Christmas/Yule decorations now available for sale on Etsy.com

While the snow sifts down like icing sugar from the heavens, I'm tucked away in my cozy office tapping away at the keyboard of my computer.

I've been here pretty much all day - well, I had to step out at 5:00 to go teach a couple of belly dance classes. I got home at 10:00 and settled into some late night dining. I made Butter Chicken earlier - a low fat version - and noshed on that while I answered some long overdue email and chatted with my sweetie.

Now the kitty is in her box, the hubby is in bed snoring and the night owl (yes, that would be me) is still working! I've been on the go all day doing a variety of things, but the most exciting thing is that I've joined Etsy.com where all things are handmade.

I've got visions of Gingerbread men dancing in my head. If you'd like to see my cute inedible Gingerbread men, stars and peacocks, feel free to mosey on over to: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6472762

The night owl is fading.

Hello Out There in TV Land!

Detail - textured white jug. Photo by moi.

I did my first TV interview for a local French television station on Tuesday! Cable access channel 22 in Buckingham, Québec will air the short spot to promote my Holiday Pottery sale (info just below in last week's post) on Thursday evening at 6pm with arts specialist Brigitte Lussier.

By the way, I did not speak in French during this interview. My French isn't very good at all. Michele Pillott, who interviewed me however, said that it was his first interview in English, so that was cool. His English is very good!

6th Annual Holiday Sale!

Yummmmm....gingerbread men! Terracotta clay and white slip "icing."

My goodness! It's been nearly a month since my last post here and it literally feels like yesterday.

Much has happened since - much life that is, not as much pottery as I would have liked to happen. Although I really DO underestimate my powers of creation in the studio, so I shouldn't say that. In fact I have made dozens and dozens (maybe even hundreds!) of Yule decorations that are cooling in the bisque kiln right now along with large serving platters and bowls, small personal bowls and a few projects that my student made. I have more to get cooked waiting on the sidelines for now as they are not quite dry. We're talking lidded serving dishes, folks.

Here's the skinny on my upcoming sale just one week away!! EEEEK!

6th Annual Poterie du Lac la Blanche Holiday Sale!
110 Giroux Pvt, Mayo, QC

Saturday, November 8th and Sunday November 9th
From 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. daily

I’ve been working to create many beautiful pieces for holiday gift-giving,
so whether you’re shopping for loved ones or looking for just the right piece as a holiday treat
for yourself, we hope to see you at our little poterie this fall.

Please join us at
Poterie du Lac la Blanche
110 Giroux Pvt., Mayo, QC
Saturday, November 8th and Sunday, November 9th, 2008
From 11:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. daily
http://www.lablanchepoterie.com/
for directions

Cash and cheques gladly accepted.

Thanks for your support!

It's been awhile.

Yes, it has been awhile. My apologies.

Let me fill you in in why I've been so post-less.

Well, I just needed a good long rest, really. I had my rest in August...if you don't count the day spent in Val-David, packing up my pottery to take home again or the days and days I prepared for a dance workshop at which I taught a drum solo.

Did I mention that I teach belly dance as well as make pots? It's a great job that provides me with a steady income for part of the year. I really love teaching and I love to dance, so what could be better?

Doing both pottery and teaching dance is tiring because they have the same season, which is a lot like a school year.

I begin working in the pottery right after Labour Day.

Belly dance classes begin in the middle of September.

All of the Christmas or fall pottery shows that I'm in this year are over by mid-November.

Some of my classes are done by mid-November but most continue until mid-December.

I get two weeks at the end of each year and two weeks at the beginning of each new year to rest my dance bones. I try to get a leg up on the pots in early January.

From the deepest of winter until spring break I am teaching and potting. Spring break is just one week, but during that week there are no dance classes. I use this week to pot like mad.

Spring to early summer is for potting, dancing and I manage to fit in quite a bit of gardening in too. Flowers make me happy!

My annual summer pottery sale is the weekend nearest to St. Jean Baptiste Day. About one week into July 1001 Pots begins. I'm there opening weekend and I drive to Val-David weekly until mid-August when the exhibition ends.

Pottery making and kiln firing are going on continually from spring break until the 3rd week in July.

So, I've just decided this year, after a terribly unsuccessful string of summer days trying to motivate myself to work, I'll be taking the month of August off. I need to rest, read books, sun bathe, swim, go for walks, eat BBQ, hang out with my cat, weed the garden, sketch the pottery that's been floating around in my head and write new choreographies. And I decided this because I felt completely exhausted when I thought about returning to work right after a quickie 4 day vacation.

