Alex Matisse

For real.

2010-09-26T18:51:00.000-07:00

So this really is the last post. The link seemed to be bad that I supplied last time. For real. This is it. Come on over to alexmatisse.com and see whats happening. Its going to be a party.
Good night everyone.

Alex

A new blog...

2010-09-16T20:51:00.001-07:00

The time has come to say goodbye to blogger. It has been good but for a number or reasons I have decided to move the blog over to WordPress. I feel that as I start to develop a website the WordPress platform will integrate more easily when the time comes.

I also feel that this blog started as Notes from an Apprenticeship and should return to that. I have moved all posts from after I left Marks to the new blog and in the coming weeks I will change this blog back to its original format.

Its late as I write this and the rain has just started to fall. It is loud on the tin roof.

I hope you all have enjoyed this journey over the past few years. I have certainly learned a lot. Thank you all for the support and kind words of encouragement. It is a great little community that we potters share and we are lucky for it. Here is a teaser of some new content to be found at here.

Thanks for reading.

In the words of Garrison Keillor...

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

A list

2010-09-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

Fall it seems has arrived. I mark it not by the leaves or the smell or the clear light, but by the fact that when I walk out my front door and down the stone steps I am wearing a sweatshirt. I might not wear it long, for the days are getting up around 80 or 85, but it is cold in the mornings. The fall always makes me feel slightly energized. There is always an incredibly long list of things to prepare for the winter.

Here is a small sample of the pre-winter checklist:

Split the enormous pile of locust and red oak outside the woodshed asap.
One final bush-hog of the meadows.
Finish kiln.
Move workshop from behind the house to in front of the kiln shed.
Develop a new preliminary clay recipe and mix a batch.
Wrap pipes under house.
Jack up the joists under dining room floor so it does not feel like a trampoline.
Haul jack pine and two red oaks out of woods and take to sawmill.
Fix road into woods and move airstream to final location.
Dig trench to workshop for power and water lines.
Slaughter and process two hogs that are getting very large.
Do a little fishing.
Clean out the spring that supplies the house.

So there is never a shortage of work to be done. All this will hopefully put me inline for a firing around the first of the new year but I will say that I have got very used to the sound a deadline makes as it goes whooshing past.

And so here are a few pictures from last week.

Pictured above is the how I chose to terminate the bricks once they reached the top of the arch. There are nicer ways to do it but they are very time consuming. This is clean and fast, which at this point is just what I need.

Here is the cast key. The white tubes are pvc. They were removed once the cartable cured. The holes will be used for the pyrometer probes as well as blow holes to have a visual cue as to where the flame is in the kiln.

Two guesses what that is.... I needed a way to slide the pvc out of the castable once it had cured. I thought about saran wrap with a little grease slopped on it and then came up with a clever little idea. Condoms aren't just for contraception.

A view from the inside of how the main arch meets the door arch.

This side is now ready for buttressing. After much deliberation I finally found, with the help of my neighbor Steve, a quick and clean solution to the dilemma. But before buttressing it is on the chimney!

Grinding..

2010-08-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to a lot of The Game lately. Especially the hit featuring an Auto-Tuned Lil' Wayne called "My Life". I suppose the part I resonate most with is really just the chorus.

"And I'm grindin till I'm tired, They say you ain't grindin till you tired.

So im grinding with my eyes wide, looking to find a way through the day,

a light through the night."

Speaking of grindin'. My friend Joseph Sand does it better than anyone I know. He ground it out through the winter and the freezing mortar and the dirty bricks. He built a monstrous kiln, fixed up a workshop and made a beautiful first load of pots. He then, with the tremendous help and support of his wife Amanda, proceeded to have an amazing SOLD OUT first kiln opening. Joseph, you are a dear friend and a fantastic potter and builder. I salute you.

After his kiln opening Joseph and fellow Peidmonster Levi Mahan came out to help bang up some arch bricks. Another aspiring your potter named Andrew Goldstein also made the trek down from Minnesota to lend a hand.

With all their help we got the sidewalls well up over the sidestokes and in the days following I laid up the base of the chimney and the arch for the flue, then butted the main arch into the flue arch and this weekend I will hopefully figure out the spine of the main arch.

I would also like to thank my mainstay, the lady who can lay a brick, miss Connie Rose. (pictured below on the beach)

and Mr Dan, who always shows up early and leaves late.

The Return

2010-08-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

Connie and I just returned from a brief but wonderful vacation to Massachusetts. It was a good respite from all that is happening around our place. The only dissapoinment of the trip happened on the last night while trying to shuck a few oysters. I was trying to get the first one open and managed to plunge the knife into the heel of my thumb. The main problem is that it will be out of commision for a few days while the wound heels around the stitches but I have some great help coming on Monday and so we should be able to still get a few things done.

Below are some pictures of where the kiln left off.

Working from 5 till 9 . . .

2010-08-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

That is not how the original went but it is much closer to what my days look at this present time.

Before I talk about the kiln I want to point out a very small change to the blog. You will find it on the right hand side of your screen and it is a very small link that will take you to a nice little form where you can fill out some personal information and be added to my mailing list.

If you chose to continue I will promise you this:

3 or 4 email newsletters per year, well laid out and pleasing to the eye.
2 or 3 postcards via the old snail mail, something nice and shiny to remember me by, stick on the fridge and then wish you could hop on a plane and zoom across whatever great expanse separates us and come to a kiln opening.

Yes...I will actually one day make some pottery. And hopefully, if my training serves me (and you) well it will be nice to hold, look at, use, or put on a shelf.

And so please do take a moment to sign up. I would love to have you on board.

The small news is that Dan, who is helping me out two or three days a week for a modest sum, and I just about finished the strips. We came up a little short and so tomorrow morning I will once again drive down to Lowes and buy more stuff. There is a fantastic hardware store in the town near by which I usually try and support but they do not carry 3/8 inch ply.

For the record, if I did this again I think that I would use 1/2 inch. Over such a long distance it is difficult to get every arch support to be perfect and the 3/8 or 1/4 really shows every minor dip or bulge in the forms. I think that in the end it will be ok and the bricks can be shimmed as they are laid if there are any major problems.

And finally I will leave you with a video of men at work.

A Week (or two) in Review

2010-08-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

I have not been a diligent blogger. I actually cringe at that title. I don't consider myself a blogger. I consider myself a potter (at this exact moment in time a kiln builder) and so it is without a tremendous amount of guilt that I am bringing everyone up to date.

There has been an amazing amount of people out here as of late and we really have made some progress.

Last week Connie and I started laying out the floor and I finished the floor tiles sometime around the weekend.

Doc Welty of Leicester Valley Clay made a surprise visit on Sunday afternoon with his wife Melanie. We drank a beer or two and finished the last few things to be completed before moving onto the arch forms.

On Monday he showed back up and we hung the chain and spray painted 24 arch supports. The curve for the kiln I found by using nice little offering of Google's called Sketchup. It is a 3d modeling software, downloadable, and easy to use. I knew three important dimensions and the rest came from the curve which the software drew while hitting all three of my points. 6ft at the entrance, 6ft at the first step up from the firebox and finally 32 inches at the flue.

On Tuesday I took I worked a half day with Dan Getting the first set of Arch supports up as well as the framing that holds them and then took my lovely girlfriend on a date.

Wednesday Dan in I finished up the arch supports...

...and this morning with the help of Andrew Stephenson, his friend David, and Tom Turner we started laying the lathing.

After a lunch of corn and pasta (with everything from the garden but the pasta) we laid a few more strips and they hit the road. I worked for another hour or so before the clouds thickened even more than they already were and the thunder clapped above and the rain came in thick sheets blowing in from the north. The tin roof roared under the deluge and ran through it all to close the windows and put the chickens feed away and sit down at my desk and write this.

Coming up in blogland:
A completely new blog/website!

Progress

2010-07-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

The last few days have moved by quickly. The side walls are now complete. From the main ware bed they rise exactly two feet and continue all the way back to the chimney. I must thank Tom Turner immeasurably for all the help he has been to this project both in moral and physical support. Tom came out this morning at 8:30 on the dot and we laid about 200 bricks. Tom mudded and I laid them down. We made quite a team. After Tom left my friend Dan showed up to finish off the last course of the side wall with the big 9x18's. After that we started in on the Floor. We didn't get far before Harrison and Bruno showed up and I ushered them up the mountain to the secret pasture for an evening of filming. Their website/blog is right here! They are making a fantastic little film in the genre of mumblecore.

Side walls UP!

Hammer Time

2010-07-27T05:18:00.000-07:00

Last week found Glenn and I hammering away at this big piece of dirty granite with the machine pictured below. It is called a rock drill and runs off of an enormous diesel air compressor which is towed behind a truck. The whole affair was dusty and loud and very hard on the wrists.

Here I am trying to get Glenn to wear some ear protection which he refused.

After the holes were filled I poured in this compound called Dexpan which expands at about 18000 psi over a 48 hour period to break the rock in twine.
After the rock was demolished Connie and I took a brief respite to the South Carolina coast for some beach time with friends.

When we returned I began laying the last course of foundation brick. Yesterday I poured a slab for the chimney and today I am finally laying brick again, working the side walls up to a point where I will begin the arch.

Rocky Top

2010-07-14T19:35:00.001-07:00

Today was the last day of backhoe work. Glen came up around lunch time for what was supposed to be a quick and simple job: dig out the chimney. He had only been digging for five minutes when his bucket scraped against a rock the size of a Norwegian whaling ship. It was not budging. So it is off to the rental place to fetch a huge rock drill and an large air compressor. After the inch and a half holes are drilled we will fill them with a compound that expands when mixed and breaks the rock in twine. All this excitement will put me a few days off schedule but fortunately the world is still turning and in the end I have absolutely nothing to complain about.

Here Glen is smoking the blade of his machine on the rock which is still buried under dirt. In the foreground is the last step in the kiln which will continue back through the flue to the base of the chimney.

Design Notes

2010-07-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

I would like to say right off that I have never done this before. Before I started laying the first bricks this project loomed so large and daunting that it was hard to imagine how to start, let alone see it through to completion. What I did have was a pretty good idea of what I wanted. I have fired large kilns for the last four years and they are what I am most comfortable with. I also feel that if one is going to fire with wood it is more economical to fire a large kiln three times a year than a small kiln six or seven. I have fired five larger kilns and this kiln that is mid construction below is simply a fusion of all the things I liked most about those kilns, hopefully none of the bad, and a few small design modifications of my own. It is my own design but nothing complicated and nothing shocking.

Below is an early study on the steps. I ended up settling on something close to the middle. The steps are not one foot up as in the drawing below but eight inches meaning the kiln rises a total of sixteen inches from hearth to chimney.

I had not given much thought to the secondary airports until this morning. Mark Hewitt's kiln has some and I was looking at some pictures of David Stumpfle's new kiln and remembered that he had put in a few and after a subsequent conversation with David I popped out the bricks on the floor course before I covered them up, cut out a six inch hole and used some big eighteens to stretch the gap. They are spaced to come in right below the side stoking ports and will be used in the crash cool as well as a precautionary measure should to many ashes build up during side stoking.

I was originally not going bring the side walls in at the door but when staring at the five and a half feet of open space and thinking about bricking up the door the large space seemed excessive so I turned a right angle and now the door will be 4 feet which seems to be a bit more manageable. Because of the angle that the is is kicked in at it will also help to keep the door locked into place during the firing when the tendency is for the door to be pushed out. By canting the outside bricks of the door slightly outwards it locks the door in place. This is a trick the Daniel Johnston told me after finding out for himself somewhat serendipitously.

The fire wall is made of larger bricks called Arcade B's They turn a radius as you can see and will help hold the fire wall in place, acting in the same way that an arch does in resisting the pull of gravity. The tendency of the fire wall is always to move forward. It is also notched into the side wall and will then be buttressed from the outside. Even with all this in mind is was built in such a way that replacement will not be too hard.

