: Pres - Viewing Profile

Just to throw out some ideas for teachers looking for ideas. I was looking through a few old pots the other day and came across a couple of slab construction demo pieces.

The first of these was a re-visitation from my college years and a project my ceramics prof presented. He called it the "poison goblet". His version was to create a wet slab, decorate it, roll it into a rough tube, seal the seam and squeeze the center into a neck, then refine. When I presented it to the students in my beginning classes it was a little more structured. First they had to use three of the major decoration techniques I had taught them: stamping, incising, added on clay, or piercing. Secondly they had to add some form of organic or inorganic form to the pot after refinement of the goblet itself. My example was as shown  PoisonGoblet.jpg (556.3K)
Number of downloads: 66

I usually followed up with some form of leather hard project in slabs so that they could see both ends of the spectrum, soft and leather hard construction. One of these projects was to create an incense or candle box of fixed dimensions. It had to have pierced areas for the light/smoke to come through, and it had to have one other form of surface decoration again using one of the techniques taught. The edges has to be defined, and the form had to have a way to get the candle/incense in and out easily. My simple example is shown below.

 Candle Box.jpg (938.95K)
Number of downloads: 64

Years ago when I started mailing out communion sets I decided that I needed to have some sort of return address label for broken, lost items etc. The first ones were simple name and address, but over the years it just didn't seem to be enough. So I came up with a new business card logo, and redid the return mailing address label in Corel Draw to "freshen" the presentation. Now, it is unmistakable what is in the box, and whom it is from. How do you present your shipping containers with your return labels? Please post them.  PicWorksMailingLogo.jpg (132.26K)
Number of downloads: 17

I returned from China yesterday. As this trip was organized for the general population and on a tight schedule I did not really get to much in the way of potteries or museums or other ceramic sites. The exceptions here were the workshop creating Terracotta warrior replicas, and the Banpo prehistoric site. The warrior workshop was working with a very fine ungrogged terracotta in molds the the thickness of about 1 1/2 inches. These were fired in coal fired kilns taking 3 days to fire. It is an interesting place, and I wish I had had more time to visit with them. The Banpo site had kiln remnants and much intact pottery. I was particularly impressed with the forms that were handbuilt resembling much of what we see in the way of pointed bottles from Egyptian and Mesopotamian pottery. We had a great trip, and I will try to post a few pictures later on that I took of pottery while there.

Just an observation here. I throw plates/patens for communion services. The group that I throw them for requires a rubber stamped logo on the plate surface. When trimming these, I notice that I always have a difficult time staying even across the foot indent. I have finally realized that it isn't me, it is the stamped area with higher compression that makes it difficult to get an even cut. This occurs whether I stamp into the wet clay, or the cheese hard clay. I use loop tools to trim, and keep them sharp. I also use a flat metal rib held perpendicular across the center lately and that seems to do the best job. Any suggestion?

The use of barium in the studio scares me, but I continued to read several articles and books that contain high amounts of barium in the glaze. I also understand that certain colors and surfaces are only accessible through the use of barium. When I was teaching, I was beginning glaze chemistry and went to the Science dept. to get materials and advice. They willingly gave me barium oxide(I believe) as they said they didn't want it around anymore, and did not have any use for it. After considerable research into the materials I had received, and the ones I was interested in ordering, barium was the one material that I decided I did not need due to its toxicity. Since then I have made it a rule to keep it out of my own studio also. I have found over the years, that accidents do happen, no matter how hard you try to be careful. Highly toxic materials can be a target for accidents. I take all of the precautions when making glazes, masks, gloves, washing surfaces afterward etc, but still know that a bump can knock an open container over.

I am reading the new publication developing glazes-Greg Daly and am amazed by the materials used in Australia, including the high barium content of some of the glazes. While I heartily agree with his approach, which follows much of the contemporary non empirical experimentation of glaze and glaze materials, I find the materials in use questionable. I guess in the end each person has to make up their own mind as to where they will go with their glaze formulation and material use.