I felt guilty for the several false starts with pottery work in August. I felt guilty for not posting here. I prepared well for my dance workshop, but that was all I could manage. I just had to cut myself some slack and realize that I'd been working pretty hard and resting was okay.

I don't just make pottery or show up to teach a class. I have to actively promote my work, be my own secretary, accountant, driver, and manager. I also do heavy lifting, moving, packing and pricing. There are exhibitions, openings and sales to attend. I host and teach two dance workshops each year. There are student recitals and class parties, shows, bazaars, and some workshops and classes where I am the student.

I eased into my time off and re-grouped. It was of great benefit and I felt well rested and ready to get back to work in September.

Since then I have welcomed a pottery student into my wee studio. She is very talented and a really interesting and lovely young woman. I look forward to Saturday mornings with Karine.

I'm currently teaching dance Monday through Thursday in Ottawa at 4 different locations. I teach 8 dance classes each week.

I made a decision yesterday to let one class go, so in 5 weeks I'll be teaching just 7 classes.

I'd been thinking about letting it go for some time and then got an email from my boss saying they're going to cut one of my classes and did I still want to drive out to Nepean to teach for just one hour? Well...no. The cost of gasoline alone eats up 62% of my evening's wage. So this class ends for me in a few short weeks and I'll miss my gals, but this frees up my entire Wednesday. I'm so incredibly happy about this! I desperately need more time with my art.

Here is a picture of a large centrepiece bowl (in the greenware stage) that I finished not too long ago. One of my clients saw it and bought it. Now I just have to bisque it, glaze it and fire it.

Textured bowl sitting on my potter's wheel (in my newly cleaned studio!)

Textured bowl detail

My Babies Are Back

Garden Ladies - from the 1001 Pots exhibition.

My pots are back home! Not all of them, mind you. Some of them went to good homes via 1001 Pots.

The exhibition was rainy and attendance lower than normal so in response 1001 Pots lowered their commission on pieces sold by 2%. It's not a lot, but I think that most other exhibitions wouldn't feel moved to do the same. The weather is uncontrollable, after all.

It's nice to work with a very reasonable and understanding group such as 1001 Pots. After all, Kinya Ishikawa is a working ceramic artist who has been networking and supporting his collegues for the past 20 years or more. He understands.

I didn't get to Val-David often this year, but the times I was there were inspiring. Each year I take away valuable information and learn something new. After all, this craft is as old as humanity. There is much to learn.

Coils Galore! - from the 1001 Pots exhibition.

I Want Candy!

Dreamland awaits

I'll be off to bed soon, but first I'll post some pictures that I took yesterday when I went to Val-David to visit my pots at 1001 Pots Exhibition.

A few days ago, while contemplating my display, I had to oddeset feeling that I'd sort of abandoned my pots in another town far away to be fondled by strangers without me around to talk about how the pot came into being. I felt...guilty. Then the feeling passed. Pots don't have feelings! Do they?

NEW Improved! display - 1001 Pots 2008

Wall o' Mugs - This is just two sections of the wall. There's 1 more. That's a lotta mugs!

Hands down, this is the most gorgeous sculpture this year! If I had $1200.00 I would scoop it up tomorrow! Forgot to note name of artist. My apologies.


Wonderful porcelain swag lamps. This is giving me the incentive I need for an idea I had long ago to make my own wall sconces and lamp shades from the thinest porcelain to show off its translucence.

My bed is calling. More later.

Have Pots, Will Travel

The new pots fresh out of the kiln.

I have new pots! They're cooling down in the kiln. I'm pretty excited about them too! When they are cool enough to pick up without gloves, I will pack them up and take them to sell.

This load of pottery in the kiln was an effort of sheer will. After looking at my display at 1001 Pots I couldn't believe that I had forgotten to make small bowls! When the artist in me kicks in I become unpredictable even to myself. So there I was thinking, "I've got time," every time a new idea popped up through my hands and then pretty soon the date to pack up and go had arrived and I had forgotten about the small bowls (not to mention the teapots)...until I stood back and looked at my display. I looked around at others. Mine was missing....something. *sigh*

So I went home and thought about it, looked at the calendar and it seemed do-able. I kicked my butt all the way into the studio and threw 37 bowls.

They dried for a couple of days, I trimmed foot rings and then waited through the most humid weather for them to dry.

