Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Nice day

Today was one of those really nice days. Perfect temperature, blue skies. I got up around 6:30, rolled out some slabs and put terra sig on the dry pieces from yesterday. Met my good pal Charlotte for Chai and pastries at the Bean and Barrel (wine and coffee shop), weird name but great place. Then came home, slabs had set up enough to build with and I made another barn like the one from yesterday and 4 small ones that will hang. Finished up some more terra sig application and called it a day.
Paul Jessop requested a photo of my test tile board so here you are Paul. It was just a scrap of board I had laying around, lined up the tiles and hammered in some nails. The rows are something like this : blue terra sig on red clay, on white clay, blue oxide wash on red clay on white clay, then same for the other colorants. This sits right on my work table, so I can look at the colors for inspiration while I am building a piece as well as while I am staining. Works great and I have found that since I did this I am actually thinking of how a piece will be colored as I am making it. I have never done that before. Amy Sanders said that she knows while she is making a piece what color would go where and I remember thinking that day in her workshop that I had never done that. Now I do.
Another helpful thing from a recent workshop was hearing Judith Duff say that she cleans her studio every night before she leaves so it is fresh for her the next morning. I have started doing that and am finding that to be a huge help. There have been days when I started to work on something and would have such a mess that I would spend half the day cleaning and then have no motivation to work. I have been in a good stride this week and seem to have a good work flow going. Hope it keeps up. the past couple of months have been crazy with little getting done. Firing a kiln Wednesday and then another round of staining and another firing. Then V.a.c.a.t.i.o.n.!!!! By the way, the flower vase is one of the first pieces of pottery Gerry ever bought me, from Danny Marley down in Seagrove. Gerry was down there when Danny was just a kid doing a story on him for the newspaper. It is so simple and yet so perfect. It has always been one of my favorite pieces.
PS: if you haven't checked it out, I have added Jessica Lobdell photo blog on my blog roll. If you want to see some really pretty photography of NC check her out. She is a local girl taking some very nice pics :)

8 comments:

cookingwithgas said...

Hi Tracey- thanks for your kind thoughts for our family.
Your pictures in this post have such a feeling of calm to me. And your words just made me feel that things are going well for you.
sigh- hold on to those moments- life is good.

Tracey Broome said...

Life is good Meredith. My mom shook me a bit last time I saw her. She is 79 and she mentioned that she may only have seven more years since my grandmother died at 86. 7 short years! I doubt it, because my mom is still very young at heart, but 3 months, 7 years, 50 years, you gotta take each day for what it is and savor each moment of it. This evening as the sun set, a family of deer walked up to us in the yard, so peaceful and serene. Carpe Diem! peace girl :)

Michael Mahan said...

I guess the T.S. is terra sig. Do you find adding colorants to terra sig changes the terra sig? Like making it less shiny?

I'd love to figure out some more stains, with or without terra sig for my large tree platters. There's just always something else to do.

I like the idea of cleaning up every day after work, but I gave that up years ago. I'd love to build a workshop that I could just hose off at the end of the day. Or how about just pressing a button and shut the door and it would wash itself off, like those public toilets in Europe.

Tracey Broome said...

MM,yes the ts was for terra sig. I put it on half the tile for the oxide wash to see it on terra sig and on the bare clay. I haven't really noticed a change in the shine but I am not burnishing to a super shine anyway, just sort of a satin finish. I have a recipe for a stain called patina patina from Claymakers that I think you would like and I think it would look good on your pots. I'll dig it up tomorrow and email it to you. Terra sig can be problematic, but I have been lucky so far with this round. Last year I was having a lot of flaking off. When I was throwing a lot on the wheel I never cleaned up but with hand building I have to or else I don't have a place to work! We need studio fairies to come in at night huh!?

Linda Starr said...

There is something so beautiful about test tile boards, I love the look of them and your's is great. I can't wait to do some testing in my new kiln and get test tiles up like you have. I have never thought about the glaze while I am making except in cone 10 I did because I knew the glazes so well, now I find when it's time to glaze I am wondering what color should go and perhaps it should be the other way around. I always wipe up my mess at the end of handbuilding, if I don't the cats will track clay everywhere, especially Betty. Now that fairy can come over here for the rest of the house though.

cindy shake said...

I LOVE Hydrangeas!! What lovely photos you have posted :o) I too clean as I go -so much easier to find things AND much more pleasant stepping into "work" each day.

Patricia Griffin Ceramics said...

awww, does sound like a great day... I also try to clean the studio (at least superficially) at the end of every day. really helps me have a go-gett-em attitude when I open the door the next day.

Paul Jessop said...

Thanks for the pic tracey, great idea and i'm gonna make one for myself.