Archive for the ‘Ceramics’ Category

Casemaking Moth on Ceramic Vessel

Tuesday, February 9th, 2021

Last night I turned on the light over my work bench and found on oddity.

This little vessel has been hanging in my studio for decades. I fired the piece multiple times. Before the last firing, I bound it with wire and applied low fire lead glazes.

Casemaking moth on ceramic vessel

The oddity is a casemaking moth. What is it eating? Clearly not the glaze because typically the case that the casemaking moth construction will be the color of whatever it has eaten.

Casemaking moth on ceramic vessel

Recently looked through my stash of wood objects to use as an addition to a piece. The boxes were wrapped in plastic and stored in a wood bench. When I opened the drawer I found a green casemaking moth.

Green casemaking moth inside drawer

How did it even get inside? No clue.

Green casemaking moth inside drawer

I have cleaned my studio numerous times to remove the niches the moths like–undisturbed dark areas with fiber and plant material.

I have been forced to keep my stored completed work, work in progress and fiber materials in plastic. But, I can still find casemaking moths. It is frustrating, especially when I find that they have damaged something of value.

I use two methods for treating pieces and materials–place them in the freezer or someplace that becomes quite hot, like the trunk of a car.

The freezer shelf that is set aside for materials and work.
Freezer shelf for work and materials

Recently found a casemaking moth on a wool I-cord that had been an embellishment for a rooster lamp that has been sitting on the china cabinet for nearly 15 years.

Rooster lamp

He looks lost without it.

I washed the I-cord in warm soapy water. Gave it a rinse, popped it in a plastic bag, and placed it in the freezer.

Wet frozen I-cord


Converted Egyptian Paste Piece

Sunday, November 29th, 2020

While reorganizing my garage studio space I found one of my Egyptian Paste test pieces had apparently been used as a hotel for mice.

Egyptian Paste Box

The mice managed to get in the garage and found all of the dried and drying plant materials sustaining.

Mouse

When I was cleaning the space after the mice were relocated, it didn’t occur to me that I should look through the boxes of pieces stored in the space.

The box was constructed of hardware cloth and Egyptian paste. After firing the box, it was lined with black nylon and bound closed with strips of the same fabric. The fabric was dipped in diluted wood glue and hit with a heat gun, for a shrink wrap effect. I like that nylon can look like a skin, exposing the structure under it.

I have posted about this piece in the past. Pleased that the pieces have not developed a light coating of sodium.

Egyptian Paste Vessel

The pieces were constructed of hardware cloth, some had the addition of nails.

Egyptian Paste Vessel Nail Detail

The Egyptian paste was used like spackle and the lot fired to cone 015.

What to do with the mouse house? I am leaning toward popping it someplace, out of the way, in the garden.


Lichen Growth on Sculpture and Mold on an Orange

Thursday, June 25th, 2020

The sculpture was made while an undergrad at Ohio State University in the 80s. Unfortunately, the top rim of the smaller piece was chipped during a move. The pieces were designed to be placed in different positions while still having a dialogue. They were fired multiple times using lithium and lead glazes.

Sculpture on Deck

Grey Lichen

Grey and Orange Lichens

Orange Lichen

Red Lead Glaze and Orange Lichen

Lady Bug on Lithium Blue Glaze

Naturally Occurring Blue-Green Found on Orange
Orange Mold

Orange Mold

Orange Mold

My choice of glaze surfaces occurred before my interest in mold and lichen growth.


What Happened?

Monday, February 17th, 2020

I found the bits next to the tissue box in the bathroom.

Flaking Results

When I looked up, I realized one of my pieces was damaged.

This was the piece. It is part of my Cleanse Your Palate Series, No Guilt.

Bird Head

The image was taken by Sharon Tetly when the work was on display at Western Nevada College.

The piece has pit-fired components. The bird head is hanging from a strand of pit-fired beads. Of course there is code in how the beads were strung. The beaded piece references chaplets. The idea was to remove the chaplet, hold it, and repeat, “forgive yourself” for whatever perceived wrong.

The piece is hung in the guest bathroom. It actually has been in the same location for several years.

There are a few of the same pit-fired beads in my stash of beads for comparison. Maybe tests.

Pit Fired Beads

The pit-fired beads and bird head have all fallen apart.

Damaged Pit Fired Beads

Damaged Pit Fired Beads

I removed the chaplet, but haven’t yet warmed to how the piece looks without it.

Damaged Pit Fired Beads

Why did the beads fall apart? My initial thought…the flaking off of the surface is the result of humidity. Why now? Most likely it was a gradual process until the point that flaking occurred.

Am I upset? No, more curious about how the damage occurred, how to prevent it in the future, and how to make it occur if I want to age a piece.