It is slow going but over all the process is more intuitive than I would have thought. As Daniel said, there really is not much to it. Its just a big pile of bricks. Tomorrow morning I have chores to do around the land.. fix the pig fence...move the chickens...bush hog and mow... but maybe by the afternoon Connie and I can be back at it and lay a few more courses. The goal of the week is to finish the side walls all the way back to the chimney by Friday and have the arch forms going up by the end of the weekend.

A Week in Review

2010-07-12T05:44:00.000-07:00

It is a slow rainy Monday morning here in East Fork. This morning Glen was going to come up with his creaky old John Deere backhoe an scoop out the last step and chimney but the rain put a hold on the machine work. This last week took me to Alabama with friend, potter, and kiln building junkie Josh Copus to fetch some bricks and back in time to host a little work party. Matt Jones and his new apprentice James Ward drove over from Sandy Mush, Michael Kline made the trip from the Penland area, Tom Turner stopped by from just up the road, and Connie Coady made the short commute from the old farm house. By the end of the day much progress was made. Thank you to everyone who came out.

Underway

2010-07-06T01:10:00.000-07:00

After much head scratching and deliberation I finally started laying brick. It is very exciting. This morning I am off to Alabama to fetch a few more palettes of these fantastically large fire brick but I will be back at it on Wednesday. Below are pictures of the firebox taking shape as well as the 3/4' stone for the foundation of the main warebed.

Change of Plans

2010-07-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

The change of plans is this... I am not going to lead you through the last 4 months post by post. I have laid it all out below. The truth is that I am plugging away at the kiln and I would much rather devote my time to showing you the construction than leading you through a project that is long past and has very little to do with clay but much to do with craft. I hope you enjoy the photos. The shed rough outline was designed by my friend Raivo (pictured below) and I. Once we had a general outline Raivo designed on Cad the actual frame. He is a close friend and I respect him for both the person that he is outside of the wood shop and the incredible craftsman that he is inside it. Him and Jake worked tirelessly for a little under 4 months, not just in the shop but in the woods with me helping to cut timber and select trees. With out their help both inside and outside the workshop this project would still just be a huge pile of timbers stacked up outside my house.

About 95 percent of the wood used in the frame came from my property, cut by me and hauled out by either horse or tractor. It was an incredible winter and with the help of so many people we raised the frame as the apple trees were blooming around the third week in April.

Thank you to all who helped get this thing literally off the ground.

Raivo laying supine for a rare moment.

Fitting a jack rafter into the hip.

Checking for square.

Jake Kennedy caught on camera.

Timbers piling up in the snow.

Breaking ground.

Alex and Willard survey the damage.

The first bent slides off the ground.

And into place.

Just in time for the rain.

The kiln foundation takes shape.

Endless head scratching.

And finally the first bricks are set in the sand...

Early Summer Ras Grooms Rd

2010-06-22T05:15:00.000-07:00

The spring has come and gone and with it many changes at the end of Ras Grooms Rd. I will resist the urge to post all the pictures from the last few months at once and instead lead you through the past with a few photos and descriptions of just what we have been up to chronologically. I suppose it makes sense to start at the beginning. Many of these posts will have little to no direct correlation to clay but I think you will find them interesting all the same.

I will post these as Chapters in a book and this will be considered the introduction.

The project of the winter was the "Kiln Shed" and the whole thing came about because of a great friend of mine who is really good with a pairing chisel.

2010-03-03T20:04:00.000-08:00

Sneak Peak!

2009-08-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

The preview gallery is up on Mark's website. The sale is this weekend and if anybody is in the area I encourage you to come take a look. This will be my last firing for Mark and it was a good one. There are some wonderful pots out of this firing....here are a few...

77

2009-08-19T05:11:00.000-07:00

It certainly has been busy over here. The kiln has been fired and cooled and after one more day of cooling we'll take down the door. This past weekend Mark took me, Joseph, and Julie Jones to Washington DC to visit the archives underneath both the Freer and the Sackler galleries. In large glass cases you can pick out out pots from very early neolithic earthenware all the way up to the 19th century. The collection encompasses everything considered Asian, which includes Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Korea and the Islamic World which at times inlcuded places as far west as Spain. It is hard to describe how fantastic and experience it is to have access to those pots which have informed so much of cermic history as well as being personal influences to me and many others. The best thing about this is that anyone can go up there, call ahead, and schedule and appointment. Its your tax dollars at work...use them.

Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks.

16th century Turkish plate from Iznik

Persian Lustreware bowlAlex with large a large Hamada bowlChinese canteens, probably Ming Dynasty
Detail of 21st century woodfired salt glazed pitcher....

Cary Tennis

2009-07-17T18:03:00.000-07:00

I just found an old issue of the Sun from back in January. It is a great literary publication. In it I stumbled upon and advice column by a man named Cary Tennis. He writes this column "Since You Asked" for salon.com and recently published a collection of these in a book which is available on his website. I was blown away by his sincerity and clear insight into problems both great and small that we as humans encounter every day. Some of the questions are incredibly serious and sad and contain all the greatest grief and anger that a person can feel and some are lighthearted and silly, like what to do about the guy at work who leaves politically conservative literature in the bathroom stall. This is a link to a video of him reading a piece at a workshop in San Fransisco. I think that it speaks to art makers as a whole and not just to writers. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Rundlets

2009-07-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

It's Friday again. The weeks are moving so fast now. I only have about 3 more weeks of making pots left and then I will push myself unceremoniously out of the nest. Its pretty great. This past week I made a few of what Joseph calls my "Turban Jars". They are just a hard shouldered jar with a few little lugs. They do have a wonderful flat surface for decorating. The other new form I made which this week were Rundlets (or runlet defending on who you ask). These are a relatively easy throw but so much different than any other pots we make. An interesting tidbit: a rundlet was an old English unit of measurement. They were a specific sized wine cask that held about 68.1913782 Liters. These rundlets, although they don't hold nary as much wine, were made in much the same way as the the big ill-fated ball jar I made at Matt's a little over a year ago. I started the slip trailing on the size up from these and managed to ruin a few pots before I settled on this design. That is often how it goes with new shapes and patterns. It takes a few tries before something fills the space in a way that is actually pleasing to look at.

Tomorrow I am off to the mountains to do some house work. Hope every one has a great weekend!

The week in review...

2009-06-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

This past week I made teapots. It was my first run of making them here at Mark's. Mark was busy with bowls all week and Joseph made coffee pots and casseroles. On Friday I took off to East Fork to work on the house a bit and lay out the workshop. It was blistering hot but I finally managed to find a layout that works for the location. In the last picture you can see the faint outline of the workshop. The large space on the right is the workshop and the smaller space on the left is the showroom. There is a 15' shed coming off the back marked by two stakes which are not in the picture. I am still going back and forth about the layout and so this is by no means a final draft but it gets closer every day. Tomorrow is more teapots...

Big Pot Workshop with David Stuempfle

2009-06-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Joseph and I, along with a bunch of other folks, took a workshop at the Central Carolina Community College (or CCCC for short) campus in Siler City. The workshop was led by David Stuemple and focused on coil building large vessels. Davids tecnique is similar to the way that I was taught at Matt's but he uses a paddle and anvil to thin and compress the coils before wetting them and throwing them. It was a little tricky to pick up on his technique because I still have Matt's way in my muscle memory even though I only made a few when I was out there and it was well over a year ago. I met some great people and got to get out of the pottery for a few days which is always a nice change of pace.

David throwing the base

Adding the first coil...
Pinching the first coil onto the pot...

Paddling the coil to thin it out before thowing. Usually he uses a small wooden anvil on the inside but here he is using his hand.

Lara O'Keefe using the weed torch...

The Sandman

2009-06-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

Your Deepest Mind

2009-06-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

Here is the essay in its entirety:

YOUR DEEPEST MIND

Alex Matisse

Some days the work is maddening; others, it is a delight, the clay springing from the wheel head effortlessly, as though it could not wait to be turned to its final form. Other days the clay stays obstinately close to the wheel, falling back down when it is worked too hard, tired and wet, retiring to a growing pile of slumped pots in the corner of the splash pan.

It was the spring of 2006 when my blue Vanagon wheezed up the last pitch of Early's Mountain, North Carolina. At the crest a sign read, "Welcome to the Big Sandy Mush Community." I rode the brakes the rest of the way down. As I passed the old Fords and Dodges with their diesel engines grinding up out of the bottom land, their drivers still waved at the passing cars; not so much a wave, perhaps, as one crooked pointer finger, raised from the top of the steering wheel, above a cracked dashboard. After winding through fields of silage and tobacco, I arrived at the Jones Pottery where for two years I was to work under the watchful eye of Matt Jones, learning his craft.

Matt's introduction to clay was similar to my own. Just a decade prior, at a small college in Indiana, Matt somehow ended up in a pottery class. From Earlham College, he went to apprentice with a Connecticut potter, Todd Piker, who introduced him to the family of potters we are now all part of. After two-and-a-half years with Todd, Matt and his wife, Christine, moved down to North Carolina to work for Mark Hewitt, another potter who, like Todd, fires a large wood-burning kiln. Mark and Todd had worked with the same potter in England, Michael Cardew, who made pots in the English country tradition, not unlike the folk potters of North Carolina. Matt worked for Mark for six months before leaving to find the land he now lives on with his wife and their two children, Linden and Sara Frances.

The pottery, or workshop, is simple. A dirt floor keeps it both cool and dust free, two small windows sit on either side of the door, and below them two potters wheels, the plastic splash pans replaced with wood. Behind the workshop lies an enormous pile of bluish-gray clay, dug with a backhoe from a tobacco field on the other side of Early's Mountain. Matt thinks it should last him 30 years and it probably will. At the far end of the workshop, under a peak-roofed tin shed lies the kiln, like a giant egg cut in half, dug into the hillside.

Potting is a work of extremes. For a few crazy months we work like mad, filling the ware racks with pots, preparing the kiln to accept them, and performing the countless other chores required to keep the pottery in order. The firing approaches with a week of backbreaking, painstaking work. The loading takes time and mental strain as each pot is placed into the kiln, each one raised off the kiln shelves or floor with a chalky white mixture of alumina hydrate, china clay, and sawdust, called wadding. After four or five days, the kiln is full and the door is carefully bricked up, the cracks filled with clay and sand.

Overnight a small fire dances at the feet of the pots on the very front ranks to make sure all residual moisture is evaporated. Then the fire starts in earnest, growing gradually over the hours until the temperature reaches 2,300° Fahrenheit, the interior of the kiln glowing a bright orange-yellow.

The firing is broken down into shifts; as apprentice, it was my duty to watch over the kiln from midnight until six the next morning. On my last predawn firing shift at the Jones pottery I wrote:

This is the time I call the “Grind.” My friends have gone home to their beds to drift off into sleep and I am left alone with the kiln, the dogs, and my thoughts. The next two-and-a-half hours will draw by slowly. The moon sinks lower in the gathering clouds, and the flame slowly works its way farther and father back into the kiln. These are some of my favorite times. I've fired this kiln 10 or 12 times, I’ve lost track by now, but each time I've kept watch over it in the small hours of the night. It’s an easy kiln to fire, rarely if ever stalling, it sometimes seems like a giant, walking up a steep hill slowly, but showing no sign of tiring. As if it would fire the pots into puddles on the kiln floor.

I toss two more pieces of slab into the fire and the kiln roars back to life: 2,050° reads on the pyrometer. This is also the last time I will sit here at this hour. Coyotes are suddenly calling out in the pasture across the road. The dogs wake for a minute from their slumber to let out furtive growls and drift back off to sleep.

