The Huge Bowl Belly Flipper

The rains are here. That deep, thick and warm heavy rain arrived tonight. I was outside loading my bike trailer with pottery and display elements when it started lightly and then began to really roar. An invisible flock of Canada Geese hooted and honked over our neighbourhood. The darkness swallowed their bird outlines but the noise made me stop loading the kiln and strain in the dark rain to see them.

The small kiln named Sputnik II, put in another fine firing and I was there just in time to watch the kiln sitter trip. I unloaded her and was stunned at how little work actually fits inside now that I am used to the new big kiln. I unloaded the big (yet unnamed) kiln of a bisque load on Wednesday, and counted up the pots to find that it was the largest firing yet topping out at 100 pots. The extra top shelf covered in lids and tiny bowls brought the number to a new record.

I actually have a log book of every firing and the number of pots in each, running back through the past a few years! Now that's organized....or anal but I hate that term as Freud was a cocaine drinking moron who I was forced to study during my BSc in Psychology. I also hated the statistics course that I had to take.....it seemed that the take home message was that a good number cruncher could fornicate any numerical data into whatever the people paying for the results wanted to see..... but I digress.

The shelves are starting to feel a little better. I lost a mug to the kiln a couple of nights ago but it will end up with a pretty little strawberry geranium in it and find a new life that way at my SOLO SHOW that is a month away!!!!!!!!!

The wet shelving is full with a new group of huge bowls that were thrown from 5 kilograms (about 11pounds for you yankees, haha) and they are really tricky to dry out because at some point they must be inverted once the lip is able to withstand the weight of the whole bowl. It works best to have a board ready and then hold the board and bowl together against your belly, then you hug the huge bowl towards yourself until the board can be taken out from under it and the bottom of the bowl ends up right against your belly. Then you carefully get the board ready and lay it on the lip of the bowl and holding the bowl against your body and then switch both hands to the top board. Bend your body forward until the weight comes into the board.

You might be trying to imagine this odd manoeuvre and wonder why it needs to be done this way.

A few reasons pop to mind, when I ask the amazing Dave to help with those huge bowls he starts to sweat and run away as he imagines the bowl hitting the floor and me going bananas. Also, the other reason relates to the wet weight of the bowl is too much for one hand to be under the board.

In closing, I will just say that I flip huge bowls like this all the time and if you see me walking around with a huge dried clay circle on my shirt you will now know what I have been working on.

Some days it is work

Today it feels like work. I got up and loaded the kiln with almost everything that I glazed yesterday and started it firing early in the day so that the sound of the down-draft kiln sucker wouldn't keep Dave awake. I reclaimed the usual bucket of scraps and sludge from the day before and wedged it into balls with some slightly stiff clay out of the box. I built three larger teapots up and squirted black clay slip onto one of them, carved the wild pattern into another and made tiny "dot flowers" on the third.

I made lunch for Dave and his buddy and then was back to work with the wedging and throwing of some mugs which didn't last long because the clay was a little too wet leaving a little too much clay lower in the pot, a rookie problem which results in heavy bottoms and lots of trimming.

I rode into town on the bike and went to the grocery store to get some more food and checked on my mugs at Coffee on the Moon. I hauled the food back up Sherman Road and made the boys beef dip and a veggie burger for myself.

Then it was back downstairs for some more clay time before I take a little time to update people on all the preparation I have been doing for the christmas season and my Solo Show. I am going to get some sleep and then I want to take in the show at the local "Cowichan Valley Arts Council" storefront where Cathi Jeferson has her huge pieces installed for this month. It would appear from the note on the door that the Council is unable to continue to rent the space and will discontinue doing so. More on possible solutions in a future blog. For now, I am off to bed and hopefully the clay I wedged and bagged today will be a little stiffer so I can throw it into mugs and berry bowls in the morning. Night all.

Mary Fox Discussion Group

It was a beautiful Island afternoon with the warm moist air surrounding me as I checked the tire pressure on my bike and then went inside to close the plastic sheeting that surrounds my wet work shelving, not that my pots would dry out too much while I was away for a few hours. I had no idea what to expect once I got to Ladysmith and finally met the infamous Mary Fox.

