale so I can make some more.