This is the part of being a potter few will get to understand or appreciate. It is the hidden part, the quiet part. There is no glamour to be found sitting in front of a fire at 3:45 in the morning. There is no one to watch, no one to applaud. Even the spring peepers are quiet tonight. A bullfrog sounds in the darkness.

When the front of the kiln is to temperature, the flame is then moved back through the kiln by carefully sliding strips of wood into small openings on either side. The fire licks the plates and bowls stacked in the very back, 25 feet from where it started, and winds its way through the flue, past the dampers, and up the chimney out into the night air. When the whole kiln is up to temperature, Matt pours feed salt onto thin strips of wood, which are then carefully placed into the kiln, a few in the front and the rest through the side-stoking ports. The salt instantaneously vaporizes, and then adheres to the surface of the pots adding a bit more shine and luster to the finished wares. After salting, the kiln is given a final few stokes to “soak” a bit longer, and then it is shut down, any visible cracks in the door are filled and the kiln is left to cool. When the kiln has cooled, the door finally taken down, and the pots litter the lawn, glinting in the sun, a pall settles over. So much work and energy has reached its climax, and we are once again left with the staggering prospect of starting over.

The reality of a potter’s life is quite different from the often romanticized notion held by people looking in from outside. It is a tremendous amount of work. To make pots in the "old way" means there is wood to cut, clay to mix, and glass to crush for the glazes. A lot of this work falls on the apprentice, while the master potter has time to create his own work. It is both a matter of economics and an earned right.

It was Matt who told me first that there are no new forms, only old ones turned well or turned poorly. As potters, we are not always asked to invent something new, but instead to carry on a thoughtful conversation with what came before. Out of that conversation, new ideas emerge. Matt’s pots are made from the same clay that the mountain potters of the region used in their dirt-floored workshops a century before, and it is this adherence to material integrity, coupled with his strong classic forms, that give his work depth, presence, and the same quiet dignity as their predecessors.

With the availability of industrially processed clays, the relationship of a potter to his or her medium has changed. Most potters choose to use materials that have been refined, processed, and tested to assure quality and consistency, but in doing so, they lose something less tangible. The Sufi mystic Ibn al 'Arabi (July 28, 1165 - November 10, 1240) wrote:

While watching an artisan mixing clay and making things out of it, one is led to observe superficially that in the hands of a potter clay is passive and inert. One forgets, however, the important fact that clay actively [positively] influences the work of the artisan. Certainly, he can make a great deal of things with clay, but whatever he does he cannot go beyond the subtle and rigid limits imposed by the very nature of the clay. In other words, the nature of the clay itself determines the possible forms in which it can be realized.

The unrefined clay, referred to as blue-pipe clay by the locals, after the Civil War soldiers who sat around their campfires fashioning pipes from it, stretches out in a large pile behind the pottery, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding hillside due to the grass that has sprouted over it. It could be any pile of dirt, save for the end closest to the pottery, where the hard outer crust is scraped away with a spade head shovel every two or three months to reveal the dark blue-gray clay beneath. Compared to the mule-driven pug mills of the turn of the century, Matt’s clay-mixing system is rather twenty-first century. The clay is shoveled into 5-gallon buckets and then poured into a “blunger” to mix with a few other materials. The blunger, designed and built by an Amish man in Ohio, is a simple 55-gallon drum with a motor on top that powers the submerged mixing blades. The drum is filled with water and clay and left to mix, usually while Matt and I break for lunch. When the clay is thoroughly mixed, a sump pump is submerged into the blunger and the clay is pumped into the drying beds, where it will sit for a few weeks, slowly expelling its moisture until it can be brought into the pottery.

I can remember lying in bed at night, in the small apprentice cabin behind the pottery, listening to the glass crusher. Every ten seconds or so. Crunch. In the summers, when the stream slows to a trickle, the glass crusher slows as well until a thundershower sends the muddy water charging down the creek bed, through the raceway, and spilling into the square bucket of the glass crusher. The bucket is on one end of a four-by-four post; on the other are three spikes that point downward. When the filled bucket reaches the ground, the water sloshes out and the spiked end plunges back down, into a steel-bottomed box of broken beer bottles. After a few days of this pounding, the glass has been transformed to powder, which will later be added to the glaze as silica. For hundreds of years this method has been used to crush materials, from the potteries of Japan and China where they pulverized clay and rock to the small farm potteries of the Carolinas where they crushed glass for their alkaline glaze.

When my two-year apprenticeship was over, at the end of our last firing, Matt gave me a present: a large 4-gallon ovoid preserve jar reminiscent of those made centuries before, across the North and South Carolina Piedmont. It has the dark green alkaline glaze of the Catawba region, located just two hours east, down the winding stretch of interstate 40, in the foothills of the Appalachians. The jar is slip trailed, a technique of applying a watered down clay mixture to the surface of the pot with an applicator such as an old restaurant ketchup bottle. It is a technique that spans many ceramic traditions, but for Matt is rooted in the varied potteries of the eastern United States: from Edgefield, South Carolina, where skillful slaves turned functional ware for their masters; to Winston-Salem, where the Moravians brought their colorful slip-trailed red ware down through the Shenandoah Valley from Pennsylvania; to the New England potteries themselves with their salt-glazed stoneware, where they used a combination of slip trailing and traditional brush work to apply cobalt, which once fired turns bright blue.

On one side of this jar, a large buck stands, craning back his neck, next to a pine tree. It is the same buck that appears throughout New England stoneware. On the back is a poem, like those seen on the large jars that came out of Edgefield, where Dave Drake, or Dave the Slave, a well-known nineteenth-century slave potter, often inscribed rhyming couplets on his pots. This one simply reads:

Do this in love

Do this in Madness

Do this with your Deepest Mind

Wild Apples

2009-06-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

Wild Apples is a literary journal that my mother, Linda Hoffman, started with a few other friends. What follows is the introduction from their website:

"Wild Apples: a journal of nature, art, and inquiry is a new twice-yearly arts and literary publication. Taking its name and inspiration from Henry David Thoreau's essay, "Wild Apples," the journal brings together the work of artists and writers who are connected by the common threads of care for the environment, engagement in social concerns, and commitment to the arts and the way they shape our world.

"Artists are not like the ordered rows of trees in a commercial orchard," writes founding editor, Linda Hoffman, in her introduction to the first issue. "They have more in common with the wild apples growing on the borders of woodlands." Our journal seeks to find these gems in the landscape, let the different arts and visions intermingle, and produce new varieties and voices to sustain us.

Let Wild Apples be a haven from cell phones and computers; a piece of reading that takes you into the woods and wilds. As the journal's guiding spirit writes:

What a healthy out-of-door appetite it takes to relish the apple of life, the apple of the world, then!"

When for the third issue, with the theme of soil, they asked me to write a piece on the subject of the dirt that I work with I jumped at the chance. The journal is beautiful printed in full color and with no advertisements. The piece that I wrote is on my time working with Matt Jones. There is a .pdf sample of the essay available here. If you enjoy what you see I encourage you all to check out a copy. They are not cheap but it is well worth the money. There are not to many journals like this out there and I think they all do a terrific job. I will post the essay in its entirety soon.

The Dig

2009-06-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

Last night some friends of mine came through town and played a show at the Cave. I've known the band for a few years and I try to give them some hospitality and a place to crash when they come through North Carolina. They are a great group of guys with a fantastic sound. You can check out their website here and download a few free songs below...if they are in your area (and if you live on the East Coast chances are they will be sometime soon) check them out.

Demo - zip file

Here is what some of the bigger music blogs are saying about the boys:

"Speaking of not changing, local boys The Dig are back at Bowery again. They just played there six weeks ago with Mystery Jets, but it looks like they've got the goods to make a name for themselves. I have no witty observations or creative writing pull quotes to give you. They are just a damn good band. If they keep at what they are doing, playing consistently, frequently and effectively, their brand of 70s road house rock will find an audience beyond our fair city." - Musicsnobery.com

"From the first note this band grabbed my attention (another rare occurrence) and pulled me out of the daze I was in leaning against the bar. And they didn’t let go for the whole set. They’ve got a vintage rock sound that blends the grit of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club with the bounce of the Strokes. It’s Rock ‘n Roll boiled down to its most basic ingredients: Balls, Volume, and a good Hook.

Don’t forget rhythm. Too many acts these days do. The Dig laid down layer upon layer of the stuff (guitar, bass, drums, Rhodes), stacking it up and thickening the hell out of their grooves. No need to get overly riffy. The basics were that good. The songs pull you in with their catchy beats, well-written melodies, and simple hooks…imagine a hipster basement party where the band is actually good. I know, it’s hard. But trust me, these dudes got it!

Song after song was strong and the guys played them with a fervor that only comes with skill and experience. There weren’t any misfires or “time to take a piss” songs in the set. And the crowd dug (pun annoyingly intended) them, too, really getting behind the band and even calling for an encore. Not bad for an out-of-town band no one had heard before.

They are hitting up a bunch of cities in the next few months. Do yourself a friggin’ service and check them out. You’re sure to dig them…

Sorry, I had to go there." - 52shows.com

The Simple Tools

2009-06-15T21:45:00.001-07:00

These are a few of our tools. From left to right we have a Sherrill Mudtools Rib which I use for putting the final smooth on the pot. Before the plastic come a few passes with the big wooden rib and before that 1 or 2 pulls with the metal. We all have our different techniques and Mark doesn't use a wooden rib at all but I learned to throw with one at Matt's and haven't given it up. Next is a Dolan trim tool and then a regular old scraper used for putting a bevel on false feet right before the pot come off the wheel head. Next in line is the old fan brush which I use sort of like a throwing stick for pulling up the necks of vases and other narrow forms. Farther on down is the throwing stick used for bellying out pots with tight openings, a fettling knife, a small wire brush which I find indispensable to slip and score at the same time, and finally and assortment of sponges. And thats pretty much it for the hand tools.

Composite

2009-06-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

I am going to break a cardinal rule of this "blogosphere" and say what you are never supposed to say. "Gee..it's been a long time since I've posted." I read that somewhere about a year back in a guide to having a successful blog. HA! Well, if consistency is what you are after I am afraid you are in the wrong place. Some days (or months) I just cannot bring myself to keeping everyone updated on my life. I will not bore you with my ruminations on why that may be.

So here is the update:

Plans are moving along on the workshop construction, kiln, and kiln shed. There are a number of details that need to be worked out...like what to do with a pesky power line that goes up through the back field (and the potential site of the pottery) to the last property on the road. As promised before here are a few pictures of the place. This summer I'll be going out on weekends to chip away at a list of house improvements including a shed dormer which I have felt could be a little over my head, but have then been assured by a friend of mine who is a framer that it is "just about impossible to be over your head with a shed dormer." All house improvements will end n the fall when work will start in eanest on the kiln shed and workshop.

Site of Workshop

In the pottery we are busy as always making pots for the next firing which will be in mid August. We have about 7 weeks to throw which will give us plenty of time to fill the kiln. Below are a few pictures of the process of throwing a composite.
The bases are all thrown on day 1. We leave them on the bats and let them stiffen up.
The next day we attach and throw the necks. Joseph throws his necks off the hump which may be faster but I prefer to throw the necks out of individual balls of clay. Fo this pot the base was 3.5 lbs and the next is 1.75. The necks could have gone down maybe a quarter lb but this weight was pretty good. With callipers we match the flange of the neck to the base.

The next step is to flip the neck onto the base and throw it. These are tricky to make and because I haven't done alot of them here they still take me a good bit of time. Depending on how centered the neck goes on and how much I have to wrestle with it wanting to spin out of true they take me between 10 and 15 minutes per base but usually its closer to 15. I would be happy to get it down to 1o minutes. It of course also depends on how complicated you make the neck. These are fairly straighforward. These were inspired by a pot of Daniel Johnstons which is on my refridgerator. Maybe more on that subject on Tuesday...

