Pictures of Pitchers

This was one of the first salt glazed pitchers I made in grad school. The handle attachment was so weak, so tentative... it is hard to look at now. It was sprayed with a wollastonite slip, then poured the inside with a tenmoku glaze, and then once fired in the salt kiln. I had high hopes that it would turn out this luscious buff yellow. Didnt quite work out.

This pitcher was made for me by Dave Funk. I love the thick salted surface! Rich and melty. Almost like flowing chocolate! Dave's handle attachment was so much more confident than mine, it inspired me to take bigger risks and to really seek out a way of creating handles that were uniquely mine. Took a long while to get there, but I think in the end, they definitely felt very different. I'll have to dig up some of those pitchers from Cold Springs Studio sometime.

Talking About Body Parts and Clay Bodies

This handbuilt mug was made as a demo for John Neely's beginning handbuilding class. During my third year at Utah State, I began teaching the beginner's handbuilding class. Having spent the bulk of 15 years as a strictly wheel throwing potter, this was quite a change for me. As a way of kick starting my teaching process, I had watched John Neely and Jason Hess as they taught their respective handbuilding classes for nearly two years.

This mug turned out nicely ovoid, with a very nice softened lip. The handle fits sweetly into the hand. The texture and the edge finishing was all done through a bed sheet laid on the soft slab. It is a perfect example of knowing what can be done to the clay at the early soft stages. The seam was beveled while the clay was still wet, allowing the whole form to be completed in one session. For students just beginning to work in soft slabs, this was eye opening. For me... it was the start of me thinking about clay very differently.

One of the most interesting aspects of being in a large graduate program was the exposure to so many different style of working, including many MANY different claybodies. John Neely had been working on a couple different woodfired claybodies that had wondefully bizarre names like Pioneer Day. Usually there was some play on words (or holidays as the case may be), and usually referred to some component of the claybody. Many of these claybodies were designed for a specific type of work or firing style: ie, reduction cool, woodfiring in the Train Kiln, or the salt kiln. 

In my second year, I spent the bulk of the year experimenting with glazed surfaces in the salt and soda kilns. I had been trying to find a white stoneware body which would give me some clay body color other than grey in the salt kiln. I wanted a dense white tight clay body which would allow my glazes to show up bright and strong. John made many suggestions and eventually I created this particular body, which used Helmer Kaolin as one of the primary clay components. It was buttery smooth when throwing, took handles well, was very dense when fired. All in all, it was a nice claybody. When I showed my students the claybody, with the forms all flipped over so they could see the wadding marks and flashing on the bottoms of the pots, one student made a comment about the flesh colored quality of the claybody... saying that the bowl looked very flesh, almost breast-like. I chuckled and named the claybody: Neely's Nipple. Mind you, I didn't advertise the claybody this way. But when I saw other students mixing up the claybody later on, I had to laugh just a little.

Gnarly CRUNCH!

Just posting a few more images of the pots I uncovered after unpacking those crates that had been buried on my front porch for the past decade.  Considering that this first image is of a whiskey cup (or sake if you prefer) from John Neely, and is quite small, you can tell that the clay is groggy beyond words! It is more like stone or asphalt. Rough and gnarly! This one was fired in a reduction cooling kiln.

This is a woodfired mug, by Jason Hess, woodfirer extraordinaire. This mug came out of a firing where Jason was testing out new wood for the woodkiln. He'd been firing with cottonwood for a while, but the firing crew was seeing weird blue drips on the underside of the kiln shelves post-firing... so they switched to firing scrap wood from this building site... so suddenly there was oak and pine aplenty, which completely changed the color response from the claybody.

No More Mac & Cheese

When I first made this casserole, I had never joined a thrown form to a slab successfully. Most of the time, I could be assured that there would be some cracking; either an S-crack in the middle or a crack along the seam where the thrown cylinder joined the slab. After trying all sorts of solutions, I tried just dropping the freshly thrown cylinder on the wet slab and leaving them to dry together before doing anything.... and lo-and-behold... it worked. These forms would later morph into my oval baking dishes and my oval pitchers and my oval vase forms.

This is a very used casserole. It was woodfired, with only a liner glaze on the inside. It has seen mostly mac and cheese in its day. Now that I no longer consume pasta and cheese with regularity, it is time for this handsome casserole to find a new home. I give no guarantees about it lasting another decade or two, going in and out of an oven and all the temperature extremes. So far, it has been very accommodating of thermal shock. I would imagine, if you continued baking with it, and NOT preheating the oven, it would last quite a long while still.

This casserole is up for grabs. Pay the postage on it, or come pick it up.

Should've Taken Better Notes

I feel like a failure. I look at these pots and I remember the faces that made them, but the names escape me. I think the small mug above was made by Wil Shykaruk from Canada, but it doesn't have his usual chop.  The rest of the pots in this post are anonymous.

This pot has found a new home. YAY!

 The last image is of the very first cup I ever purchased.  My girlfriend at the time, Jen, found it for me in a gallery in Port Townsend. She wanted me to make work like this. Yeah. Not so much.

All of these pots need to find new homes. Prefer local adopters, but if you want to pay USPS or FedEx to get it home, we can arrange for that too.

