Glaze Tectonics has a new home

I have created a new blog where I can post lots and lots of images from the Glaze Tectonics series. Hopefully this will be a more stable platform than what I was using with Wordpress. Comments, questions and inquiries are welcome.

http://glazetectonics.blogspot.com/

Where Did Glaze Tectonics Go?

I've had quite a few people asking where the Glaze Tectonics blog has gone. All those beautiful platters didn't suddenly up and vanish. No one bought them all (oh wouldn't that have been amazing!?!). Nope. Instead the answer is far more prosaic.

The blog was hosted through www.coldspringsstudio.com. My old studio domain. When we decided that keeping that domain was kinda silly, and expensive, we turned it off without a second thought. Unfortunately, that second thought knocked Glaze Tectonics off the face of the internet.

In a hurried rush to be efficient, we lost over a year of work on a pretty amazing blog. Lots of fantastic images... stories,... ideas.... all of it went POOOF!

Now I think I will try again... only this time design a blog for the platters via Blogger. Keep it fairly simple and go from there. As soon as it is ready for prime-time, I'll announce it here as well.

New Woodfired Pots by Cary Joseph

It was very exciting getting to shoot Cary Joseph's new work. The range of color coming out of the anagama in Corning, NY is astonishing. There are times where I really wish I still made pots just so I could get a few into these woodfirings. I miss the lovely path of flame over the clay's surface. Cary manages to really push his clay to the limit, giving it more of a stony leathery texture. The ash and flashing LOVE this surface.  

Cream and Sugar

Four years ago, Nancy and I had huge ideas about how we wanted to make a cream and sugar set. Even got so far as to make a little prototype. Time passed, things happened, and it never got made.

Fast forward to this Christmas, and we found this cute cream and sugar set at Renata Wadsworth's studio during her holiday sale. I know that for some, the crawling glaze around the edge would be a deal killer, but for me, it is just part of the character of that glaze. I love the stripes! I love the Dr. Seuss-ian knob on the sugar jar. I like the same attention to the handles on the tray.

I just feel good using this set. I think that is what sets good pots apart... if you feel good using it.... that's the key.

Some of Our Pots from Renata's Holiday Sale

We bought so many amazing pots during Renata's holiday sale. Some have been used so often it seems like they live in the dishwasher! Others, like this pitcher are waiting for the first lovely hot spring day when we can make iced tea or lemonade.

This mug has spent most of the past month bringing hot chai or hot chocolate to our lips at least once a day. I was surprised to find it on the shelf tonight... must have just gotten washed! I have more images of some of Renata's mugs coming tomorrow. Along with some of her new ideas for handles!

New Pots from Renata Wadsworth

Renata brought me a box of pots to shoot last week. These were some of the latest pots to come out of her Fast Fire woodkiln. At the beginning of the fall, Renata was having some trees removed on her property when her tree guys dropped a tree onto her kiln's chimney. Didn't quite knock it down, but it put a major twist on it!

She took down the entire chimney during a chilly wet icy rain. After looking at it more critically, she decided to take her flattop/arch down as well. After a few more weeks she had a spiffy new arch and her chimney was back in place and lookin' good. Her firings times have shortened and the pots are looking great! There's even talk of adding some soda ash during the firings. Can't wait to see more!

Wicked Little Vase

When I picked up this little vase back in November, I knew it was coming home with me. Renata Wadsworth's pots are like that. You love them instantaneously. They fit right into your hands... and the last thing you want to do is put them down.

We went to her holiday sale with the intention of picking up a few small pots for family members. By the time we left, we owned 4 more new Renata mugs and quite a few other pots. Enough to need a box and then some. Here's the funny part: the only gifts we gave were two small ornaments. We kept all the pots for ourselves. Is that bad?

Renata is getting ready to explore some new directions in her work this winter. Hopefully I can convince her to write about it on her blog and on Facebook. I think it is going to be amazing! Of course, after the firing, I'll be showing off the pots I come home with, right here.