East Fork Pottery

2009-05-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

The sale has come and gone and Joseph, Mark, and I are settled back into the throwing cycle. The racks are filling up and I am sitting in JFK airport waiting for a plane to Washington state to visit family and see my little brother graduate from college. Hopefully he will make some time to take me fishing.

Two larger changes happened in the time since my last post. The first was somewhat predictable. Successfully completing one more year on this grand old earth and rolling past the quarter century mark into the 26th year of my life..... I turned 25. The second big change took place the day after and was slightly less anticipated and much more exciting and frightening all at the same time.
I closed on 27 acres of steep mountains, 3 acres of pasture, an old somewhat dilapidated 1920's farm house, two huge over grown apple trees, an old tobacco barn in a much more dilapidated state, and a two seater outhouse. The future home of East Fork Pottery. The place is located 30 minutes from Ashville outside the town of Mars Hill. Look out for a blog name change in the coming months! Untill then I am trying to stay focused for this last cycle and make some nice pots. I'll keep you all posted!

The picture option is not working but I will update this with some snaps of the place when I land in Seattle.

Preview Pictures Up!

2009-04-28T19:21:00.001-07:00

Bottles By Alex

In anticipation of the sale this coming weekend here at the Hewitt Pottery there are a few preview pictures up on Marks website. Click the above picture to be directed to the preview page. It was a terrific firing and we were all very pleased with the results. We have also had tremendous help the past few day with all the cleaning and preparation for the sale. Ill get some pictures of the crew tomorrow. The preview is Friday night so if you are in the area stop on by and say hello.

Romertopf Chicken Part 1...

2009-04-27T17:02:00.000-07:00

This is my mother's time tested clay pot chicken recipe. If I do say so myself, over the past six months I think I have finally come to a place of near perfection with this dish. I have modified the recipe slightly from the original, adding just one or two extra steps. My roommates brought this little broiler back from the farmers market but one day soon I hope to have (along with a kiln of my own) and nice little flock of broilers to fill the old Romertopf with every Sunday night.

An important note on clay pots: Earthenware clay pots like the one pictured above must be soaked in water for 30 minutes before being placed in a cold oven. This is essential for most pottery that is being cooked with, unless it is flameware.....but I don't know anything about flameware.

To start you will need:

1 - 3-4 lb chicken brined for 12 to 18 hours.

To prepare the brine dissolve 1 cup of kosher salt and 1/2 cup of sugar into a gallon of water. I usually heat up one cup of water on the stove and add the salt and sugar to that to help it dissolve.

Roasting vegetables (I like to use some combination of the following: beets, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, carrots, leaks, garlic cloves..etc) Cut into large chunks like pictured above.
Olive oil
1/2 to 3/4 stick of butter
Optional: Thyme, dijon mustard, white wine

Once the chicken is removed from the brine dry and truss it with butcher string. Both of these steps are in my opinion essential. The brining helps to both flavor of the meat and more importantly aiding in the meats ability to hold moisture. I have found that a brined chicken is more moist and tender than one right out of the fridge. Trussing the bird helps it to cook evenly. Click here for a tutorial on how to truss a chicken.

Now skin what vegetables need to be skinned and cut them into large chunks. I then put them in a large bowl and dress them with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Then take a second large bowl and put it on top of the first and toss it all around to ensure and good and even coating of the oil, salt, and pepper.

Now you can rub onto the skin of the chicken whatever you like. Tonight I did just dijon mustard, salt, and pepper but thyme is also very nice. Take a handful of vegetables and throw them in the bottom of the clay pot and place the chicken on top of them. Add the rest of the vegetables around the bird. Cut the butter into table spoon sized chunks and put it ontop of the bird. You may also add a glug or two of white wine at this time.

Put on the lid and place in a cold oven. Turn the oven to 450, set a timer for 1 1/2 hours and clean up (or read some blogs).

When the chicken is done I think it should register somewhere around 150 but someone feel free to correct me if that is wrong. After and hour and a half I then take the lid off and broil the bird for a few extra minutes to crisp of the skin and the top layer of vegetables.

I like to serve this with short grain brown rice and a large simple salad. There will be a lot of cooking juices at the bottom of the pan which should be spooned over everything. This is actually, despite my long winded rambling, a very simple dish to prepare. Enjoy...

O'Keefe Pottery

2009-04-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I helped Lara O'Keefe fire her kiln, along with Julie Jones, Joseph Sands, and husband Jimmy. Jimmy and I did the overnight and then the other help arrived in the morning. This is a great little kiln that Will Ruggles designed and it fired beautifully. Below are a few pictures from the firing. From peaking through the door and side ports it looked like there was a great load of pots in there. Hat's off to Lara for making it all happen...

New Blogs...

2009-04-23T16:07:00.001-07:00

I have come across two new pottery related blogs in the last few days. The first is that of Andrew Stephenson who makes woodfired stoneware in the Asheville area and is also a former Jones Pottery apprentice. Check out Andrew's blog and see what he is up to....

The second new blog was started by fellow potter Josh Copus to lead up to and document his and Eric Knoche's newest project called the Carolina Kiln Build. In a matter of weeks the two plan to head up a kiln building extravaganza on Josh's land in Madison county, just north of Asheville. This event is limited in the number of participants so sign up now!

Midnight Shift Confessional #2

2009-04-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

Its been about a year since I sat in front of Matt’s kiln and wrote my first Midnight Shift Confessional. Now I am in front of a different kiln, although similar in many aspects. It too is large and lumbers along, consuming effortlessly 5 or 6 large slabs of pine per stoke. The pyrometer reads 1989 as we slowly climb through reduction.

Since being at Marks I’ve done this shift every firing and its just dawning on me that I won’t always get to do this. When it is my kiln that shift will probably be given to someone else, so I will be rested in the morning to lead the firing to completion. Suddenly that day does not seem so far off and as it approaches I am again thinking about shadows.

This time it is not the shadow of family but instead the shadows of those who have taught me. Its not going to be an easy road and the ruts that they have worn are deep and comfortable, which I will gladly follow for a time, my work showing clearly the influence of those who have taught as well as all of the influences of their respective pasts. Eventually though, I suspect the road will become less worn, and those ruts will fade into tracks which in turn will become just a faint trail which I can follow for a time and then veer off away but know that it is always there to return to.

That is what we get from an apprenticeship, a guide and a standard. Something to go forward with us into the world as we make our work, something to nudge us along towards excellence. For almost three years I have tried to perfect some one else's vision of perfection, to chase after the forms of their own tormented search. The problem with this is that you never get there. It’s the carrot on the stick and I will never be satisfied until I stop seeking that approval and instead grant it to myself.

2009-04-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

Countdown...

2009-04-15T19:25:00.001-07:00

The past few days were spent getting the last few pots in, bricking up the doors, and moving wood to the respective piles that Mark likes to have distributed around the kiln. Tomorrow I will go in for a shift from 10 until 2 and then go home for the afternoon only to return at midnight for the late night shift which those of you who have followed the blog since it's inception know that I enjoy.

2009-04-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

My morning commute, out the front door, down the driveway and then an immediate left down the gravel under the pecans. The pottery can be seen in the background.

We started loading the middle of last week. Tomorrow we will finish up the last stack in the very front of the kiln and start the pre-heat. Thursday I will do the overnight shift and Friday we will finish up. I'll bring the camera tomorrow and snap a few pictures of the stacks. For now I am too tired to say anything more than it's been a long few weeks and it will be great to get this thing fired off. This cycle we fired twice in the time that we would normally just fire one kiln. In preperation for the Hickory show we fired Mark's new kiln and then turned around an tried to make a few pots to fill the salt kiln in preparation for the spring sale.

"My Favorite Things..."

2009-04-01T14:57:00.000-07:00

This is the talk the Mark presented at the Catawba Valley Pottery and Antique Festival this past weekend. It is well worth the read....

A Few of My Favorite Things about North Carolina Pottery

Mark Hewitt

Regional pottery traditions are extremely rare; they are like wild flowers that only grows in certain special soils and microclimates. A unique set of economic, historic, and cultural conditions have allowed the pottery tradition of the Catawba Valley to survive from the early 19^th century until now. It is miraculous that alkaline-glazed pottery is still being made here in the western Piedmont, and similarly miraculous that salt-glazed pottery is still being made in the Eastern Piedmont. The pottery culture of North Carolina is better developed than in any other state in America. Of course I know that pots are made elsewhere, they say that pots are made in Oklahoma and even Tennessee, no doubt in South Dakota, but no other state in the US has such a rich ceramic heritage as North Carolina, and I’m going to discuss a few of the conditions that have allowed North Carolina to flourish as a place to make pots.

These are “A Few of My Favorite Things About North Carolina Pottery”

* Well, it all starts with the materials. For those of us who enjoy the primal poetry of gathering local materials (an increasingly rare endeavor as the convenience of Big Clay dominates our psyches and supplies), North Carolina is rich in ceramic materials; we have good deposits of clay, any number of interesting glaze materials, and abundant wood. My apprenticeship with Michael Cardew in England showed me, among other things, the luxurious qualities of pots made with materials that potters gather locally and refine themselves.

When I first visited Burlon Craig, in 1981, I went straight to his clay pile. When visiting potteries, some people go straight to the showroom, others go straight to the kilns, I go to clay piles. I remember standing on top of his clay pile knowing, or somehow sensing, the spirit of the earth, recognizing that the foundation of his pottery was sound, that his clay came from right there, close by, that his pots honored his place, they were part of it. My teacher, Michael Cardew, wrote that, “A good potter cannot treat his raw materials merely as a means of production; he treats them as they deserve to b treated, with love. He cannot make things merely as utensils; he makes them as they have a right to be, as things with a life of their own.”

Rather like stories of native peoples crawling on their knees the last few yards to sacred outcrops of hematite, or white clay, with which they adorn themselves, so too do I become I ecstatic when I go to Lemon Springs, near Cameron, about 30 miles from my pottery, where at the bottom of a sand and gravel pit, I get good clay for my pots. Though I confess that I succumb to the ease of ordering special materials from ceramic supply companies, it always feels, by contrast, as though I’m getting the ceramic equivalent of overly-processed junk food.

We all know the difference in taste between a home-grown tomato and one raised in a greenhouse far away and sent in February to our local Piggly Wiggly. Well, the same applies to the flavor of pots made from local materials. One of the greatest underlying pleasures of ceramic appreciation comes from our response to material quality. A pot is a record of a material process. You pick up a pot, you feel it, you look at it, and at some level, you know it.

There is interest these days in the concept of “food miles,” or how far away was the food on your table grown, who grew it, and how much energy was consumed to get it from its source to you? This “locatarian” sensibility can be extrapolated to all the objects in your house, your furniture, your appliances, even your entertainment, and for us potters, to the materials that comprise our clay bodies and glazes. Where and under what conditions was that cobalt or copper mined? Where did the clay in those plastic bags orignate? How far has that that nephylene syenite traveled?

Alkaline-glazed pots, and salt-glazed pots, are among the simplest to make - which does not, however, make them easy to make! In the case of salt-glazed pots all you need is clay, a wheel (in fact, not even a wheel), a kiln, and a little salt. In the case of alkaline glazed pots all you need are clay, a wheel, a kiln, some wood ash, and a simple glass frit. Keeping things simple is very difficult, but if you do mine and refine materials locally, the flavor of that place and region is recorded in the pots you make, and, to me, the pots are healthier. The greens of South Carolina and Catawba Valley glazes are luminous, they have unfathomable depth and complexity. The clay quality underlying the salt glaze on Eastern Piedmont ware is an intricate organic quilt, patterning the surface with unending pleasure.

