Under Fired

Just before, actually the day before the gallery opening, I got a substantial quantity of stuff from the kiln. Unfortunately about half of this stuff was under fired. It was like a sucker punch to my stomach, but I dealt with it ,I had to. In addition to this I extensively used a newly made batch of a glaze called shiro matto that I've often used in the past. I had always used it in reduction, this time I used an oxidation firing to try to speed things up but what I got was instead was totally unrecognizable, and in some cases under fired! ugh! Sho ga nai as they say over here... Again, nothing I could do about it, had to take it in stride, but I can say it had a demoralizing affect on my emotions during the gallery. I know that this is only the result of my expectations. Most of this work sold actually. Outside of my own thought processes there were no expectations for color texture, or design, perhaps other than a reasonable level of expectation concerning quality. It makes me wonder, how do you balance your own desires and artistic vision with that of the public to which you are totally unknown, and who have no expectations of you? In other words... How do you know what is crap?

Kudo san

Takano san

The Moment Has Arrived

Here are some pictures from the gallery, It's actually over now, and though it was unbelievably stressful in ways that I was unprepared for it was still a success, but I can say I am really glad it's over.

The show was called san-nin or the "the 3 amigos" the first picture is of an amigo you might recognize, standing in front of his work, next is a better picture of said work, followed by pictures of the tables containing the work of the other two amigos. First, Kudo san the real star of the show, and an outstanding potter. And secondly, Takano san my Sensei, and a real rock, although our communication is limited, she really helped me to get through my anxiety during the show.

Urawa Reds

Went and saw a Reds soccer game on Saturday, it was really nice, me and sensei and a couple of other characters... the Reds lost really badly to Yokohama whose fans seemed elated and overjoyed some of them even taking their shirts off in the freezing weather.

Getting set up

Well Sunday we went and started setting up. I have to admit I was stressed out! Maybe I'm crazy, I should be enjoying this, but I was stressed mainly because I see the flaws in my work very acutely. I also am dealing with cultural and language barriers that make me more likely to feel unsure in these kinds of situations. Anyways , enough about all that...

Yunomi

A small sized cup for drinking tea, here is an attempt at a very ubiquitous cup. I don't think I like it to be honest, I think the shape of the lines are not strong enough, and the iron oxide is kind of blase. I'm debating whether or not to put them in the gallery, there's 5 of them. One of my first sets of 5 things.

Pink

I like pink. It's an unusual color in pottery I think, this was created by mixing a pink under glaze with Shiro-Matto free hand and then I painted it on, several coats because Shiro-Matto turns a chocolaty brown if it's applied thin. The first two pictures are of the same cup, its supposed to be Sakura, aka cherry blossoms. That last cup is part of a pair set, the bump was just something I was playing with, I've used it again on a 5 set of beer mugs that I think I've already shown on the blog because my Sensei said she liked it. I think she has good taste.

White Slip, part two....

Here is the white slip I've been using at the studio at the finished stage. I think it looks very cool, I know it's my personal taste, but that's what counts the most. What do you guys out there think? Strangely, this pot looks small because of the way I'm holding it in the picture, it's actually kind of big, like about the size of a fish bowl, or a fruit bowl. As you can see though, from the bottom pictures, the glaze has a problem, it crawled!!! WTF After I got it back my Sensei told me this particular glaze is pron to do this... Wow, crap I used it on a set of real nice coffee mugs as well, (sigh) I think they'll be coming back from the kiln tomorrow. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed till tomorrow.

Water and Gravity!

Not a good combination... I lost this pitcher due the the overabundance of both... no big deal, the clay would live again as a different pitcher.