How Many Potters Does It Take To Make A Mug?

When Nancy and I began making pots together as Cold Springs Studio Pottery, the first order of business was to make mugs for our upcoming wedding. The plan was that we would make the mugs for the reception. We had washing stations so that as folks finished at the reception, they could wash their mugs, and take them with them as wedding gifts fro us.

We had a few glazes that we hoped would work at cone 6 and a kiln that wasn't happy getting that hot. While I could throw the mugs, it wasn't really a group effort... so we decided to handbuild the mugs for the wedding. Aurora was five years old and was trying to figure out her role in the studio. We decided on making soft-slab mugs with impressed/stamped decoration. Each of us designed stamps to decorate with, and chops to indicate who had made what pots. After a couple evenings of making mugs, Aurora went wild on this one, and used everyone's chops AS the decoration. From this angle you can see my AS chop, Nancy's bunny chop, and Aurora's killer whale chop. 

In addition to these handbuilt mugs, we made soupmugs and a few short thrown diner mugs. I think, for our 65 guests, we made a few more than 100 mugs. There were maybe 6 pots left after our wedding.Ten years later, there are only a few of these pots left in our collection. I think two soupmugs have survived the "pre-dishwasher" stage in our house. One of the last diner mugs from this time has a good sized chip in the lip. But this mug soldiers on.

Joy Tanner's Wonderful Tumbler

One of the greatest things about reading blogs is getting to know people from different regions doing different styles of work. I met Joy Tanner through her blog about 4 years ago. I was immediately taken with her deft touch with her carving and her ability to mesh her design sensibilities with her love for atmospheric firings (wood, soda, and salt).

I think one of the things I love so much about this tumbler is the way the flashing from the firing combines
with the layers of sodium vapor glazing, to create layers of texture and color. The subtle greys and rich reds and browns really capture something that a flat, even coat of glaze could never easily accomplish. In the hand, those textures reveal perfect places to put your hands and lips. In short, it makes the use of the tumbler a very engaging experience!

This tumbler made itself at home in our kitchen immediately, though I have to admit, it is almost never in our cupboard. It winds up being constantly in use, so I mostly get to see it as it heads in and out of the dishwasher. My only regret was not buying at least three of them!

Check out Joy Tanner's blog and catch some of her pottery via her online Etsy shop!

Living With Pots

This soup mug was made by Ashley Kim. Not sure if you can make out the detail, but there is a line of red stitching around the waistline of this soup mug. Amazing feel in the hand. The recurved handle fits so incredibly well.  Ashley is having her holiday studio sale right now, so grab some pots before they are gone!

This next mug was made by Lynne Hobaica. My friend Sabra bought it for Aurora when she and I visited the Genessee Pottery in Rochester back at the end of Summer. Fantastic show! Just wish we had been there opening night so we could get more pots!

This last pot is one of my earliest bowls. Probably hadn't made two dozen bowls at this time. I thought of this as a BIG bowl when I made it. I had my daily lunch of ramen noodles in this through my second year of college. It travelled with me across the country so many times. It made the trip to WA state, to Florida, back to MA. Eventually out to UT for a long time. Finally it made it's home back here. The strangest thing about this bowl is its boring color. Honey Clear was a glaze I picked up from Vince Pitelka when I was at UMASS/amherst. It is a very VERY matte magnesium based glaze, but by adding 15% manganese dioxide to the glaze, it becomes a wonderful satin matte, with a gorgeous honey color. It feels almost like silk. Unfortunately the anemic color really killed sales. Nancy says it is quite possibly her least favorite glaze she has ever seen me use.

The other novel thing about this bowl is that is has red slate powder wedged into the claybody. A friend dug some up from the running track at Smith College... in hopes of making an oil spot glaze based on recipes from Nigel Wood. His glazes never worked out, but I used some of his red slate powder in my claybody. Shredded my fingers while trying to throw the stuff. Imagine glass in your claybody... slate is sharper! ouch.