They didn't.

Last Saturday I loaded the leather hard bowls into the little kiln and force dried them and the next day they were ready to fire. The kiln shut off Sunday around 4:30 and then began the wait for the newly bisqued pots to cool enough to unload them.

Early Monday morning I cracked open the kiln and finally around 10:30 I unloaded the pots and got to work sanding, washing, applying wax resist to foot rings and as a design (spirals), letting that dry, applying glaze, waiting for glaze to dry, applying 2nd colour if needed, cleaning the foot rings and finally loading the kiln. I finished loading at 2 a.m. and set the glaze kiln to candle at 200 degrees F. I woke up around 5 a.m. today to check if the pots were dry yet by sticking a mirror inside the kiln (which is cracked open to let the steam out) and seeing if it's foggy. If there's no steam or fog on the mirror, then I can start to fire.

I closed the lid, put the spy plugs in, turned it up and went back to bed. I got up around 9:30 and things were going as planned. The weather held out the entire day. Blackouts around here happen. Brown outs are fairly common. I fire in an electric kiln, so brown outs cause me to pray that electricity comes back on and black outs cause me to swear loudly.

While the kiln fired, I planned a garden extension and a grocery list, placed a book order and a fall bulb order on line, checked my email and cooked.

Catching up

The Ladies who opened the evening's entertainment - 1001 Pots vernissage, Friday, July 11, 2008. Photo by JF Davignon.

First of all, my apologies for no posts of late. As things usually go, there just wasn't enough time to do it all. By that I mean laundry, dishes, blog and take pictures of my latest work - work that is now on display at 1001 Pots in Val-David. There was barely enough time to cook a good meal and many take out meals have been the result. That and those BBQ chickens that one can pick up in almost any grocery store these days.

This weekend I have absolutely nothing planned...well, almost nothing. There is that small matter of turning my almost empty shop into a place that still looks inviting and showcases my work before hanging my sign out at the top of the road. Seeing as it's now noon-ish, I think that will have to wait until after lunch.

Thursday's installation at 1001 Pots went well. The scene upon arrival was hectic. I was unpacked and completely set up in 4 hours thanks to Val, my stepdaughter.

I'm really happy with my pots this year. Five colours are represented - a rich glossy brown glaze that shows throwing lines well, an electric cobalt matte blue glaze that really catches the eye, a light blue glaze that I call Blue Jeans - it fires well to cone 8 so it works very well on the top shelf of my kiln which is the coolest place; an iron red called Tomato and Shiney White, which I used alone and in combination with Tomato, which turned out bloody gorgeous and is my new favorite.

The five colours are like the elements represented in the pentacle. Rich brown for earth, electric blue for water, light blue for air, iron red for fire and white for spirit.

Last night JF and I returned to the venue for the vernissage. It was quickly getting too dark for pictures, but JF managed to snap two (one featured above) and then the battery in the camera died. We'll definitely have more pictures from the show as the weeks progress. In the meantime, here's the latest from the garden.

Resting" Photo by JF Davignon

"Awakening" Photo by Valérie Davignon

"Awake!" Photo by Valérie Davignon

"Under" Photo by Valérie Davignon

"Co-mingling" Photo by Valérie Davignon

Come and Get Some Goodies!

2nd Annual Summer Sale

Poterie du Lac la Blanche
Friday, June 20, Saturday, June 21 and Sunday, June 22
From 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

We invite you to come and enjoy a weekend of art, blooming gardens and sunshine!
For bargain lovers, there are bargains to be had! This is the only venue at which I sell my seconds, (pots which have slight imperfections).
NEW WORK will be featured too!
Mugs, pitchers, teapots, bowls, serving platters, tea bowls, goblets, garden art and jewellery! Orders for Dinnerware and Sushi sets will be accepted at the sale.

We are here.

Garden Pots

It's been crazy hot today. We're the hot spot in Canada right now and I'm hiding away indoors for awhile, sipping raspberry iced tea with lime.

After recent rains the mosquitoes are out in full force as are the dragonflies. I'll bet the bats will be out tonight eating their fill too. The blackflies are still out in droves. Their time is short and soon their little legs will turn white with old age and they'll die, but in the meantime I get fresh bites almost everyday. They're tenacious.