Patina Gone Crazy

Monday, February 5th, 2018

Patina

Patina

Patina

After a short time this occurred–

Patina

Patina

Patina

What was the patina used for? I strung together 3 kinds of shiny steel washers in code for a 3-bunny gravemarker.

Memorial Piece

This is what the washers looked like when they were removed from the solution.

Memorial Piece

And now as part of the grave marker–

Memorial Piece

Memorial Piece

Eventually the piece should become rustier, more aged, a bit more similar to the oxidized bunny marker.

This is another memorial for a bunny burial space.

Mr Smith Memorial Piece

Used the same washers to make the coded memorial piece. I suspect that they have oxidized because the area of the garden gets watered frequently and the little inlaid ceramic cup does not have a drainage hole.

How many bunnies do I have buried in my courtyard? Eight. That sounds like a lot of bunnies. Eight bunnies have lived with me during the past 25 years. My oldest bunny lived a long, but not long enough 13 years.

The simple rust promoter formula found online.

Patina Formula


Time to Retire My Rabbit Mug?

Thursday, February 1st, 2018

This has been an annoying allergy season. Had been taking loads of antihistamines, now on Sudafed and Aleve. Symptoms often wake me in the middle of the night. Sometimes I need to take addition doses of Sudafed.

Tuesday evening I left my rabbit mug half filled with water on the bathroom counter, the top covered with a kleenex. Wednesday night the mug was still waiting to be used. As I removed the kleenex I noticed the exterior of the mug looked odd, stained.

Rabbit Mug Exterior

When I looked inside the mug, the glaze looked stained.

<Rabbit Mug Interior

And what happened to the water?

<Rabbit Mug Interior

When I held the mug it felt cold. If water can be pulled through the small fractures in the glaze surface, what else might the mug contain? Was the glaze fired to maturity? Is it possible that some of the glaze ingredients are toxic? What have I been drinking with my orange juice?

Yep, time to retire the mug.


Amazingly Beautiful Naturally Occurring Bronze Patina

Monday, October 9th, 2017

Now I know how to achieve gorgeous textural surfaces on bronze. You must submerge the piece in the ocean for centuries!

Bronze Antikythera Shipwreck Arm

When I saw the images of the bronze arm found during the archaeological expedition of the Antikythera Shipwreck, it reminded me of my research to create thick textural surfaces on bronze.

Detail

Antikythera Shipwreck Expedition, Detail of the Hand

I buried my bronze pieces with sodium mixtures and chemicals. I applied chemicals to my pieces and then set them on fire. I saturated burlap with chemicals, wrapped it around my pieces, then enclosed work in a plastic container. I applied low-fire ceramic glazes to bronze pieces and then fired them. And I did a combination.

Bronze Bowl Detail

This is a detail of a little bronze bowl that was bound with wire.
I applied Egyptian paste, low-fire glazes, and the lot was fired hot enough for
paste and glaze to mature, but not hot enough for the bronze and steel wire to become molten.

Egyptian paste is a self-glazing clay body. I have used it in a variety of ways, even as a self-glazing spackle when something needs to be filled.

Egyptian Past Vessel

Hardware cloth formed into a vessel and held in place with nails. Egyptian paste was applied and the lot was fired. The pink color is the result of the addition of red iron oxide added to the paste dry batch.


Post of Eroded Contours
My series that combined ceramic and bronze processes.



Antikythera Shipwreck Excavation

It appears that the Antikythera Shipwreck excavation photos I used in my post were taken by Brett Seymour/EUA/ARGO.

Found: A Giant Bronze Arm From the Antikythera Shipwreck

Antikythera shipwreck yields statue pieces and mystery bronze disc

Greece Ministry of Culture and Sports


Lichens and Glazes

Monday, July 4th, 2016

When my chosen medium was clay, I used a lot of layered, often gritty glazes. In the back of my mind always thinking lichens.

Today when I was sweeping the deck, to my delight I found this piece has actual lichens growing on the surface.

Sculpture on Deck

Sculpture on Deck with Lichens

The piece was made in a class at Ohio State in the early 80s. The clay is a buff colored sculpture body with some nice aggregate. The piece was bisque fired to cone 5. A cone 05 lithium blue glaze was applied for the base color. Then low-fire lead glazes were applied. The last fired to cone 015.

The piece has been on the deck since 1994. It looks so much better with the addition of lichens.

Sculpture on Deck with Lichens

If interested in viewing lichen glaze surfaces, check out Lana Wilson’s work. Lana’s text, Ceramics: Shape and Surface has some great information for the beginner; and it also has loads of information on how to achieve gorgeous glaze surfaces. The text is available on Lana’s website.


A note about my use of lead glazes. Yes, they are gorgeous low-fire glazes. But lead is potentially dangerous. I haven’t been used lead glazes for several years. Since I have been attempting to use safer materials and processes, I reluctantly decided to remove all potentially toxic ceramic materials from my studio. I had quite the stash. I was fortunate that during the yearly clean-up, the materials were accepted for disposable without cost.

