Thursday, January 28, 2010

Lovin' what you make

OK, I'm sober tonight but I think I'm high on smoke fumes! WHAT A DAY! Glorious blue skies, warm weather, there's a full moon a comin' and I had one of the best firing days since I got this kiln!!! YAY!!!! My soul searching last night was greatly beneficial as were the words of wisdom from all of you faithful bloggers, whom I love to hear from! LOOK AT THAT POT ABOVE! Is that not a beautiful thing. Did you read my friend Laura's comment on the last post? She said when you make what you love the energy comes through, no truer words, girl. I loved every moment of making this coil pot, from rolling the coils, to building it, burnishing it, applying the terra sig, and today firing it. It was sooooo much fun to watch it transform from a bright orange pumpkin jar to this wonderful primitive smokey thing. Can you tell I'm happy?!
The pot is 16" and about 7 lbs. very light. I fired it with sawdust from the last set I worked on, isn't that cool? and Thai basil stalks from my garden last summer, and lemon rind from the lemonade I made Gerry for his kidney stone. Magic potion, you should have smelled it firing, it was like I was having a barbeque or something :) and then I polished it with olive oil.
and this is one of the sweetest bowls I have ever made. Now this is the kind of bowl I love but what do you do with it? I burnished it with terra sig then raku fired it with a slight reduction. It is the cutest thing! It's very tiny.
She turned out pretty good too, although I wish I had spent a little more time on the wrap, it could have more detail I think. But she raku fired beautifully, nothing fell off or blew up. Very hard thing to photograph, Gerry is not going to be happy when ask him to shoot this one for me!

and this pendant I have been wanting to make for myself forever, homage to Georgia O'keefe I think. I remember the first time I saw one of her paintings in a gallery in Washington DC, I almost hyperventilated I was so overcome. I may have cried, don't remember. Well, good day, as you can probably tell. Today was the first day Wesley didn't seem like she had Mono since October and Gerry has gone for 24 hours with no pain, so all is well with our world. Thank you thank you for all the words of wisdom, comfort and thanks to those of you that also do not brush your hair, care about new outfits from Nordstrom, and can't be bothered with discussing the latest sports stats. I Love you guys!! XOXOX

17 comments:

Trish said...

Tracey...ahhh!!!!! THAT JAR IS SO BEAUTIFUL!! I am hyperventilating!:)..and your spirits are so lifted..YEAH! yup..do what you love.:)..SENDING HUGS (can I do that?, is that allowed on this blogging thing? -I am a hugger, what can I say) If all else fails when happy or sad, cry and hug...:). As I wrote on my post, I am going to do another sawdust barrel fire in February at my sister's burn pile. Did you get the orange/rust colour just from the basil etc., or with oxides as well? new to this..
Congrats! T

Tracey Broome said...

Trish, the color is terra sig,a bit of copper carb sprinkled in the bottom and I used a bunch of colored newspaper to start the fire.Not sure what the sawdust wood was, but I also used some red oak from a tree we cut up and it was very red. Yes, you can hug, I'm a hugger too. I hug everybody, we all should! Glad you like the pot.

cindy shake said...

TRACEY all of the pieces are JUST INCREDIBLE!!! Wonderful Raku!!

Hollis Engley said...

Great pot, Tracey. I wanted to see what it looked like finished. Very, very nice. You should make ten of them.

ang design said...

WOW trace!!!!!

Tracey Broome said...

Thanks Cindy. Hollis, I want to make hundreds of them! I am so happy with this jar, and loved making it.

Tracey Broome said...

Hey Ang, we crossed blogging comments just now!Yours was coming in as I was typing ha! Thanks :)

ang design said...

ha ha spooky!! i just came in from the studio for lunch and thought i'd have a quick looksy, so cool and great that your biggun came out in one!!

DirtKicker Pottery said...

Tracy that pot is beautiful! I've been studying about Terra Sigillata. It's cool to see your lovely results.

Judy Shreve said...

Tracey - those pots are singing! You are in your element with these pieces -- and the sound of your lifted spirit is beautiful! Yay!

Brian said...

Gorgeous jar! I love the color on it. And the raku sculpture is fantastic too.
I have a 5 gal bucket of sig in the garage I need to siphon this weekend. it'll give me something to do during the 'blizzard' I guess.

Laura Farrow said...

great job Trace! those are fabulous pieces!!

Anonymous said...

you maka dee good sheet yea!..love it all really like the figures!

Linda Starr said...

spectacular all of them, especially the top pot, congrats on all your great firings and all your hard work well paid off. Have you used olive oil before, how does it fare over time?

Tracey Broome said...

Thanks all of you! Linda, I mostly used the olive oil to get it shiny for the show it's going in and I didn't have any paste wax which is really the better option. Who knows what the longevity of any of my stuff truly is, it's all so experimental! Copper and smoke and liquid clay, who knows......

Linda Starr said...

Tracey I was thinking mineral oil might be better than olive oil. It was recommended to me when I was conditioning a bread board. I used the paste wax on my barrel fired pieces and I didn't like the look it seemed to dull the piece and I like the look you have achieved with your first pot with the oil, it seems to enhance the pot color so much better than I think the wax would. thanks and good luck in the show.

Anonymous said...

damn, i missed it yesterday... i was on the lookout for that big jar because i thought that it was going to come out nicely. it's beautiful, nice to see what primitive firings can do on that nice big surface. good to hear gerry's pain has passed (no pun intended). the milk and bread thing in the next post... i've mentioned it before too, i really don't get it. when was the last time that people here (in a city) got stuck in their homes without food? maybe 1929? one of my favorite things is to look at what the person ahead of me at the grocery is buying. there are conclusions you can draw. last week i was in a walgreens and 2 people ahead of me had gallons of milk... i just don't know about shopping for groceries at a drug store.