I've been busy in the garden, weeding, planting new things recently purchased from the greenhouse (Japanese spurge, astilbe, white bleeding heart, numerous annuals for planters and hanging baskets), and haven't been quite as busy with the pottery as I would like to be, but that's gardening season for you. My friends have been thinning out their gardens and I’ve been the lucky recipient of daffodil bulbs, lillies, chives, lemon balm, violets, a pink bleeding heart and Lady’s Mantle.

I really enjoy my flowers, planting them and watching them grow, seeing clumps of flowers that were modest a year or two ago getting thicker with blossoms every year.

Now that I have my plants in the ground I'll be able to focus on the pots. I've not been idle, mind you, I did a bisque firing the other day which means more stuff to glaze and fire in the coming days. And the last firing was quite successful, producing many beautiful pots. On my list of things to do is take pictures of those pieces before they get sold, but first here's a look at some pots in the garden.

Giant elf shoe planters filled with Johnny Jump-ups.

A large white planter that didn't make it through the winter outdoors. It cracked exactly in half and is now home in the garden beside the Creeping Phlox. (And those dead looking green onion thingys are the daffodil leaves dying back.) P.S. do not leave your valued planters outside over the winter! The clay I used to make it is only semi-vitreous. It has 3-4% porosity, so any water that seeps into the clay via the only unglazed part - the foot ring - will freeze and expand and crack the pot. This clay, I found out the hard way, is an unsuitable choice for an outdoor pot. I have changed the clay I use for outdoor pots to one with less than 1% porosity, however, I think if you value art, you should store your garden pots clean and empty in a dry place for the winter.

One Way or Another...

...I'm in the mud. Blackflies aren't keeping me out of the garden. I have a net hat and an economy size can of insect repellant.

Yesterday I planted some lillies and a few days ago, Lady's Mantle.

Look at what's growing in the garden these days. (Photos by Valérie Davignon)

Found photos

Not that y'all knew they were lost...

Fall 2007. Casserole dish in the garden - lid fused on with glaze (yes, it was an accident!) Photo by Valérie Davignon

Black Eyed Susan - Photo by Valérie Davignon

Star of Bethlehem - Photo by Valérie Davignon

Oops! Look at the time. I have a class to teach.
Ciao

73 Days to 1001 Pots

LM @ 1001 Pots, July 2007 with a Goddard Teapot. "I love shino glazes!"

In the world of pottery 73 days can go by in the blink of an eye, especially when that 73rd day is a deadline or, in this case, the opening of 1001 Pots - a month long pottery exhibition in Val-David, QC.

I was in this amazing show last summer and will be showing there again this summer. If you love pottery, this is a must-see exhibition and sale. 108 potters were involved last year and I think there will be about that number or slightly more this year!

Okay, now I'm starting to sweat! 73 days to bring some pots to life and even fewer days until I travel to Winnipeg for my father's 75th birthday. I have a dinnerware order to bring to my friends Colin and Barb, a wine pitcher for my sister, Toni and something for Dad. I don't know what, but making him an ashtray crossed my mind. At 74 and 11 months, my Dad is still smoking and (correct me if I'm wrong here, Dad) has been doing so since he was about 7 years old. I doubt that he was a pack-a-day kind of kid, but yeah, 7 years old.

I tried smoking when I was 10 and then again at 12, but gave it up when my best friend insulted me about the way I smoked. She insisted I was "wasting it" because I didn't inhale. Ha! That makes me laugh now. When she said it, I pushed the pack of smokes in her chest and said, "Here! YOU smoke them then!!" and stomped off.

I was just talking to my friend Suzanne the other day and we were reminiscing about the days when people smoked in the office, on buses, in restaurants, etc. and how I grew up in a house where 4 out of 5 smoked (I was the lone non-smoker), and a doctor I once saw walked into the examination room to see me with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, some serious muffin top going on that I could spy under his lab coat and he telling me I was fat and needed to lose some weight. Ha! That makes me laugh too!!

Anyway, it's pot-making time! I may not be posting too many things in the coming days and when I do, it may be short but I'll make it sweet.

That Sinking Feeling

We're renovating. When we planned to do this, both JF and I had lovely ideas about really making the cottage our own by designing the living space together, doing as much of the work as we could and of course I volunteered to make things out of clay, like a bathroom sink. He voluteered to make the kitchen cabinets and the bathroom vanity, but I'll let him tell you that story on his own blog.

I'd been to a workshop on tile-making and installing with Hanne Lawrence and she'd made a few bathroom sinks so I knew this project was do-able even in my small studio.

