For the past eight months or so I've been making these faceted bowls, cutting the coned clay and then opening up the cone into a bowl. The facets are torqued as I my hand pushes open the clay cone from the inside, the rims go wonky sometimes because of the uneven facets, sometimes the rims break and have to be patched. Ordinarily I wouldn't patch a standard bowl, but these faceted pieces are so misshapen that a patch just looks like one more accidental deformation.
And the bowls take the Shino glazes - and some others - very well. I often overlap two or three of my Shinos on them. And lately I've been adding pours of rutile, copper red, Temmoku, Nuka, even (gasp!) cobalt blue. Makes for lively bowls.
I've sold some of these over the past year, but the test will come in the next few months, as the customer base expands with the arrival of summer visitors to Cape Cod. We'll see.
Here are a few of the bowls from last week's firing. Top to bottom: Malcolm's orange trap Shino with ash celadon overlap; Kim's Genuine Rutile; rutile with Erin's Red; Orange Shino with cobalt, copper red and rutile pours; Orange Shino with cobalt, copper red and ash pours; crackled Orange Shino with rutile pour.

Bigger jars for the top shelf

The next firing is probably a week away, with a bunch of mugs (and other pots) yet to be thrown in the next few days. Should have a group of the collaborative pots Kim Medeiros and I have been working on, as well as some tall jars from my own wheel.
Kim and I have worked in the past couple of weeks on estuary-related pots for a summer 2013 show at the Falmouth Art Center. We were invited to participate together by Suzy Bergmann, the center director. These pots - a wide, shallow platter and a tall jar - will reflect the flow of the water in our Cape estuaries and the life that lives in that flow. We're both pretty excited about both the work and the invitation.
The top photo is of the drying jars in my own studio; next one down is Kim with the estuary platter this morning, after she's finished the decoration. More detailed photos to follow, once these pieces are fired.

New pots from the kiln this morning

This business of making pots can kick you in the ass sometimes. That happened to me this morning, when I realized that something blew up some time during yesterday's glaze firing. I knew it as soon as I opened the kiln door and began to look closely at the pots on the upper shelves. Teeny tiny shards of clay shrapnel embedded in the glaze at the bottom of small cups were the giveaway. Shit.
Looking around the burner ports on the bottom, I could see larger shards of Temmoku-glazed clay that didn't belong there. As firing partner Kim Medeiros and I worked our way down through the stack, I knew something bad was waiting at the bottom. There were ten mugs down there, among other pots, mugs in a color combination that two weeks ago became very popular due to a random Facebook photo I posted. I had several people from the UK to Maryland waiting for one or more of those mugs. They'll have to wait longer. When we got to the bottom shelf, it was clear that every last mug had been hit by a shower of small bits of clay when a small vase blew up. These things happen, though rarely in the glaze firing. Shit ... again.
OK, enough about that. There were good pots in the kiln, in addition to the shrapneled mugs. (Did you know the word "shrapnel" came from the British General Henry Shrapnel, who invented a kind of fragmenting artillery shell in the early 19th century? I didn't ... ) I've been making cut-sided pinched cups lately and there were many of them that survived the clay artillery. And there were many good bowls and pitchers and vases and a couple of terrific pots from the ongoing collaboration between Kim and me. I'll attach a few photos for you, though none will be of the ill-fated mugs.
Here you go. Top: One of our collaborative pots, thrown by me at Kim's studio and then altered and decorated by Kim; a mug, pither and cut-sided cup glazed in Temmoku and then dipped in Michael Coffee's Nuka glaze; a group of small vases; a dozen of the 30 small pinched cups that were in this firing.

First finished collaborative pot

Kimberly Sheerin Medeiros and I have been collaborating on pots for the past few months. Kim is a master carver and decorator and I just throw and glaze pots. So I've been giving her leather-hard jars, large and small, and she's been working on them in her studio at The Barn Pottery in Pocasset. She fired yesterday and today the first finished pot of this joint effort came out of the kiln. That's my partner Kim with the pot in the top photo. It's a lovely vase with a combination of overlapped glazes on the uncarved parts and iron oxide wash on the carvings.
The first of many, we hope. And we're both particularly excited to see what will come of this collaboration when our wood kiln is built, with luck some time late this spring.
My role, by the way, aside from throwing the raw material for her decoration, is to take her carved and slipped cups and mugs and glaze them with overlapped Shino and other glazes. That's still to come, with luck in a bit more than two weeks. I have her pots here now, but we're headed off to palm trees and sunshine for about ten days. I'll get back to work in the second week of March.
The photos: Kim in her studio with our first pot; another carved jar, used this time to roll impressions into roughly square slab plates. Much more to come.