In addition to these finely-tuned assessments of ceramic quality, economics is involved in the material equation too. For instance, as recently as the early 1980’s, Burlon Craig spent a mere $15 to produce a large groundhog kiln load of pots. This was spent on gas for his pick-up to transport clay from old Rhodes clay holes near the Catawba River, and go haul wood from a nearby saw mill. In a similar vein, my most recent 20 ton truckload of Lemon Springs clay cost me a gallon pitcher and a gallon jar, including delivery.

* My next favorite thing about North Carolina pottery is skill. I’d like to read a quote from a member of one the other branches of the Southern pottery tradition, taking the liberty of crossing state lines and let Gracie Hewell, the wife of Harold Hewell, owner of Hewell’s pottery in Gillsville, Georgia, talk about her skills. They make horticultural ware, which is often perceived as being at the very bottom of the hierarchy of ceramic practice. The Hewell’s specialize in making strawberry pots, flowerpots, beehives, and clay jack o’lanterns, their pots are ubiquitous in garden centers throughout the southeastern United States. Gracie Hewell was being interviewed in 1981 by Charles Mack, a folklore professor at University of South Carolina, and quoted in his book, “Talking with the Turners; Conversations with Southern Folk Potters.”

Charles R. Mack. How long have you been turning?

Gracie Hewell. Let’s see, I got married in 1950, and I’ve been making pots ever since 1952

CRM. Did you just decide that you wanted to do it, or did your husband ask you to do it?

GWH. No, he didn’t ask me to do it. I just always said that, when I got married, whatever my husband done that was what I was going to do, whether he was a mechanic or a farmer or whatever, and he happened to be a potter, so I decided I wanted to make pottery.

CRM. Some people have said that women haven’t done any turning. They may work around the shop a little bit, but they never do any turning. What do you think about that?

GWH Well, I think women are missing out on the best part of the deal….cause, see what I do, I make a lot of pots and I finish pots for my son, Chester, my husband, Harold, every day, and for my brother in law, Carl. I finish pots for them every day – every pot they turn and when somebody is on vacation, I finish off pots for Henry and his son. I finished off 1,700 pots Monday, putting holes in them – strawberry jars – and turned 210 pieces myself.

CRM. How do you like doing it?

GWH. I love it. I’d have to like it as much as I do it. I made 735 pots in one day and done a lot of finishing, so one day I’m gonna break a record, one day when I haven’t got a lot of finishing to do. I’ve been making 400 of these this morning, and then I’ll have all the strawberries of Chester, Harold.

CRM. Are these the tops for the pumpkins?

GWH. Jack o’lanterns. I’ll be turning 400 of these, and then this evening I’ll finish every one of these strawberries…

CRM. Do you do this everyday?

GWH. Every day. I even do all my housework, gardening, the yard, flowers. I do everything. I don’t have no help. Don’t want none.

CRM. It must sit pretty well with you.

GWH. It does. I enjoy it. There’s a customer that comes here that said I never have done a day’s work in my life. He said I liked it too good: it wasn’t work.

What Gracie Hewell does daily is echoed by Black Mountain College poet Jonathan Williams, who said that one of the tasks of art is, “To raise "the common" to grace; to pay close attention to the earthy.” Gracie knows grace, just as surely as anyone else. Her strawberry pots help people raise strawberries out of the earth, they are placed on a porch, by a pathway, or in a garden, and tended carefully until you are able to pick a ripe, juicy berry as you pass by on a clear May day. That is grace.

Or, another echo from Charles Olson, another Black Mountain poet, “These days / whatever you have to say, leave / the roots on, let them / dangle // And the dirt // Just to make clear / Where they come from.”

Gracie Hewell is a rural minimalist; her production resembles a Steve Reich or Philip Glass composition, a dense tapestry of minor variations, an intricate, loving, daily ebb and flow.

Gracie Hewell’s love of repetitive work is echoed across North Carolina, particularly in the workshops of the old guard folk potters, now sadly reduced in number, but including Neolia and Celia Cole, daughters of A. R. Cole, working in Sanford, who inscribe the bottoms of their pots with poems, homilies, and love notes, and whose mugs still cost $4, and Boyd and Nancy Owens, children of M. L. Owens, who make standard North Carolina domestic ware, simple, straightforward, inexpensive. Jugtown Pottery can also be considered part of this group.

All these potters learned their art, their craft, from family members, they did not go to art school, they went to work, learning as they went. Their motives for making pots may have been more financial than aesthetic, but not necessarily. Their range of expression is narrow, but their constraints do not preclude love, experimentation, imagination and change. On a trip through the south in 1981 with my wife, Carol, I remember watching Chester Hewell throw 10 gallon strawberry pots out of the sloppiest, coarsest clay I’ve ever seen, and, as he was making one, he looked up at me with a twinkle in his eye, and said, “You ain’t seen nothin’ cruder, have you?” At that moment he might just as well have been Peter Voulkos making an Abstract Expressionist ceramic scupture. In fact if I close my eyes and think of the big stacks that Voulkos made, with their slashes and holes, I picture them as strawberry pots!

I’ve already mentioned Gracie Hewell and the pride she clearly has in her work. Whether or not you feel that she is engaged in the drudgery of factory work, or that she could be replaced by a Southeast-Asian press mold operator, she displays the passion, discipline, and skill common to all great artistic endeavors. Production potters like Gracie Hewell, and countless others throughout the South, have been invaluable models for me. I may not make as many pots, but I am quick, and can make a good variety of thinly-potted small pots, and generous big pots, with consistency and pride. I love every one, and my skills stand me in good stead in the marketplace, in fact they are vital.

* The next item on my list of Favorite Things about North Carolina pottery is style. Clearly making pottery is about more than technique and repetition. It matters what you make. Excessive quantity works to the detriment of quality, and quality is always the standard to which potters must be drawn. However, combine quantity and quality with innovation (whatever the schools of pottery you belong to), and you will most likely make work that is affordable and appreciated.

In North Carolina our library of style is large. In addition to our emblematic “roots” traditions, we also have Penland, and Black Mountain College. And I’ll talk about them later.

As a member of the Cardew-ian branch of the Leach School, the style of the older pots from the “roots” tradition vibrate with what my eye has been trained to see. In the case of the South Carolina alkaline-glaze tradition, the pots combine European vernacular forms with Asian ash and celadon glazes, and also have an African-American inflection in both making and decorating. South Carolina pots have a lot of style. So too do traditional Catawba Valley alkaline-glazed pots.

The North Carolina salt-glaze tradition combines European and New England forms with the cross-draught groundhog kilns that produce surfaces corresponding to those on Japanese anagama style wares. Together, these Southern pots have an underlying friendly soulfulness, and are, to me, as significant a cultural expression as the Blues, or bluegrass music.

By grafting these pottery “roots” traditions together with what I learned as an apprentice in England I produce wares that have a regional aesthetic as well as a contemporary sensibility. My Iced Tea Ceremony Vessels, for instance, combine a tongue-in-cheek regional counterpoint to the Japanese Tea Ceremony with contemporary ceramic references. They are fun to look at, think about, and to use. Sometimes I like my pots to be spare and minimal, sometimes I like them to be elaborately ornamented. I am not root-bound, but choose to use these healthy Carolinian roots as the rootstock for my own hybrid growth.

Tradition can be new if its parameters are understood to be liberating, not confining, and if it is treated with imagination. It belongs now, just as much as the avant-garde belongs now. The one does not cancel out the other. One person’s creativity is not at the expense of someone else’s; individual creativity does not invalidate anyone else’s creativity.

Joseph Albers, the German émigré who taught at Black Mountain College for many years, objected to tradition only if it had moved from a “role of facilitation to one of inhibition.” Tradition is not inhibiting if I decide to make 150 traditionally-inspired, alkaline-glazed mugs in a day, (not nearly as many as Gracie Hewell might make), endowing each one with all my attention, deliberately choosing to be restrained, allowing a single, pure note to be heard in each. Every one is an idea, and every one is a reality. Every one is a momentary bloom, with tradition facilitating the contemporary expression of a venerable root of American ceramic practice.

The title of my talk, “A Few of My Favorite Things about North Carolina Pottery,” comes, as you know, from the Rogers and Hammerstein song in the “Sound of Music.” You may also know the version of that song performed by the great jazz saxophone player, John Coltrane, who was born in Hamlet, North Carolina. He took a wonderful song and made something new out of it that is now, itself, a classic. Many contemporary North Carolina potters continue to do the same thing, taking a classic, and making it their own.

But NC has more than just a “roots” tradition. We also claim the progressive, experimental, Black Mountain College, and its many distinguished alumni, including ceramic artists Robert Turner and Karen Karnes, as part of the rich tapestry of North Carolina’s diversified ceramic heritage.

And, of course, we have Penland, and can only marvel at how it has fostered so many excellent craftspeople over the years, and how it has added an exciting range of new styles to contemporary North Carolina pottery. Indeed one of the tasks facing traditional North Carolina potters is figuring out how to absorb contemporary studio pottery practice without losing the essence of what has gone before.

It is all too easy to box ourselves into camps of potters, to be a “traditional North Carolina potter,” or be a “Penland potter,” or to favor the experimental legacy of Black Mountain pottery, to the exclusion of all else. How do we reconcile these differences? A recent documentary about Black Mountain College entitled, “Fully Awake,” points to a way forward. It is not difficult for potters to be “fully awake” to what is around them, gracefully acknowledging, if not necessarily embracing, all the varied approaches to pottery making. Let the words Black Mountain alumni, composer John Cage, guide us, “The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.”

Indeed I see the emergence of a new kind of melting pot, for some of my favorite contemporary North Carolina pots are being made at the place where Penland, Black Mountain and traditional NC pottery intersect. This nexus of experimentation can perhaps be summarized by a quote from Josef Albers, when he said, “To experiment is at first more valuable than to produce; free play in the beginning develops courage.”

* My next favorite thing about North Carolina pottery is the potters, of course. I would like to have known Daniel Seagle, his son James Franklin, Isaac Lefevers, The Hartzogs, Chester Webster, J.A. Craven, and all the other Cravens, Nicholas and Himer Fox, and Solomon Loy and Tom Boggs, and so many others. Their pots are so good, it is tempting to think that they were pretty interesting characters too. They all should, in my opinion, be given equal billing to Adelaide Alsop Robineau, Fergus Binns, and George Orr, when writing histories of American Ceramics. However, these “country cousins” seem to irritate or embarrass art critics, and more often than not, it is the better-connected, urbane, and eccentric who end up in the national anthologies. Nonetheless the work of the great nineteenth century NC potters has been celebrated and continues to be venerated for its fundamental aesthetic majesty.

Thanks to the remarkable transition from utilitarian to art ware pottery, the list of twentieth century potters is also long and distinguished, including Ben Owen, J.B. Cole, A.R.Cole, the Reinhardts, Burlon Craig, Bachelder, the Aumans, and so many more.

Today you can wander the halls of this festival and enjoy contemporary North Carolina potters as much as their pots. This direct connection between maker and customer is at the heart of North Carolina’s “Mud Love.”

* Another favorite thing about North Carolina is the market. North Carolina is not the only place with a reputation for being a good place to sell pots, but there are clear regional discrepancies throughout the US in terms of potters’ abilities to sell their ware locally. The market in North Carolina is strong partly as a result of the specific cultural history of North Carolina relating to its ceramic heritage, and partly because of the continued clustering of potters in Seagrove in the eastern Piedmont, the Catawba Valley in the western Piedmont, and up around Penland in the Mountains. These pods of potters provide an enhanced cumulative identity and a numerical economic advantage - like theaters on Broadway, or golf courses in Pinehurst, the more the merrier (wouldn’t that be nice in the case of Seagrove!). The healthy market is also as a function of the deliberate efforts of the State and a series of individuals who, in various capacities, actively promote pottery, in all its manifestations, through exhibitions, publications, conferences, schools, collector’s guilds, and craft fairs.