I have been a potter-for-a-living for the last four and a half years and have run into all sorts of potters from all walks of life with varying levels of, shall we say, interpersonal skills. I was told that the "club" in my area was not running this year, that they were not accepting new members and a few months later that they don't allow new potters into their show because I would have had to be a member all year to join the show. (pause) I also had a potter stop what she was doing in the gallery she belongs to and look me straight in the eye and tell me that she was just sure she had seen a pot of mine in a thrift store!! I turned and walked away quickly to avoid further ugliness.

So you can understand my trepidation with the 27km bike trip to meet Mary and a few others with clay under their proverbial fingernails!

The ride was perfect, no flat tires, despite the broken glass along the highway, meant that I arrived as planned about 15 minutes before the 1pm discussion was to start. Mary was alerted to my arrival by a beautiful small, white dog named Judy who I soon found out, had a wonderful little bunk-bed right beside the wheel close enough to get clay splatter on her! Mary opened the door and welcomed me in with a wide smile and assumed I was there for the clay chat despite my neon yellow cycling jacket, helmet and gloves. I was immediately put at ease and I knew this afternoon would be spent among friends.

As I gobbled up the most beautiful studio space I had ever been in, I bent over to realize that she actually had so many finished pots that they filled every carefully designed drawer at the bottom of each shelf. Stunned at the sheer volume of work that was there I heard Mary say to the next people who came, Joe and Pam, that we were going to sit outside and have a fire with our discussion so we all wandered through the throwing studio and into the courtyard in the back to find a tiny fire pit made out of a few refractory bricks.

The preliminary discussions of how we were all related to clay began straight away and I was amazed to meet two people who actually work on the same pots! No one comes into my studio without a few days warning and for a short lesson only. Valerie and Rose-Lynn came in next and we all found a seat around the fire and started to chat openly about clay, art, getting an art education, the current clay art we are seeing in galleries, the craft and the endless work that is clay and many other strands of conversation that are too numerous to mention. Sharron joined us after a long drive up Island and brought some photos of her many wonderful clay works, she also added to the conversations about an "Art" education having recently finished her own adult studies.

The major questions about life as a working potter were fielded by Mary but she is so comfortable with her life's work that she is not defensive about being the source of all information. She has spent a few lifetimes already learning about her decorative lithium and copper glaze that, in all it's outer beauty, seems to have been born in a completely different time and galaxy and in order to work with it at all she has had to learn a whole different language just to ask it a question. Now, anyone who has made a few glazes from scratch, knows that there is a certain amount of magic put in the tub with the kaolin, but the work she has done developing this unique line of decorative pieces deserves a medal (or metal, hahaha, you decide)

The special beauty of this discussion group is that we weren't trying to DO anything, we weren't planning a show or working out a teaching or firing schedule, we weren't trying to jury a new show or gallery hanging, we were just there to talk. It was an amazing break from the endless hours that most of us spend alone in the studio working without time parameters (except the number of hours to the kiln finishing) or days of the week (except for the number of days until our respective studio sales) We were able to talk and listen with respect for each other and the clay so everyone seemed to feel safe and open, the way I would imagine the clay workers would have been a hundred years ago as they loaded a huge beehive kiln with the season's work they had all made together.

I have searched long and far for a safe place to talk and listen about the life I have chosen, without commitments towards how many pieces I will have ready for this event or that one, just an afternoon out of the studio with people who share some of my love of/obsession with clay and after quite a few attempts where I was not quite able to relate to others, at Mary's I felt relaxed and at home, as though I could just as easily have put down that trimming tool and stood up to answer the door or go get girl guide cookies for everyone.

As I rode the 27km home to Duncan, I am totally sure that I was glowing with potter's conviction, that I was truly on the right track for myself because other people were able to do this work and survive in today's world full of mortgage payments and walmart.
Now, a few days later I am on the back porch of my home with a group of "just the right moisture to trim" ovalated baking dishes calling my name and the bottom of my favorite coffee mug showing, and the sun is shining on my hands, and it just struck me. The clay conversation group at Mary Fox's studio is kind of like plugging in to a solar charger for your pottery batteries, it was a welcome break from the studio but also a good charging up that only a common purpose and true kinship can give you. As potters we get used to, and have clearly chosen, a life full of vague discomfort, from the long hours of work to the many stools that we have tried until we find one that is just right (usually with our own adjustments however barbaric) and to find a place and time with such comfort and rejuvenation was, almost...indescribable. But, I tried.