Slowly focusing kiln design ideas

Dan Finnegan flew from Boston last week, leaving Kim Medeiros and me here on Cape Cod, contemplating the kiln design discussion we had with him over 48 hours. (Oh, and we had a pretty damn good vegetarian potluck dinner party here with a number of local potters, many of them already FOFs ... Friends of Finnegan.)
Kim and I were left with some immediate homework: First, find wood. I mean, it seems like a given, but finding appropriate fuel for the kiln is a fairly crucial first step. Fortunately, I've lived here long enough to know the kind of people who know those kinds of people. That means we've got a line of a couple of sawmills not far from the Cape who create lots and lots of pine offcuts. OK, that's a start.
We also need the shelves around which the kiln will be built. Our initial decision is to use 14x28-inch shelves, configured to basically create a square and, vertically, a cube. We know we can buy the shelves new, but we're on the lookout for used silicon carbide. Anyone know of any? We'll travel to pick up, within reason. Lemme know.
The same goes for brick. I have about 800 used soft and hard brick, but we think most of the hard brick will go into the chimney. Again, we'll probably buy new, but are not averse to saving money. Lemme know.
After talking kiln with Dan for about two days, what we came up with - perhaps not remarkably - will look a lot like a single-chamber version of his two-chamber kiln outside Fredericksburg. A photo of that kiln is attached, as is one of Dan in consult mode. Dan led us through options for capacity, arch, firebox, etc. and something like this really seems to do what we want it to. Big enough to fire with others, not so big that one or the other of us couldn't do a single big firing if need be.
So, we're on the trail of all the details that need to be done before the planned June start date. Anyone who has advice, feel free.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Dee and I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and happy holidays of all kinds. Through this blog and through the Hatchville Pottery Facebook page, we have friends on almost every continent. (Any potters active in Antarctica?) That kind of connection is a real blessing. We know the joy and pain of many of those friends, and we know the great pots many of them are producing. I love that.
Many people around me and friends my age are retired or thinking about retirement, and I am often asked, "So, is this pottery a retirement thing that you do?" To which I do not usually have a civil answer.
For the past decade or more, pottery has been the next thing I do, not the retirement thing I do.
I think I keep getting better, making better pots, more interesting pots, more complex pots. Why would I not want to keep doing that? And replace it with what?
This year, I started serving on the board of directors of The Studio Potter, a good and serious-minded hard-copy pottery magazine struggling to find subscribers in a digital world. I'm very new and at times very much trying to catch up with the others on the board. But I've made new friends and connections I'd never have made without the magazine. And maybe I can help.
And this year I talked my a-little-bit-reluctant friend Kim Medeiros of The Barn Pottery in Pocasset into a weekend woodfiring at the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill. She got great pots from the train kiln there by the ocean, pots that I personally thought were the best that came from that firing. And she fell in love with wood. Friend Dan Finnegan of Fredericksburg, Va., is coming here in a couple of weeks to talk about guiding the two of us through the building of our own wood kiln in the spring.
Our holiday kiln-opening and open studio was busier than ever; Kim, Lois Hirshberg and I sold more pots than ever before. Kim and I sold many pots right out of the warm kiln. Much jewelry, blown glass, coffee and paper goods went out the door, as well.
With luck, this winter we'll add studio and gallery space to the front of my current studio here in Hatchville. Our friend Mike Race, known by some of you, will do the building. More room for good pots.
Things keep changing and growing around here. Hoping it stays that way for many years.
Happy Holidays, everyone.

The photos: Our gallery, in a snowstorm a year or two ago, the photo used in a recent e-mail greeting from The Studio Potter magazine; one of my bowls from the Truro wood kiln; and one of Kim's pots from the Truro kiln, a pot that now lives comfortably here on a kitchen shelf with Ray Finch, Dan Finnegan, Doug Fitch and Hannah McAndrew.

