pottery land

Life is tiring right now.

I am trying to pound out the last bit of my revised thesis proposal -- surprise, the methodology section! (Also an extra paragraph on heating systems.) I'm definitely skipping 7.02 lecture.

I found this clever blod by way of an architecture friend: 1 design per day. She preferred the "cat hammock coffee table," but the entry that keep coming back to is this one, about kitchenware. I feel ambivalent about the design presented but excited about the possibilities (which maybe could be applied in pottery?) The home page of the designer is here. Interesting duck. I am a little put off by the sex toys (one appears to be attached to a mitten), but interested in the furniture and household objects.

Yesterday was, despite my lack of working-ness after about 9:30 AM, a satisfying day. I took a 5.4 walk (see path above) with my friend Cristen; with the two trips back and forth to campus, that makes almost 10 miles walked yesterday (well 9.8 but let's not be picky here.) We got all the way up into the North End and even stopped at Mike's Pastry for some cookies (sort of negating our walk but NOT REALLY.)

Mike's Pastry, for the uninformed, is a well-known Italian bakery that only accepts cash and make boatloads of cannoli daily. I am not a huge fan of cannoli, so I generally go for the almond macaroons (delicious, AND of a reasonable enough size that I don't feel too guilty), their huge selection of marzipan shapes (which are in fact made of guilt -- didn't get one this time), or their crushed almond cookies (crucata? crucati? don't remember.) Cristen got what she thought was a chocolate cupcake, which actually turned out to be just a cup of solid chocolate. So far the only thing I have taken points off for at this bakery is the fact that they put anise in their sugar cookies (say it together with me, eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww.)

Pottery class was perhaps unusually delightful. While I hauled my camera along with me on the dully lit and slightly snowing walk, only to take no pictures, I forgot to take it with me to the studio, so I have no pictures to illustrate what I am talking about. My plot to create a goblet by throwing the cup portion and the stem portion separately and then joining them with slip was in fact successful (though it required some emergency invterention from my instructor when I got overzealous with the trimming.) I am looking at possibly attempting a set (a set! I've never done a set of ANYTHING before) of these queerly shaped, lopsided and ridged cups. (All two of them so far are a hybrid of mistake and intention.) I have one piece to repair, four to trim, two awaiting further drying before going on the firing shelf, and one awaiting bisque firing.

Pottery life be swell.

I spent a little time last night (which would have been better invested elsewhere, yes, I know) rustling around pottery blogs to try to find ideas for glazes. I feel that on any given piece I tend to surrender either the form or the glaze; in very few cases have I succeeded in both (unless the glaze is super duper simple. Like straight Shino.)

So far I have found the following:

Avery Pottery and Tileworks. I like this idea of using leaves and dark glossy dye.
Bauman Stoneware. There is nice piece in light green at the top of the blog, and some very classy work toward the base of the page. I'm not sure how to accomplish something like this; I might bring this picture in to show my instructor. (It would look lovely on my goblet.)
Brad Tucker Pottery. Soooo many ideas for earth tone glazes.
Clay Club. This seems to contain a lot of glaze experimentation that I'm not really capable of. . . but all ideas are good ideas, right?
Bum Crane. I would describe this page as "wacky-ass ceramic art." Not really my style, but then again, I don't so much have a style. It's interesting, and I always need more ideas. . .
Peter's Pottery. Mmmm glazes. I suspect some of these are salt glazes (which I can't really do), but there are a lot of ideas for color combinations. Also I need to find out what "raku" glazing/pottery is. . .
Feffakookan. Textual pottery. Cool stuff, man.