Many of these advocates are able to float conceptually between traditional pottery made in Seagrove and the Catawba Valley, and contemporary work being made at Penland and elsewhere, without being ashamed of either, giving each aesthetic its days in the sun. They are equally happy in the company of ceramic sculptors like Michael Sherrill, whose sculptural work commands tens of thousands of dollars, as in the company of their “country cousins,” like the fabulous seventy-year-old Cole sisters and their $4 mugs. A threshold of cultural acceptance has been crossed in North Carolina, and potters are well-received within the community at large, and are accorded a status that is more main stream than marginal.

Of course, the healthy market is also a function of the healthy economy of the state (at least it was healthy up until last week…), not to mention the quality of pots being made here in North Carolina, and the confident entrepreneurial skills of many individual potters, who readily adapt to ever-changing marketing tools and conditions. For instance, many contemporary North Carolina potters are active bloggers, several potters are now on Facebook, and a few are even active Twitter-ers.

All the talk, all the buzz about North Carolina pottery, is rooted in the tradition, and has extended along its many branches. Black Mountain poet, Harry Duncan, puts it nicely when he said, “We have come so far that all the old stories whisper once more.” The tradition whispers once more, but it wouldn’t get far with only a whisper. Without people talking, or sometimes even shouting, about North Carolina pottery, what we see today here at the Catawba Valley Pottery and Antiques Festival would not be happening.

* And so the last, but by no means least, of my Favorite Things about North Carolina Pottery is the advocacy performed by countless people across the state and elsewhere who have, over the years, boosted the profile of North Carolina pottery - talking it up, spreading the word. It is if as though there is an unofficial Public Relations committee that has promoted NC pottery ever since the Busbeee’s began talking about Jugtown and Seagrove area pottery back in the 1920’s - and it probably started well before then.

I’d like to honor all the people who have helped promote North Carolina pottery, all the pottery advocates, who have been, and still are, responsible for putting on festivals, organizing guilds, sitting on pottery related boards, writing books, catalogues, newsletters, and press releases about NC pottery, organizing exhibitions and auctions, giving talks to civic organizations, teaching at all different levels, volunteering to distribute fliers around the state, volunteering for all the thankless little tasks that keep the wheels turning. The entity, the phenomenon we know of as “North Carolina pottery,” would be shadow of what it is today without all these people.

We potters benefit more from your advocacy than you’ll ever know, so, from the bottom of our collective hearts, thank you!

Catawba Valley Pottery and Antique Festival

2009-03-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

Matt Jones doling out Pepto-Bismol early Saturday morning after a rather uninspiring breakfast at the Golden Coral.

Joseph Sands and Alex Haworth who is apprenticing with Matt, the third in a long succession of apprentices named Alex.

Bulldog Pottery

Matt Jones demonstrating...check out that sweet apron!

Booth of Matt Jones.

Chad Brown in his booth Saturday morning.

Naomi Daglish, one half of Bandana Pottery.

Daniel and Tyler on Saturday morning.

Mr. Doc Welty of Leicester Valley Clay

W.M. Hewitt Pottery Booth

Outsider Insider

2009-03-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

Plate by Matt Jones

North Carolina is an incredibly exciting place to make pots. The longer I stay here the more this becomes evident and there is no better place to be reminded of this than at the Catawba Valley Pottery and Antique Festival. In the wind and rain both collectors, dealers, and potters all assembled in Hickory North Carolina to buy and sell some really fantastic pots.

It is events like this that slowly cement North Carolina into a more permanent place in my life. Over the past few months I have been going back and forth a lot about whether to return home to New England where I have the draw of family and childhood nostalgia, or remain here in North Carolina which now feels like more of a home and community than anywhere else.

What is so amazing about the Catawba show is the group of vendors. You can walk the isles and see work by Thomas Chandler, Collin Rhodes, Robert Mathis, and Daniel Seagle, and then turn the corner and see contemporary traditional wares that have been directly influenced by these old makers. Around the next corner there will pots that seem to have less in common with the old but instead push North Carolina along its evolutionary path as one of the most diverse and eclectic places to make pottery in America.

As I walked though the booths I started thinking about what the role of outsiders is an environment that is so steeped in these old multi generational potteries and makers. There are times when I envy that traditional past. My family has a tradition as well but I have followed it in a slightly different way. Instead of the galleries on 57th St I would much prefer wandering the booths at the Catawba show where I see work that excites and inspires me in a way that feels whole and good.

There were clay traditions in New England as well, but with the industrial revolution those have mostly died out and for reasons unknown to me, the old traditions where never transformed into a thriving contemporary movement of art pottery like that which Seagrove is so famous for. That is not to say that fine ceramics are not being produced in New England at all, only that the culture of pottery does not rival that of North Carolina.

But being an outsider is not bad. Henry Glassie said it best in an piece about Mark Hewitt, one of the most successful outsiders in North Carolina,

"Outsiders are necessary to the preservation of excellence in artistic tradition. They pull others into their tortured, exhilarating acts of adjustment, rearranging the lineaments of the little world, questioning the status quo, finding new directions, making the tradition healthier, fresher, better"

Excerpt from the essay "Mark Hewitt: Outside" by Henry Glassie

March

2009-03-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

As per usual things are moving along at breakneck speed here in Pittsboro. In addition to trying to fill the salt kiln in half the usual time we've also been preparing for the Catawba Valley Pottery Festival where Mark will be selling his work for the first time alongside many of the Southeast's best potters and antique dealers. This will be my fourth year going to the festival, the last two years I was accompaning Matt Jones and the year before that Charlie Tefft, who makes pots in Greensboro NC and teaches as Guilford College.

Here are a couple pictures from the past few weeks. Above is the second run of what I've been calling Turkish tea cups. I was pleased with the first set and thought I would make a few for the salt kiln. There is another full board, about 50, these were just the last few that I made before the end of the day.

A Good Weekend

2009-03-17T05:15:00.000-07:00

Its early Tuesday morning. Things are finally settling back into some semblance of normalcy. Yesterday we pugged Mark about 500 lbs of clay which he promptly turned into plates and bowls while Joseph and I started in on some small covered jars. Martin has settled in at the wheel in the main room and is turning out beautiful 15 lb planters with skill and ease.

The past weekend was a complete whirlwind. The three presenters, Alleghany Meadows, Phil Rogers, and Mark Pharis, made quite the Motley Crew with lots of differences in opinions, aesthetics, and ideology. It was very fun to watch the three of them all demonstrating and arguing at the same time.

On Sunday, Joseph and I stopped in the Hewitt's House where folklorist Henry Glassie and his wife Pravina Shukla where visiting with Mark and Carol. Henry and Pravina then followed us down the road to Daniel Johnston's where we saw his new addition to the studio and a load of new pots out of his kiln. Henry will be back in North Carolina for the Catawba Valley Pottery Festival in a few weeks. Its is always a tremendous pleasure to be able so spend a few minutes with Henry. He is a kind man and an amazingly strong and clear voice of support for our craft.

The British Invasion

2009-03-14T04:50:00.000-07:00

On Thursday Phil Rogers stopped by on his way over to Asheboro for the NCPC. Martin, who is the Hewitts good friend from way back, as well as a former Cardew Apprentice, also arrived. He will be here for a few months, hanging out and making some big planters. This is a picture of the three posing with an early Hamada peice that Phil is bringing to a client here in the states.

Joseph inspecting the 1930 something Hamada.

This week was short because of the North Carolina Pottery Conference which started yesterday. In a few minutes Joseph, Noah, and I will head over there for another day of demos, good food, and company.

Daniel Johnston at the Collectors Gallery

2009-03-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

Photo Courtesy of the Collectors Gallery

My friend and fellow potter Daniel Johnston has a show up right now in Raleigh at the Collectors Gallery. I drove out there Friday night with Joseph, former apprentice Noah Riedel, and James Ward to check out the show. Its a good one. If you are in the Raleigh area drop by and see what Daniel's been up to.

Mixing Hewitt's Clay

2009-03-07T17:24:00.000-08:00

Last Friday we ground clay. Thursday Joseph and I moved materials out of the clay shed by wheelbarrow and piled everything up and then Friday morning we started grinding. As you can see there is a mix of raw materials and processed. The primary clay is the pile in the right corner and there are other raw clays mixed in as well all of which are on the right. On the left are the bagged materials. In the center is the belt driven hammermill which is powered by the PTO on Mark's tractor. It can be quite a chore to line the drive on the tractor up so that the belt rides well without either slipping off or moving to inside where it starts to smoke against the mill. Once everything is lined up Joseph and I start to shovel the materials into the mill in a specific sequence that attepts to keep the ratios correct while at the same time mixing the materials as they fall into the trough underneath the hammermill. Mark stands at the mill and with a shovel pushes the clay down the hopper into the hammers.

The pulverised and mixed clay then falls into the trough pictured below which has been filled with water. At some point we stop mixing and rake the clay out from beneath the mill and then continue milling the rest of the clay. When the clay is mixed we clean up move any leftover materials back to the clay shed and then drill the slurry to an even consistency with large handrdills. We then pump the clay into the drying beds using a sump pump and sieve the clay before it goes into the beds. It will take a number of cycles of filling the drying beds with clay before we will reach the bottom of the trough.

Joseph took this picture below of me in the clay shed filling a wheelbarrow. Its been a few weeks away from the wheel but we should get back to throwing on Monday. It will be a short week before heading down to Asheboro to the North Carolina Pottery Conference and then just a three more weeks before we fire the salt kiln again. Things stay pretty busy around here.

Fired

2009-02-23T18:37:00.000-08:00

Last night I did the midnight shift. The whole time I was struggling to get rise and keep it in enough reduction so the pots didn't come out all pasty. Mark came out at 4 and then Joseph took over for me at 6. I went back to sleep for a few hours and by the time I got back out there at 1:30 they had finished firing the damn thing! It was an easy quick firing, partly due to the fact that we only did the first two chambers but also impart to the terrific help we got from fellow potter James Ward who lives up in Hillsborough. Unfortunately I slept through the most exciting part of the firing and so the only pictures I got where of the boys relaxing after a job well done.

The Team:

Loaded and Underway

2009-02-21T21:14:00.001-08:00

A few pictures from the past few days. The kiln is loaded and preheating. Tomorrow we start bumping up the heat and should finish everything up by Monday night. More pictures to follow...

Art of the Slam

2009-02-18T15:52:00.001-08:00

It's been a dreary day down here in Pittsboro. Cold rain all morning while we loaded the back stack in the first chamber of the "New Kiln". Wet boots and cold toes. The afternoon was a bit less strenuous. Mark was off teaching his class at UNC and Joseph and I were left to finish glazing, roll some wads and I even got to paint a few pots.

What has really had me feeling like the fellow on the receiving end of the embedded video is reading a few pieces in Garth Clark's seminal collection of essays : Shards. I know that his views have been discussed and responded to in great length but this is really my first experience with him. All I can say is that I really wish that I had Henry Glassie to rock me back to sleep, telling me it will all be ok, that our work is meaningful and good and has a place in this world.

Garth talks about nostalgia alot and how much of a force it is in the "Anglo-oriental" school of pottery that am being trained in. He also says that nostalgia is essentialy a bad, useless, emotion. I suppose that my initial reaction is simply that my nostalgia is a reaction to things that I see happening around me in the world as well as in my head that I don't neccesarily like or agree with. Whether that is a worthy response I don't know, but it is a response noetheless.

As I read the essays, after picking myself up off of the gym mats and dusting myself off, there is also a feeling of excitement, like opening a door in your house to a room that you always knew was there but never bothered looking in for a number of motivations, fear being one of them.

2009-02-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

Just a few shots from the end of the week. The new kiln is all cleaned up and ready to go. Shelves are washed, wood is stacked. Monday and Tuesday will be devoted to mixing up glaze and then glazing the bisque ware.

One more bisque kiln loaded....

Where is it from?