Your formal invitation

Sometimes people around Cape Cod ask me what they have to do to get an invitation to our annual open studio/kiln-opening. What, you've been staying away for the past eight years because I didn't call you?
OK, for those of you who read the blog, here it is. For the rest of you who read the local Falmouth Enterprise, it will be in the paper. For those of you on Facebook, it's there, too. No one is excluded. Come one, come all ... a free handmade eggnog cup to the first 25 people who show up Saturday morning (and half of them this year were made by Kim Medeiros, so you'll be getting a bargain). Kiln-opening at 11 Saturday morning, chile dogs for as long as they last at 1.
And we'll all be here Sunday from 11 to 4 for those who can't make it Saturday. Pots by Hollis, Kim, Lois Hirshberg; glass by Bryan Randa; cards and notebooks and other stuff by Ruth Bleakley (who also did our poster); fresh-roasted coffee by Mike Race; jewelry by Kim Collins.
Photos: Our Ruth Bleakley-designed email card and poster; potter Kim Medeiros of The Barn Pottery and her daughter (and a pretty good thrower already) Phoebe after unloading this week's firing here.

Opened the kiln today

We're preparing here for our annual holiday open house/open studio/kiln-opening creative extravaganza. It happens Saturday, Dec. 15 and Sunday, Dec. 16. I'll fire another load of pots Friday and open it Saturday morning at 11 to what has become quite a crowd of spectators.
Kimberly Sheerin Medeiros (of The Barn Pottery in Pocasset) and I shared the kiln I fired yesterday and we'll do the same next Friday. She's appearing here for the first time with the regular group of exhibiting makers. Kim was also responsible for connecting us to Cape Cod View magazine a few months ago, resulting in a lead story about our holiday show, in the current issue. We certainly owe her thanks for that, and it will be great to have her pots here with the other clay, glass, beads, paper and coffee on sale.
Yesterday's firing had all the giveaway eggnog cups in it. I like to have them on hand here for the first 25 people to choose when they arrive before the kiln-opening. Kim offered to do half the cups and I happily agreed. True to her style, she's made lovely, colorful and highly-decorated work and I suspect people will fall all over each other trying to get to her cups.
I'll attach a few photos of the pots that came out of the kiln today. Lots of overlapped Shinos and ash glazes, fat round jars with stone wedged into the clay, many nog cups. And there should be some good things in Friday's firing. Please join us if you can get to Cape Cod, or if you're already on Cape Cod.
The photos: Top, the eggnog cups for the first 25 visitors this weekend, Kim Medeiros's work in the foreground; three fat little Shino and ash vases; two Shino mugs, two amber ash over crackle slip; big Shino jar.

Wood Pots, Part Deux ...

I'm posting a few more good pots from the weekend's Truro woodfiring. And I urge any of you Facebook users to keep an eye on Kimberly Sheerin Medeiros's "The Barn Pottery" Facebook page over the next few days. She was here today and I photographed about 20 of her pots for her. Kim does a lot of sliptrailing and decoration on her pots and they took very well to the Castle Hill kiln. They're worth taking a look at.

Now, on to my pots. At top: Brian Taylor, ceramics director at Truro Center for the Arts and the guy who guides the firing, unloading; a fully-blasted vase, fired right in the firebox; a transparent celadon/Shino vase; very small faceted cup; a lovely little cup, traded away to Kim Medeiros for one of her tumblers. An even trade, I think.

More from the Cape Cod View article

The magazine chose to feature glassblower Bryan Randa, paper artist Ruth Bleakley and fellow potter Kim Medeiros in sidebars that went with the main story of our holiday kiln-opening and sale. Bryan and Ruth have been with us for several years; Kim joins us for the first time this year. Also involved in the event, and mentioned in the magazine, are jewelry-maker Kim Collins, raku potter Lois Hirshberg, coffee-roaster Mike Race and possibly potter Angela Rose. And I neglected yesterday to credit the great maker portraits in the piece. Christine Hochkeppel of Cape Cod Media Group did the photography, and she did a great job.http://www.capecodview.net/this-issue.html

The first Falmouth potter's market

This past weekend, the Falmouth Art Center hosted not only the opening of "Art of Clay: Function and Beyond," but also a two-day pottery market on the green lawn behind the center. Eight potters, most of us from the Upper Cape, set up our tents and tables, sold pots and demonstrated throwing and handbuilding. We were joined also by students from the pottery program at Falmouth High School. It would not be accurate to say that "crowds" turned out, but we had a steady flow of local folks who often bought pots. 