I decided to make a sink that would be sunken into the vanity top. Neither of us like the on-top of the vanity look plus the existing taps, which are only a year or two old wouldn't work with that design.

I started off with 10 lbs of clay for the first sink, then about 13 lbs for the second. They were too small, but it was good practise. I don't often make large pieces. Those first attempts have made some really lovely fruit bowls since I didn't cut a drain hole in them, and when they're finished I'll post some pictures.

My 3rd attempt at a sink was with 15 lbs of clay and I still felt it was not large enough, so I bumped it up by about 2 more pounds to 17 lbs for what became the first piece to get a drain hole cut into it.

Stoneware sink in the greenware stage. Thrown and slightly altered. 46 x 43 x 18 cm.

After this sink was bisque fired, I checked it for cracks around the drain hole. It passed the test and was glazed in a matte black glaze that where thick will fire sandy coloured, almost yellow.

Big pieces aren't easy to glaze and this sink was no exception. It's big and heavy and I only have two hands. This is where an apprentice would come in handy! I poured the glaze from a pitcher and glazed the inside of the sink first. I had it perched, about halfway inside a large pink plastic wash tub that caught the excess that went "down the drain." After the inside was dry-ish, I began to apply glaze, pouring it from the pitcher while holding it with one hand over the glaze bucket. This is where weight training comes in handy!

Some parts of the sink were covered with glaze more than once. In these areas the glaze, now dried, was thick and started to chip off in large chunks. Multiple touch ups were made and the sink went into the glaze kiln and was fired. What came out of the glaze kiln was not what I expected. I was disappointed that the glaze touch ups I'd made to the edge of the sink were obvious. It was slightly overfired which resulted in pitting on the edge. The usually smooth surface of this gorgeous black glaze was dry and rough, again probably the result of overfiring.

I asked myself, "Do I want to wake up to this bathroom sink every morning for the next 50 years and be disappointed?" Based on the look alone, the answer was a resounding NO! After showing it to JF who liked it very much, I told him what I thought of it. We looked at our options which were: use it anyway, make another or buy commercial. We looked at the sink's physical characteristics too and JF found that the edge wasn't big enough for an easy installation (it would somehow have to be supported from the bottom inside the vanity) and the drain hole was in fact, too big.

I decided to make another sink, so I wedged up 18 lbs of clay yesterday and made this:

Stoneware sink, wet clay still drying on wheel head. Current measurements 44 cm in diameter and 15 cm deep.

(Edited on Apr. 23) I'm really happy with the shape and size. I checked the bottom thickness yesterday and it's perfect for a sink. The next task is getting off the bat, letting it dry up a bit, trimming the excess clay, then cutting a proper sized drain hole. Wish me luck!

In The Body

Terracotta pitcher 15 x 13 x 17 cm. Fired to cone 06. Photo by Jean-François Davignon.

I love black clay, red clay, iron speckled stoneware and terracotta. It's the colour that attracts me. This type of naturally coloured clay has more character than white clay in my opinion. As well, I'm much more interested in the form, the things I can do to the clay itself, rather than a painted on type of decoration.

With the green pitcher I kept it simple by just exaggerating the throwing lines. Keeping it simple is, I think, becoming my trademark. I like not only the colour of the clay, but my glazes. I love the contrast here between the orange terracotta and the deep green glaze that where applied more thickly, ran in waves of turquoise here and there. The inside of the pitcher is unglazed so it can be used to decant wine. The terracotta takes the edge off of acidic wines and improves the flavour.

I like to tease the clay while on the wheel, or get rough with it knocking it purposefully off centre to make it wobbly, organic, wabi sabi. I like deep grooves, carving designs in a pot, pinching little spouts here are there, pushing out from the inside, stretching it on the canvas table and textures. Here's another example~

Stoneware plate, thrown and altered. 20 x 28 x 2.5 cm. Photo by Jean-François Davignon.

These days I'm dividing my time between the pottery and teaching dance. Today is a day off of teaching as we're between sessions, so I'm in the studio dancing with the clay instead. I'm working on a large lidded jar and some serving dishes. I have plans for a colander (because our plastic colander broke) and a friend asked me about berry bowls. Mmmmm, berries. I have wild raspberry bushes in the yard. We are still buried under huge piles of snow, so I don't know when I'll be eating berries off the vine, but there are a few grassy spots showing here are there where the snow didn't drift. The Canadian geese are overhead, honking forlornly, looking for open water. This is the latest spring I have experienced here in Québec since my arrival in 2002.