2009-02-12T17:09:00.000-08:00

I found this little cup in the local thrift store. All I know is that it is salt glazed. Does anyone have any idea's as to where this little feller's from?

Wrapping things up...

2009-02-11T18:41:00.000-08:00

Here are just a few pictures of the pottery a week before we start loading the new kiln. Joseph is wrapping up his teapot rampage with some whoppers. Mark made large 9lb jars and pitchers yesterday and I had a good day with some straight sided medievalesque pitchers which should be the last of the wet clay I touch until we fire the glaze kiln. I handled them all this morning and then unloaded the bisque before cutting away at 5 to go enjoy this bizarrely balmy weather we've been experiencing in the Piedmont. Below is a small casualty from the bisque with a simple but new to me scrolling design.

Some days...

2009-02-09T19:08:00.000-08:00

...the work is maddening and others, it is a delight, the clay springing from the wheel head effortlessly, as though it couldn't wait to be turned to its final form. Other days the clay stays obstinately close to the wheel, slumping back down when it is worked too hard, tired and wet, retiring to a growing pile of slumped pots in the corner of the splash pan.

Sunny Days

2009-02-09T14:40:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I went down to Seagrove to help out Chad Brown put some of the chinking in his log cabin. The cabin looks great and will make a wonderful home, pottery, or showroom some day (Chad thinks it may go through several incarnations) in the near future.

On Friday me and Joseph got the drying beds fill up. The old system, before we built Mark the drying beds, involved putting the clay directly on the slab on top of and covered by bed sheets. I like this system much more. I've read that the more the clay is watered down in the original mixing the more plastic it will be after drying. We will see.

Today Joseph and I did wood for most of the day and soaked up some much needed sunshine. I even got to take the old cut-offs for a spin. Tomorrow it's back on the wheel, hopefully to make some half gallon pitchers.

Turkey On My Mind

2009-02-07T08:45:00.000-08:00

Here are a few little cups I made on Thursday afternoon. I guess Turkey has been on my mind a bit and these little 6 0z. cups (weight, not volume) came from the small cups that the Turks consume enormous quantities of tea from. The cups are small and refilled often. Below is one in its natural surroundings.
Above, Joseph blows glaze out of the spout of a teapot.
These are a fusion of the tulip shaped Turkish tea cup and a North Carolina swirl-ware. I've never made any swirl-ware and I rather enjoyed making them. They forced me to throw faster and fuss less over the details in order for the swirl not to get blended into the parent clay.

No new forms....

2009-02-07T08:34:00.000-08:00

Michael Kline asked in a comment on the previous post if I had seen similar shapes in Turkey and indeed I had. I watched Mehmet Gursoy's thrower make this shape. He throws it in one piece and leaves it quite thick and unrefined and then comes back later and trims it down to the final form. Another path to a similar destination.

Progress...

2009-02-05T15:25:00.000-08:00

We are all plugging away towards the next firing which is only a few weeks away. The wood is stacked and all that is left is cleaning a few posts and shelves, and making a few more pots. These are all composite vases that Joseph made. He let me decorate one. He throws all the bases one afternoon and then comes back the next and adds the necks and then decorates on the third day....very impressive indeed. He's so nice he even gave me one to decorate.

Visit to Sany Mush

2009-02-04T16:02:00.000-08:00

After finally getting the internet in my new house I'll give this another go around. I've been working on an article on my former boss, Matt Jones, for this little literary journal that my Mom publishes with some friends of hers. On one of my trips to Asheville I stopped by the pottery to hang out, see what Matt and Alex have been making, and snap a few pictures for the article. Here is some eye candy from the fall firing.

This is the new wood heater that Matt made this fall. It fires with just a handful of sticks and then stays toasty warm most if not all of the day. Very impressive.

The jug in the middle is now in my possesion.

Unloading #75

2008-12-02T17:35:00.000-08:00

The pottery has been buzzing for the last few days. We have had tons of help from lots of different folks including the guy who holds Seagrove together, Mr. Chad Brown himself as well as the help this afternoon from fellow potter/blogger Tracey Broome. The cleaning takes a tremendous amount of time and all the help we get is greatly appreciated. Thanks so much! We have a bit more pot cleaning tomorrow and then washing and pricing and cleaning the place up for the sale this Saturday. These are a few pictures I snapped last Saturday during the unloading.

In addition to all this I am trying to move into my new house by Friday, doing it in increments after work. I am very excited about the new place and it is right next to the pottery so I can walk to work. Its at the end of Mark and Carol's driveway and has lot's of land, a pond, barns, pasture. It's beautiful. Take care all....

Firing 75

2008-11-30T19:57:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from the recent firing. Blogger is acting funny on this web browser and I can't get them in order but here they are. And a little teaser at the end...

Mark in the shadows after salting the right side.

Kiln cooling after the salting has been completed. Mark cools the kiln rapidly to about 1600 degrees and then clams it all up.

Joseph pulling salt rings.

Salting

Mark clearing embers out the firebox.

Mark's 75th loading

2008-11-18T16:00:00.000-08:00

I meant to post these pictures a while ago. This past thursday and friday we fired the kiln and I've spent the weekend relaxing and getting my feet back on the ground after the madness of loading and firing. There will be more pictures of the firing to follow as I get them off the camera. Im using a new version of I photo and I haven't quite got the exporting down so the pictures below are probably huge if you click on them. Ill figure it all out in the next little while. This week is a little cleanup around the pottery while the kiln cools and then I'm off the Asheville for Thanksgiving with friends and then back on saturday to unload! There should be a few good pots in the mix.

Creepy Crawlies

2008-11-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

This was the largest assemblage of creepy crawlies (that is the technical term for a multi species gathering) in Chatham County. They were found under one five gallon bucket in the stoking area of Marks new kiln.

2008-11-08T06:05:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a dream I was glazing a board of pitchers. The first pitcher I picked up and glazed was to thin. It was like a ceramic egg shell dipped in a thick wet glaze that turned it to mush. The second pitcher I knocked over and it broke and the third and the fourth met an early demise. The last pitcher on the board was so off in shape it reminded me of a box of Raisinets you get at the movies and in a rage I hurled it into the wall. And then the board was empty.

I finished throwing on Wednesday. Since then we have just been picking our way down a long list of chores before we start firing around the 15th. There is glaze to mix and sieve, pots to decorate, bisque ware to glaze, wadding to mix up and roll and numerous others small tasks. All the wood is stacked, and the furniture is cleaned and washed.

Early days...

2008-11-05T15:58:00.000-08:00

I got this idea from a post that Michael did a few days ago. The first mask was from the seventh grade. The second is a Raku mask I made in high school and lastly something I made at Guilford College under the watchful eye of Charlie Tefft. I had just come back from a trip down to Athens GA to see Ron Meyers. I haven't done a face in a long time.

A quote.

2008-11-04T04:16:00.000-08:00

"One of the practical advantages of a rigid academic tyranny was that it fostered, in any individual strong enough to withstand it, a correspondingly powerful urge towards freedom and individuality." -

Hilary Spurling

I have been thinking about how this quote, (which relates to the formal training of a painter) relates to an apprenticeship or maybe academia but my sense is that the apprenticeship model relates more to how academia was in the 1890's and that art school now maybe fosters a bit more individuality. Then again I did not spend much time in an academic environment. Any ideas?

More pictures from the seaside....

2008-11-03T19:28:00.000-08:00

I also got some pictures of this really sweet body surfer....

The Seaside....

2008-11-02T17:35:00.000-08:00

The cycle is moving along. We have about 2 more weeks of throwing before we start packing the kiln in preparation for the fall firing. There are a lot of pots on the shelves and so the next week or so will probably be dedicated to small pots to fill in the spaces and more complicated, time consuming forms like teapots. When I throw a new form it takes me about a board to get to a place where I feel comfortable with the form. It is a slow, steady, and at times maddening process.

On some non pottery related news.... My friend George and I took a trip to the beach to do a little fishing. We caught a mess of blue fish and I had a nice flounder but I dropped it back into the ocean before I could get in the frying pan. Here are a few pictures from the trip...and one of some pottery for good measure. George is a very serious fisherman.....

Chiggers

2008-10-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

Things are going well down at Marks. I decorated a bit this morning. I don't spend nearly the amount of time decorating here as I did at Matt's. It makes it all that much more enjoyable when I do make the time. I got a load of wood delivered yesterday but then the thermometer went right back of to 75 degrees. Another wonderful hidden treasure of the piedmont are these little bugs called chiggers. This is the third time these little guys have had a feast on me this summer. The first time I had no idea what they were and thought that it was some bizarre poison ivy. By the second time I had them pretty much figured out. The insert a small proboscis into your skin and inject an enzyme which turns your skin cells into slime and they then suck out the slime. When they have satiated themselves they drop off and then the itching begins. It beats any other itch I have ever experienced. It is an itch that wakes you in the night in a maniacal scratching rage. I cannot wait for the first frost so that I walk in the wood again, free from these demonic pests. But other than that I have no complaints.

Piling up...

2008-10-09T20:29:00.000-07:00

Its late and I am tired so this will be brief. Life is slowly settling into some sort of normalcy. While the markets crumble around the world I feel lucky that I have something as tangible and concrete to fill my days as making pottery. I keep thinking about the guys on Wall St., panic stricken and sleep deprived not knowing what the next hour will hold. Why I chose to do this and not that I don't know but I am thankful. I suppose the question for potters is whether this is going to make people stop buying pottery and maybe some of you all can already answer that. Anyways. The pots are still piling up at an astonishing rate, spilling out of the studio and into the kilns and barns that surround the pottery. Below are a few pictures of the work as well as Joseph Sands first appearance on the blog and Eryn Prospero. Eryn is here only for a few more weeks before going back to Canada and Joseph will be around for a little bit. At this juncture I will just say this....Joseph can throw. I'll devote a post to this freak of nature in a few days but for now I need to get a little sleep. Be well...

"Its a struggle" - Mark Hewitt circa 2008

2008-09-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about this blog I used to write. It's one of those things, like quiting smoking , that you think about all the time but never seem to get around to it at the end of the day. Here goes trying to ease back into it (now that my readership is completely gone.) Ive been at Marks for some time and it is going alright. I haven't been pleased with how I'm throwing. I suppose that is what I get for talking a three month vacation. It has never come easy and compared to Mark and Joseph I feel extremely slow an inexperienced. The most frustrating thing is that I was making better pots when I was at Matt's than I am now and I am sure there are a number of factors that come into play but it is still incredibly frustrating and drives me at times to a state of pulse pounding madness. I think that in the coming months things should settle down. Every time you start making a new form that is someone else's it always take me at least a board or two before I finally feel like I have a good feel for it. The adjustment of coming from a place where I knew the forms and felt comfortable enough to explore new ones to a place where once again you are at the bottom, receiving what at times feels like unending critiques and struggling to get a half pound bud vase to look right is a little difficult. But I will leave you with a few pictures. All the pots pictured are Mark's except for the board of bud vases and small jars. I hope this finds everyone healthy and well-
Alex

Upcoming shows....

2008-08-24T20:27:00.001-07:00

On September 6th there are two great events. The first is the 4th annual Potters Market Invitational at the Mint Museum in Charlotte. This is a great show with great potters. All of NC's best will be there including my former boss man Matt Jones and his new apprentice Alex Haworth. More information on the event can be found here.

Daniel Johnston will be having an opening on the same date at the Crimson Laurel Gallery in Bakersville NC. Daniel was one of Mark Hewitt's apprentices who afterwards spent some time in Thailand learning how to turn very large pots utilizing a completely different method of construction. His forms are very strong and his surfaces very fluid with the help of a really nice ash glaze and 200 lbs of salt. I got to help him fire his kiln down near Seagrove a few weeks ago and it was a blast. If you can't make it up to the gallery in person all the pots will be cataloged and listed online the day the show opens.