The rain didn't come until nearly closing time on Sunday, so we were lucky with the weather. 

The weekend's pottery activity is a kind of subtle kickoff for the art center's proposed ceramics program, tentatively scheduled to get going by next summer. The five-year-old building is about to get an elevator, which will allow classroom and studio space to be established in the spacious basement (where the potters will live) and the extensive second floor. I think we Falmouth potters are excited for both the teaching opportunities in the clay program and the chance to continue to build a clay-literate community here. I am, anyway.

Much of the credit for the success of this weekend's lobby show as well as the pottery market goes to Falmouth potter Sue Wadoski and her potter daughter Sarah Caruso. Each was a cheerful and persistent worker from the first concept of the show last winter. We all benefited from their effort.

Next up for me is the OysterFest in Wellfleet, this coming weekend. The crazy and crowded event happens every year just after Columbus Day. This year, I have a Studio Potter magazine meeting scheduled for Saturday in Boston, the same as the first day of the OysterFest. A friend, Dafney Shufelt, has offered to tent-sit for me Saturday, so I won't actually be on the Wellfleet premises until Sunday. It's going to be an early and looonnnnggg Saturday, since I have to set up the tent and pots around dawn and then hit the highway for the Boston meeting. Not looking forward to it.

OK, here are some photos from the weekend: Top, Kim Medeiros of The Barn Pottery in Pocasset at work during her demo session at the wheel; next, Denny Howard of Howard Pottery in Sagamore deep into his pot; the view to the west from my booth.

New pots from Thursday's firing

It's always startling for me to see Kim Medeiros's pots in my kiln, next to the rough, cut teabowls I've been making the past several months. Kim, who owns The Barn Pottery in Pocasset, spends a lot of time on slip-trailing, sgraffito and very particular glazing of her pots. It shows in her work's color and precision, whereas I dip and pour and spatter on my pots. And she loves those jewel colors, which are so not carbon-trap Shino and ash. So when I open the kiln after firing, as I did this morning, there's always a contrast between her work and mine, as you can see in the top photos. I love that.

She was happy with her pots this morning, and I was happy with most of mine. I've still got problems to work out. More about that in another post, I guess.

Meanwhile, another dozen or so big teabowls came out of this firing, layered in Shinos, ash celadon, copper red and Oribe. The faceting of the pots early in the throwing process, then the pushing out of the bowl shape torques the walls, thins them, sometimes breaks them mid-wall or at the rim. I patch these pots and get on with it. They're going to remain rough and imprecise right through the glaze firing, so I'm not concerned with symmetry or exactitude. Good thing.

There were also, as you can see, some simple squared vases with added lugs, glazed more or less as I glaze the teabowls.

Two very different styles of pottery ...

I wanted to fire this week to get more inventory for the three-day Chatham Creative Arts Center show down at the elbow of the Cape. And Kim Medeiros of The Barn Pottery in Pocasset had some pots she wanted to get in, so we shared space in the gas kiln yesterday.
Two more different styles of pot would be hard to find in one firing.
I often kid Kim that she makes "girly pots" - non-Shino non-Temmoku colors (Wow! Color!) and slips and drawings of women. She takes it well. But she does in fact make lovely pots that work very well with what for me would be scary reds and blues. It taxes my color-avoidance attitude to sneak in a splash of copper red or Oribe onto a layered Shino. I do it, but it's frightening.
So, while my Shinos and ash glazes were layered randomly on top of each other - occasional glaze spitting out onto the shelf, ash glaze running off the pot, darkness vying with darkness on extremely rough faceted teabowls - Kim's blues and reds were starting to sparkle on the back shelf. The glazes may say something about my occasionally dark disposition and her own indomitable sunny nature.
In any case, I think we're both happy with the firing. Amazing that pots so different from each other can work well together at Cone 10.