It's not all fun and games, ya know.

There's plenty of grunt work to do in the pottery studio. As you can imagine, it's a big job keeping things clean. I also recycle, re-use, and...rewind?? Uh...what is the 3rd "R?"

Well, I do recycle my clay. You know all that slurry that flies off the wheel when one makes pottery on it? And all those dried up pieces of clay that are created when you're handbuilding? Not to mention projects gone horribly wrong. Clay can be recycled.

I collect scrap clay in buckets and when the bucket is nearly full, I get out the paint stirring doo-hickey, put it on the electric drill and whizz up the clay until smooth. I then pour it and dry it on a plaster slab.

The bucket of scrap clay just before mixing. Into the bucket goes all scraps, the slurry water from the splash pan and the water from my little bucket I use when at the potter's wheel. Nothing goes down the drain! Note the clumps of clay just under the water line.


It's messy, but necessary. I can't imagine throwing out clay that can this easily be recycled. I recycle about 200 lbs of clay each year!


After a few minutes the clay is smooth like chocolate cake batter and ready to pour, but this is one mixer I will NOT be licking clean.


This is the plaster slab I use for drying the clay. The clay is not completely dried, however. The plaster draws the moisture out of clay. I remove the clay from the plaster when it's a good consistency for wedging (kneading), cut it into smaller pieces and bag it.

I use a jug or a ladel to scoop the clay out of the bucket and onto the plaster slab.

I smooth out the clay and make it a consistent thickness on the plaster slab. Once bagged the clay sits for a year or so to "age." Clay I recycled in the spring of 2007 is now being used in the studio.

Aah, the 3rd "R" is reduce! Not only do I recycle my clay, but I have also reduced the amount of water I use in the process by emptying my slurry and throwing water into my scrap clay bucket. I've also effectively reduced the amount of fuel used to transport the clay to my home because I'm transporting nothing. It's all happening right here! As a result of the recycling I order clay only once a year. I also re-use the plastic bags that the clay comes in from the manufacturer - a Canadian company - Plainsman clays.

Making it Right

Pitcher with leaf spout - 26.5 cm x 19 cm. Wheel thrown and hand built. Brown gloss glaze is a local clay I call "creek mud."

I've been leafing through pottery magazines for a few years now and when I come across something eye catching, I get out the exacto knife and carefully remove the picture from the page and glue it into a scrap book. I have some old issues of Ceramics Monthly - 1977 - 1981 - that were given to me by Dennis Cape when he sold his kiln to me. Dennis was so kind to me. He not only gave me 5 years worth of magazines, but several books too. The pictures I have in my scrapbook are mostly from these old magazines. I've also culled glaze recipes and handy pottery tips!

Since 2003, I've been gifted with a new subscription to a pottery magazine each year at Christmas. It's been a great source of inspiration and now that spring is here I've been inspired to purge the house of some clutter! The old issues are being given a final go-thru. The knife and glue sticks are flying. Staples are being pulled and the recycling bin is slowly filling with dusty, vintage pottery mags.

In the newer magazines I began to notice the trend of things unrelated. It intrigued me this idea of making a piece that is two concepts in one, like the pitcher above. Part wheel thrown and part hand built, this jug wasn't all that lovely the first time I pulled it from the kiln. In fact, JF nicknamed it the Franken Jug. There was no true marriage between the brown and the green. Also the piece was a little under fired making the brown glaze too matte for my liking. The green hadn't fully matured either.

I decided to re-fire the piece and add more green glaze around the top portion of the pitcher where before the colours didn't overlap. I got inspired to do this because on the inside of the pitcher I saw that the glazes, one on top of the other, were a great combination. I brushed a thin layer of green glaze onto the pitcher, not knowing how my applying it in this way would turn out. I usually pour my glazes onto pieces or dip them into a bucket of glaze. I was just trusting my instincts.

Once re-fired I felt I had achieved a very pleasing result. I love that the brown glaze is now a deep, rich gloss thanks to the re-fire. I love the green "toucan" spout and how the overlapping of the two colours brought the top and bottom together. Every time I look at it I'm reminded of the art deco period. Maybe it's the rings in the body of the jug or the earthy colours of pottery from that era.

Working With What You Have

I read somewhere not too long ago that Japanese potters work with what they have as opposed to North American potters who have the end result in mind and work towards getting what they expected. For example, if a bucket of glaze turns out to be different from that of a picture or description, then one might assume that the American will "fix" the glaze so it yields the expected result.