Other Pots From Our Collection

This mug is one of Jason Walker's from back when we were in school together at Utah State in Logan. This is one of the most amazing examples of freehand brushwork I have ever seen. If I remember right, Jason was working for a sign-painter doing hand-painted signs. What a way to learn the skill of the brush! Inside, where the lens couldn't quite see, is a stunning penguin, staring up from the last bits of my morning's green tea.

Thinking Back

When I arrived in the town of Logan, back in 1995, I had no idea what grad school would be like. Sure, I had my preconceived notions, but no real clue. Something about the sharp slightly dusty smell that fall carries with it, reminds me of that time in UT. (probably because it is never really that arid here!)

These were pots made by fellow students when I was at Utah State during grad school. I wish I could tell yo more about these pots. USU's program was pretty large and the volume of students who moved through every year was massive. I feel negligent for having not kept in touch with many of my fellow alumns. I guess that is my take-away from this week. Quasi-nostalgia for a difficult time in my life, when the pots were the greatest reward. I don't think I would recognize the face of my next-door neighbor of four years (from UT) if I saw them on the street... but I would never forget these cool pots!

Dried Up Toothpaste, in Bed (from Glaze Tectonics)

This was another one of those massively wide-lipped platters. Because that rim is actually hollow, it is one of the lighter platters I made. Probably only 15" in diameter, it is a good five pounds lighter than a platter of a "normal" rim.

The inside of this platter was originally supposed to be bright fire-engine red...and crunchy! I think in my hurry to get things ready for this firing, I cut back on my thoroughness in the glaze lab, and didn't mix this glaze as thoroughly as was needed. My guess is that the lead frit in this glaze simple settled in the slurry.

In the end, it is certainly not what I expected, but it also has intriguing aspects. And it does really resemble dried up toothpaste, in bed.

Like what you're seeing here? Check out GLAZE TECTONICS. All platters, all the time. More images, more details, and lots more information about the making of this body of work.

Getting Ready for Lemonade Season

This lovely pitcher holds the better part of a gallon of lemonade and was made by Neil Estrick back when were in grad school at Utah State. Wood fired with lots of drippy ash on one side and nice toasty fly-ash on the other side. Love that nice thick handle. Seems to give it just the right amount of lift and strength.

I am really looking forward to parties outside on the lawn this summer, with lots of tea and lemonade from all of our pitchers! (Might be time to stock up on some tumblers though)

Much Too Much

23098A, Too Much is Too Much, 1998, 20" diameter
$1800, available

No, these are not craters on the moon.



No, this is not some primordial fungus.



This is not some refrigerator leftovers run amok.



This is what happens, when night after night, month after month, you try... desperately hard... to keep track of all the crazy ideas for glazes. And then suddenly you realize that you simply cannot add twelve different glazes over and under one another, without suffering the consequences.
And here they are. In all their sunburned glory. Much too much.

Looking Down on the Last Gasp of a Poison Lake - 122198I

122198I, Looking Down on the Last Gasp of a Poison Lake,
17" diameter, $900, available

This was one of those platters that came into being, despite all my best intentions. It was never supposed to look like this. I have never been more glad to be disappointed. This particular combination of glazes was very susceptible to the phenomenon brought on by very slow cooling cycles. Due to the heavy load that I typically fired with, the cooling cycles were measured in days, not hours. In this firing there was over 900 pounds of brick in the stack, and over 600 pounds of shelves. That is a lot of refractory to heat and then to HOLD that heat! This firing took over 3 days to cool below 400F.

One of the things that I was made aware of while living in Utah, was the sad state of environmental responsibility within the department of mining (and reclamation). Yep, that's part of their name. I think all it really means is that they are supposed to put the dirt back in the same (or similar) hole that they dug it out of. It just doesn't work out that way.

I took the long way home once, through Montana, and stopped alongside the huge tailings from the Anaconda Copper Mine. These black sandy hills go on for a long long while. At the time, I had no idea about what was happening in terms of toxic effluent coming from the mine, or the bird kills that happened every winter (thousands of migrating birds die here, year after year)... all I knew was that they mined copper there.

When I got home to Utah, I read my first article talking about the toxins released into the waters that have flooded this mining site. Contaminated with everything from arsenic to selenium, the water is so acidic that it burns the flesh and feathers of anything it touches, essentially dooming any bird or animal who happens upon it. Bear in mind, this is in Montana... and a part of the state that isn't inundated with lakes and rivers. To say that it is dry would be an understatement. This man-made lake must seem an oasis to wildlife... and instead it is poison.

In essence, that is what drove the creation of a few of these particular platters...

Wracking My Mind, and Still - Nothing Comes Out

9298H - untitled, 1998, $700

This platter has some of the most amazing crystal growth I have ever seen. Almost like layers of ice built up, or salt accumulating in a salt-pan. You can see individual crystals starting in one spot and then growing into a mat of smooth pale crystals. The rich saturated yellow-orange glaze, crackled and ripped open is so striking.

Glaze Tectonics - 22698C - Many Worlds in One

22698C - Many World in One, ©1998
still available for purchase, $900

Glaze Tectonics - 11298A- untitled

11298A, untitled, made at Utah State University while I was in grad school, 1997-98©
still available for purchase