Did I really remove all of the lead from my studio? Well, I did keep a small bag of a leaded frit, just in case. I also found a small sheet of lead that I kept. It is a lovely soft material. I used it to line and wrap portions of boxes.

Lead Detail

Detail of a piece in my Make Your Own Luck series.
The vertical section is wrapped in sheet lead.
The nest-like material is lead wool.
The three objects are whole nutmeg.
Nutmeg was used for luck.
If consumed it could be deadly.


Books and the Book Series

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016

Books have always been a part of my life. When we were children, my mother would take us to the library. When I was in college I would spend part of a day each week wandering through the stacks. After grad school, I started my library. I have nearly 1,500 books. There are books on art, artists, film, graphic design, gardening, horticulture, novels, children’s books, textbooks, and miscellaneous books on random topics.

I love reading, the way books feel in my hands, turning the pages, the fragrance of paper and ink. I was taught to respect books, but then something happened. I found that I really liked underlining. That grew to writing in the margins and using any white space to record ideas for possible work. Then I started folding corners and pages.

Books

When I open one of my books to locate a quote or some notes that I have made, it is quite enjoyable to revisit the story, to read a few pages or several chapters. To remember the first time that I read the book.


I resisted reading e-books. My iPad is thin, slippery, and has a bit of glare. How would I dog-ear pages, write in the margins, underline…

I tried reading a few books on my iPad and in doing so found that I could customize the text. I could make the text large enough that I no longer needed to wear glasses. I also found that I quite like reading light text on a black background. And I could read in the dark.

Then I found how easy it was to highlight, bookmark, and make notes. I could download the lot from amazon. A few adjustments to the downloaded file and I could import the text into my database of quotes and phrases. Yep, I have a database of words, phrases, quotes.


I have thought about making books, but one thing always stopped me. What will be on the pages? The thought of an empty book, seemed incomplete. I actually attempted constructing a few books over the years.

Twig Books

A couple of books constructed of materials collected from nature, fabric, paper, copper wire, and waxed linen cord. I saved a couple to remind myself why they did not work.

I also made a series of small books constructed of hardware cloth covers coated with Egyptian Paste. The covers were fired to cone 016. Hot enough for the clay to mature, but not hot enough to melt the hardware cloth. I cut copper and aluminum flashing for the pages. I bound the pages and covers together and fired the lot.

Egyptian Paste Book

Egyptian Paste Book Open

The pages have a lovely surface, but they are still empty.


The past several years I have used coded messages in my work. It is quite enjoyable to figure out ways to put text in my work that cannot actually be read as text but is seen as pattern. Well, the text could be read if the code is deciphered. And since I am not a cryptographer, it isn’t too difficult to figure out.

Dont Detail

This is a detail of code in a work that I have since completed. I used Morse code with rust yarn for the dots, gray yarn for the dashes, and cream yarn for the spacers. The bottom left corner has gray, rust, gray which is dash-dot-dash or a k.


I have decided to revisit books again with the idea of including coded text. Each book will have a theme: connection, grief/loss, invisible/visible, kindness, memory, nature, perception/seeing, power, reflection, self, truth…

My plan was to make wool knitted and fulled pages, with stitched coded messages, and dried and stitched plant bits. I knitted all sorts of stitch patterns to see which stitches would work best.

Then something unexpected happened. I had a dream, an epiphany. In the dream rather than making books I was making pages and framing them as artifact. Framed fragments of pages would be more compatible with my body of work. Was my creative self giving me a message or was the dream a mash up of a bunch of things that I had been thinking about throughout the day? No matter, I like the idea.

I began to approach knitting differently. Rather than knitting rectangles for book pages, I wanted the pieces to be odd shaped.

E wrap Purl Cable

The top portion was knitted. The piece was removed from the loom, rotated 45º, returned to the loom, and then the cable pattern was knitted.

Top Portion
Row 1 E-wrap (each peg twice)
Row 2 Purl (wrap)

Bottom Portion (Cable)
Row 1 Knit
Row 2 Purl
Row 3 Knit
Row 4 P,P, Twist Knit, P,P, Twist Knit…

This is the back of the above piece. It is important that the back is interesting because both sides of a page can be visible.

E wrap Purl Cable


This combination of stitches is quite nice. There does seem to be some consistency in my choices. It appears that I like knot-like stitches.

Figure 8 with E-wrap

Row 1 Figure 8
Row 2 E-wrap

If after fulling, the fabric still has holes, I plan to either weave in yarn or an i-cord.


Linen Stitch

The idea was to knit a long piece, full it, and fold it in half to create a signature. Then bind several signatures together.
Row 1 K all
Row 2 K, S… K
Row 3 K all
Row 4 S, K… S

It will be fun to see how the series evolves.