Not me. I'm lazy in some ways with my work. But being lazy can be, as my husband says, "working smart."

When I arrived in Québec, I'd never mixed up glazes from scratch. I decided I would start since I'd purchased 500 lbs of glaze making materials from the potter who'd sold an electric kiln to me.

Other things were new to me as well as mixing glazes - I'd never fired glazed work in an electric kiln before. The kiln I bought fires to cone 11 or 24oo degrees F. What I didn't know was that if you repeatedly fire an electric kiln to that temperature everything inside the control panel will melt. And it did. But I digress.

My glaze learnin' has been informal. I read, I try recipes (someone else's creation), and I read some more. I'm largely concerned with the task at hand, which is working for a living by making pottery that people are ordering now and wanting soon. Formulating my own glaze or fixing a glaze so it works for me isn't something I've mastered. Not even close. I have a rather Japanese approach to my glazes. I work with what I have, and frequently in my case, what I have found, been given or what was on sale. I make pieces to suit whatever's in the bucket. The bucket of glaze is my inspiration!

One of my clay pals, Tim T., gave me some bagged glazes that his studio won't ever use. It was a similar situation to how I got the glaze that Cynthia gave me - neither she nor Tim knows anyone who fires to cone 9/10, except for me. If a glaze is formulated to fire at cone 9/10 and you regularly fire to cone 6 (the preferred firing temperature of those who fire electric kilns), well, it's probably not feasible in a teaching studio situation to experiement.

So, I have this glaze from Tim T. and I mixed it up. It was labelled Tenmoku and the Tenmoku that I'd worked with in the past was a black gloss that broke brown. In fact I researched Tenmoku glazes and found this: "Tenmoku glazes can range in color from dark plum (persimmon), to yellow, to brown, to black." So I was surprised that this Temmoku was peach coloured in the bucket.

David Leach (England 1911-2005) Tenmoku Glazed Studio Pottery Teabowl, 350 GBP.

I fired this small stoneware wine cup and got a gorgeous crackled glaze that is almost transparent. In places where there is more than one layer of glaze it's a very pale opalescent white-blue. On stoneware, the buff coloured clay shows through and the colour reminds me more of...lightly speckled fish flesh. Hmmm. Not exactly beautiful. What to do with this glaze? I'm going to try it on white clay! My guess is that it will be a very blue, celadon-like glaze. (I'm still puzzled over its being labelled tenmoku.) What will I make? Saké cups! Why not?

Stoneware wine cup. "Tenmoku" glaze. Artist's collection.

Say Cheese!

Covered Cheese Dish -19 cm x 11 cm. Stoneware. Wax resist design.

Covered Cheese Dish - an inside view.

Spirals occur naturally and everywhere it seems, like in plants, seashells, on the body, in bodies of water, mathematics and the galaxy. I'm sure I'm missing a few. Oh, yes, in pottery making too.

If you watch someone working on the wheel, you'll notice right away that when starting in the centre of the bottom of a pot, the act of compressing the clay down and out creates a spiral. I've always found myself drawn to shapes and designs that are soft and flow, like paisley, egg shapes, ovals and spirals. The petals of a flower are a spiral and I loved to draw flowers as a child - dahlias, specifically, with their close knit sprial of petals in vibrant colours like crimson!

I've also read that the spiral is an ancient symbol of woman and the endless flow of energy in the Universe.

The energies were very good yesterday for us. I finally located our cat, Ti-min. It turns out that she was trapped under the shed. The snow that came off the roof last week fell all around the shed, trapping the cat underneath. Poor wee thing! She certainly doesn't seem traumatized though. Thankfully I hadn't given up hope that she was still alive. When I went outside yesterday for some fresh air, I called out for her in hopes she would appear, then I heard her meow! I listened hard because at first I thought I was imagining it, but no, it was her. I traced the sound to the shed and discovered that she was trapped under it. I shoveled a path through a four foot drift and then dug a hole at the corner of the shed. After her fear of the shoveling noises, fresh air and/or sunshine left her, she appeared at the door for food. Man, that cat has had 9 lives for sure. I know of at least 2 that she's used so far.

The Group of Four. Textured slab work. Handbuilt.
photo by Jean-François Davignon

New Photos

I have a small bunch of new photos! JF and I worked on getting a series of them done recently so I could have something to send along with my application to 1001 Pots. This summertime event runs from July 11, to August 10, 2008. It's a gorgeous and very popular outdoor exhibition and last year there were 108 ceramic artists present. Each time I walked through the grounds, I saw something I hadn't seen before!

