Sunday, September 19, 2010

Attention to detail

Those of you that live in the Asheboro area may know the name Lenton Slack. He was my professor in college and an amazing artist. I frequently hear his voice in my head while I'm working on these barns, as well as my other professor, Charles Johnson. These men were great teachers but their constant phrase pay attention to detail has stayed with me and is such an important thing to remember with hand crafted items. I am adding more and more detail work to these buildings as I figure them out and the difference really shows. Yesterday I added some little ladders, such a pain but such a nice detail. FetishGhost had a post a few days ago with some faceted jars that were beautiful. That inspired me to get my trimming tool and facet the slabs for the roofs of these barns. What a difference and just the added detail I have been looking for. I have been getting up close to barn roofs to see what I have been missing because mine have seemed a bit flat. This was just the added element I needed to get more of the look I am wanting.
How do you hang? (sorry just couldn't resist haha!)
Linda Starr had a post the other day about how she hangs her tiles and the way Meredith at Whynot hangs hers. Well, I had not thought of hanging tiles either of those ways and wondered how many ways can you hang a tile. Here is what I do. I take the stick in the photo, a stick that I cannot live without! and I press it in the wet clay making a hole for wire to pass through. I can't take credit for this idea, it came from a suggestion by Sarah Gress at the NC Craft Center. She likes this method for hanging tiles in her shop and showed me an example. By the way, isn't that wash cool on the back of this tile? Total accident. It was a chrome terra sig but the front was iron oxide and a little dull after firing, so I put a cobalt wash on and fired again, got this really great blue green. I love those happy accidents.
I used to glue on these hooks with epoxy, but sometimes I can't find them and the cost starts to add up, so it's cheaper to just put a hole in the clay and add some string or wire. Anyone else have any other ways of hanging?

8 comments:

cookingwithgas said...

Tracey love those roofs! A nice touch indeed.
I like you stick method and might have to use that for small tiles.
and you know me and Lenton are kissing cousins...

Tracey Broome said...

Hey thanks Meredith. I just loved having Lenton Slack as a teacher, what a talented man he is, and so kind and gentle.

Linda Starr said...

wish I had had a supportive ceramics teacher, mine just said you're on your own and I've been on my own ever since.

I've tried the slots in the back of the tile and buttons or sprigs with hole sin them, but with large tiles that are heavey, I like the epoxy with wood hangers or d hooks. somenow feels safer to me, in case someone knocks against them (me). That tile is beautiful a very rich color.

Anonymous said...

The roof texture is a good direction I think.

Thanks for the comments/photos about hanging wall pieces. i really like seeing people's solutions to this. I'm often wanting to figure out how people solve this when I'm in a gallery or museum and it's not kosher to take them down and look :) I've done the sawtooth hanger thing, but often think it would be better to have a mechanism more integral to the piece.

Sister Creek Potter said...

Great idea for hanging!
(Whispering here: i like the roofs better before the extra detail. Don't tell anyone what I said.)

Tracey Broome said...

Hey Linda, good point about the heavy tiles,mine aren't too heavy so I didn't think about that. Gay, thanks for the honest input!! It's interesting, I was looking at some earlier pieces and thought, why I am fretting over this roof thing so much. Maybe I'll do some of both :)

Linda Starr said...

I just finished adding the wood epoxied hangers to the work and I can see the wood on the sides and am not happy with it. Now I feel I need a frame to surround the edges to hide the wood, which I guess would be same as an enclosed box form to hang on the wall. But these are already made so too late from them. Gary is saying the hanging mechanisms are getting to be more time consuming than the work, little does he know, not even close.

Anonymous said...

I remembered this post over at ceramics daily that had a cool way to hang
http://ceramicartsdaily.org/clay-tools/making-clay-tools/a-smart-hanging-system-that-helps-functional-pottery-double-as-ceramic-wall-art/