Textured jug. 24 cm x 14 cm. Stoneware.

This photo was among those that we sent. I started doing textured slab work when I was in Winnipeg. The technique was taught to me by my clay mentor, Kevin K. I have made many a textured piece but none of them really took off until I began to use this bright cobalt blue glaze - VCAA blue (Val Cushing).

When making such pieces I cut a thick slab of clay, make textures in it with various tools (grout trowel, fork, hallow pencils, seashells, etc.) then throw the slab, always textured side up, until it stretches out to the desired thickness...or thiness, depending on how one looks at it.

The throwing of the slab takes a really long time to perfect. When one first begins this technique, the slab is often lopsided - too thick in places and too thin in other places. It's prone to tearing and splitting.

After the slab is stiffened up a bit, I wrap it around a form - usually a cardboard cylinder. If too dry when wrapped around the form, it will crack along the deepest textures. I let it set up for awhile then add the bottom and when that is set, I remove the form. When it's leather hard, I add the handle and do any finishing work, like tidying up the inside of the vessel.

After bisque firing, I sand the bottom to make certain it doesn't wobble, wash it then glaze it by dipping it into the bucket of glaze. Once it's glazed I wipe back the glaze so that the deepest crevices still have glaze, but the shallowest textures are revealed.

Vintage Glaze

When I moved to the area, I joined the local potters guild and met Cynthia O'Brien, a scuplture artist. A couple of years later she was cleaning out her studio and gave me some pre-mixed glazes that she knew she would never use. Cynthia got them from a fella whose mother was a potter but since had passed away.

These pre-mixed glazes were dry,bagged, mixed by Tucker's Pottery Supply and dated 1982. Wow! Vintage glaze! I had no idea what I was in for, but as soon as I found a few empty buckets I mixed up Shiney White, Old Blue and Oatmeal.

I loved the way Shiney White looked on my buff stoneware clay body. It showed throwing lines in the clay through its almost transparent sheen. In places where the glaze overlapped it was opaque and in other places like on the rim, I could see small crystalline patches. Here's a picture of a jug and some wine cups glazed in Shiney White and Creek Mud - a local clay that I happily discovered fires as a glaze at cone 9/10.

The Oatmeal was exactly as I expected it to be - like 1978. Iron yellow, brown specks, warm and homey.

Here is a teapot done in oatmeal flanked by my DaisyWare glazed in VCAA Blue.

Old Blue was a gorgeous dusty grey blue that also showed throwing lines well, although it was opaque. I loved that you could really see the flow of the glaze as it melted in the kiln. But that Old Blue was like a ghost. I went to great lengths to find the recipe for it. I got on Clayart and asked everyone there if they had a recipe for Old Blue. I scoured every issue of Ceramics Monthly from 1977 - 1982 (yes, I actually do have every issue from that period, but that's another story), and found some recipes that could maybe be Old Blue. I mixed small batches of these possibles and it led nowhere except to the discovery of an ugly glaze that indeed was blue, but it also had pink speckles in it. Really not my cup of tea. I even wrote to Tucker's and asked if they had the recipe for this Old Blue. No. No one had even heard of a glaze called Old Blue.

Plate detail. Handbuilt slab plate with stamped design. Stamp made by artist.

After a year or two, and gathering a few empty buckets, which are few and far between in my studio since I'm kind of a glaze junkie, I opened up that box of pre-mixed glazes from Cynthia to see what else I could mix up. I pulled out several more slightly torn paper bags of glaze and among them I discovered two bags of blue glaze. One was marked blue and the other blue semi-gloss. Hmmmm. My interest was piqued. I mixed up both bags in seperate buckets and they looked really similar to Old Blue. I tested the glazes and eureka! It was Old Blue. Okay... suddenly it became clear. It was in the interest of using up that one last bag of glaze before the others that the potter had written on the bag the word old (in red) in front of the word blue. Of course!

I wrote back to Tucker's and this time I asked for the following group of recipes:

Shiney White, Blue semi-gloss, Oatmeal, Cain yellow, Cain brown, Temmoku and Black semi-matte. They came through! They had all those old recipes on file. Now I could reproduce what I already had. They might look slightly different since the raw materials I have to make glaze came from a supplier in Manitoba, but that is the way of this art form.