Kutahya Part 2

2008-08-19T19:49:00.000-07:00

Mehmets' workshop is another humble affair. The main atelier sits in the basement of a large building. It is an unassuming space for a person who has commanded such respect and admiration from his countrymen. It is small for the size of the operation but work is made at an astonishing rate and it seems to be sold almost as soon as it is made. There are two main areas. The first is in the back where his materials man works.

The names of Mehmets' employees have escaped me. We will just call him the materials man as that is how Mehmet introduced him to me. All of the work that is painted is made by this man. The vases are throw and then trimmed to their final shape and the plates and flatware is all jiggered (pictured above). For the flatware a high quartz body is used that rings like a bell when fired. The hollow ware is made with a slightly more forgiving body. In the front room is where the women (when I was visiting there were only women painting at this atelier) paint the wares.
The first step is to take a stencil and pounce the outline of the design onto the bisqued ware. This is no follow that dots of your childhood. The outline is just a starting point and to be able to command the brush with any competency takes months and months of practice. I was told that it usually takes someone about 6 months of practice before they are good enough to save a piece for the kiln. What you see above is a piece of tracing paper with tiny dots pierced in it with a needle. Charcoal is then rubbed over the paper and a series of dots are left on the wares to then follow with an outline brush.
Here the head of this workshop works with a fine brush on the outline. She has worked for Mehmet for around twelve years and is a master of her craft.
Mehemt inspects a large platter and then offers his suggestions to the woman who's piece it is. Watching these small interactions was very interesting. He has a gentle way about him and offers his advice with a kind cadence. I am judging all this without actually having any idea of what is being exchanged. It was just a feeling.

Kutahya Part 1

2008-08-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

Its been some time since I've posted. It is one of those thing that the longer you put it off the more of a chore it becomes and the harder it is to sit down and write. I suppose it is a bit like cleaning your room as small child. Since my last post I've moved into a new house and started the new apprenticeship with Mark Hewitt. We have fired his kiln and are now in the cleaning process as we prepare for the sale this weekend. This is all worthy of a post or two but I have no pictures to accompany the work we have done. My second camera (a generous gift from my brother Robin) met another early demise in a body of water when Ben dropped it in a creek. Since I returned from Turkey I have been meaning to post these pictures of Mehmet Gursoys' atelier.

We arrived in Kutahya in the afternoon. It is, from an outside perspective, a humble town. When we would tell someone that we were headed for Kutahya the unanimous reaction is one one of confusion. We would get a puzzled look followed immediately by "Why? There is nothing in Kutahya." I can see why the town has that reputation. On the outskirts it is quite industrial. Mostly large ceramic facilities. Kutahya is also know for its large production of toilet bowls as well as other porcelain products. The town does not have much that your run of the mill western tourist would find terribly interesting. It doesn't cater the rigorous demands of a seasoned American traveler who believes that English should be spoken anywhere his feet or visa card can take him. From the moment you arrive an the bus stop or Çini Gar (auto gar is what the bus station is usually called.) you are reminded of what this city has behind its closed doors. Tucked away in small rooms are men and women working slowly and methodicaly to produce some of the most amazing wares in the world. Part 2 to follow......

Boys of Summer

2008-07-11T14:56:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer #1: The following blog has nothing to do with pottery.

While on this (rather lengthy) vacation I found myself in the Las Vegas airport waiting in the 103 degree heat to be picked up by one of my dearest friends in the world, to go on what soon turned into one of the most epic backpacking trips of my short life. My vision of the trip was quite different than the reality. In my mind the plan was to go backpacking for about 8 days in the eastern Sierras. I envisioned the trip as relaxing affair with enormous amount of trout fishing interrupted by brief periods of walking just to get to other suitable locals for more fishing. The reality was quite different. I don't know how many miles were hiked the whole trip but suffice to say it was more than I bargained for. After my body acclimated to both the altitude and the abuse it was recieving what commenced was the most beautiful and epic journey into the wilderness I have ever been on. Per Ben's request most of our traveling was cross country or off trail meaning we just look at the topo map and say "That looks pretty...let's go there." and off we would go. We fished in some beautiful lakes and streams and climbed some amazing peaks including on the last day a somewhat insane 1 day ascent of Mt Whitney (the highest peak in the continental United States) that left me limping on my bruised and swollen feet for days. For about 6 days we saw no other human. Just the deer, fish, and ten million mosquitos (I forgot the bug spray in the car). What follows are a few pictures of the trip.
Disclaimer #2: If you will be offended by the unclothed behind of my of my cohort as he launches himself off a massive cliff into Lake Relfection please do not proceed. You've been warned!

Edgefield...

2008-06-16T05:56:00.001-07:00

Do these swags look familiar?

There is a Michael Cardew quote that Matt would some times repeat in the pottery and I grew quite fond of it. It said something to the effect of "There are no new forms, just old ones done either well, or poorly." I think that these few pictures is a nice testament to that.

The old man and the big pot...

2008-06-16T05:50:00.001-07:00

This is my father standing next to an enormous pot of the geometric period.

Up close..

2008-06-16T05:47:00.001-07:00

This is the shoulder detail from a very old pot. I forget what century other than it is B.C. Amazing.

Trophys...

2008-06-16T05:46:00.001-07:00

These pots would be given to athletes as prizes and filled with olive oil. As many as 40 could be given as a single prize.

Green ovoid jar..

2008-06-16T05:43:00.001-07:00

This pot reminds me of so many different forms I love from so many different places....

Ron...

2008-06-16T05:40:00.001-07:00

Ron, I have never met you in person but through reading your blog and looking at your work when I saw this pot it immediately made me think of some of the pots you make. Last night after a great dinner my father and I went on a brief exploration of Delphi and wandered in a store like no other in that small town. It was cluttered with old Greek antiques including an amazing collection of old Greek pots. Not old like most of the pots I've been looking at but old like antiques. The man in the show (who was also quite old) dated most of them somewhere between 50 and 100 years ago. I was blow away by much of what I saw. I will post a few pictures of what I found there. Unfortunately I did not have a way to bring any of these home. Perhaps another trip...

Pots of a different color...

2008-06-15T09:53:00.001-07:00

Its been a few days, very spotty internet connections despite being in the major metropolis of Athens. We left Istanbul for Athens a few days ago. This leg of the trip was my fathers suggestion and although I was very excited to come to Greece and see the ruins I had no idea how much pottery these folks made and how beautiful it is. Its such a departure from what we were looking at in Kutahya. I've had an old post card of a large amphora over my wheel for the last year or so and to suddenly walk through the museums and see pot after pot was amazing. Thier forms are full and simple and I've got more inspiration now than I ever imagined I would have come home with. There are lots of pictures and Ill post my favorites when I get them online. For now this will have to do. 16th century B.C.

Kütahya

2008-06-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we leave for Istanbul. Kütahya has been more than I could have hoped for although it would take me three hours to get it all out while typing on this little phone. So it will have wait. I also don't have any photos on the phone as they are all in my camera. In a few days I will fill in all the details. Until then....

Mosaics...

2008-06-08T13:53:00.001-07:00

Mosaics of a different kind....

Big tiles...

2008-06-08T13:49:00.001-07:00

This is one of two very large tiles outside of the circumcision
pavilion. They are each at least three feet tall. It seemed rare to
see tiles this large.

Tomorrow we are off to Kütahya to see the atölye where so much of the
modern çini is being produced. When I mention to shop keepers who sell
çini that I am going to Küyahya they all look at me like I am crazy.
They say, "Kütahya!? Why would you want to go there?". I am a bit
nervous but things seem to just work out when you let them. Its late
and we leave early. More in a few days...

Pavilion of Pain

2008-06-08T09:22:00.001-07:00

This is the circumcision Pavilion, where the young princes of the
Topkapi Palace where, well....it has the most beautiful Iznik Tiles
that you can see in the background.

Chinese...

2008-06-08T09:14:00.001-07:00

This is an old Chinese bottle(I forget the dynasty) that is in a very
impressive collection at the Topkapi Palace. The sultans had such an
admiration for the Chinese pots that they had their own people try and
make a similar body of work. The word çini comes out of China. The
çini of the Turks resembles the Chines ceramics only in their mastery
of materials and beautiful brush work for their designs and motifs
although linked are very much their own. There is so much to learn I
feel as though I am only scratching the surface.

Blue Mosque

2008-06-07T22:14:00.001-07:00

2008-06-07T09:11:00.001-07:00

New Mosque

2008-06-07T09:04:00.001-07:00

Rüstam Pasa Mosque tiles

2008-06-07T08:51:00.001-07:00

Istanbul

2008-06-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

The first thing that strikes me as a westerner in this city is the call to prayer. Five times a day the Imams call out their prayers. Its a beautiful, eery sound that echos out from loud speakers perched high atop the minarets. We are staying on the old city, Sultanahmet. A short walk up the hill finds you at the entrance of the Blue Mosque, and just a few hundred yards to the east stands the Aya
Sophia, which for a thousand of years after its construction in the sixth century was the largest enclosed space. The scale is staggering. It is also impossible to forget why I came here. Every where you look there are reminders of the rich ceramic traditions that have steeped this country for a thousand years. They call it çini, the ç pronounced like a ch. Tommorow we will go to the Rüstem Pasa Camii, which is a smaller mosque but said to have one of the best collections of early Iznik tiles in the city.
Tomorrow I'll take some pictures....

Kiln Opening this weekend!

2008-05-29T20:16:00.001-07:00

To all of those in the greater Asheville area.............Matt is having his bi-annual kiln opening sale this Saturday starting at about 9 in the morning. Its a sweet time plus you get to meet this guy (but you don't get to buy any of the mugs on the board...they all cracked!)....
Directions to the sale can be found here!

New pots...

2008-05-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

I've been MIA for a while I know. Thing got pretty busy here all of a sudden. In about 6 days I'm out of Asheville. Its been a good run but I'm ready for some new scenery. This evening John from the Crimson Laurel Gallery up in Bakersville came down and picked up a bunch of new pots. We took some photos today out at the pottery and here is what we came away with. They are not professional quality by any standard but serve the purpose of record keeping well.

Tink....

2008-05-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

There is a sound that potters hate to hear.... the tiny tink tink....tink of a pot as it cracks apart. This morning I heard a lot of tinking. About 75 pots worth of tinking to be exact. Next to me, in the picture below is the line of broken pots. The unloading, needless to say, was rather disappointing. It is hard to complain when you see what is happening in the news paper (5 million homeless Chinese, 79,000 dead Burmese, ect.) but nonetheless this morning felt like a tremendous loss. We have a dunting problem and right now I don't have it in me to hypothesize past these two words: Free Silica. The ball jar broke as well. The last pot is a present that Matt made for me on my departure. It did not break. I agree with those words whole heartedly. I will post more pictures of everything in day or so.

Midnight shift confessional....

2008-05-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

This is the time I call the “Grind”. My friends have gone home to their beds to drift off into sleep and I am left alone with the kiln, the dogs, and my thoughts. The next two and a half hours will draw by slowly. The moon sinks lower in the gathering clouds, and the flame slowly works its way farther and father back into the kiln. These are some of my favorite times. I’ve fired this kiln 10 or 12 times, Ive lost track by now, but each time I’ve kept watch over it in the small hours of the night. Its an easy kiln to fire, rarely if ever stalling, it sometimes seems like a giant, walking up a steep hill, slowly but showing no sign of tiring. As if it would fire the pots into puddles on the kiln floor.

I toss two more pieces of slab into the fire and the kiln roars to back to life. 2050 degrees reads on the pyrometer. This is also the last time I will sit here at this hour. Coyotes are suddenly calling out in the pasture across the road. The dogs wake for a minute from their slumber to let out a furtive growl and drift back off.

This is the part of being a potter few will get to understand or appreciate. It is the hidden part, the quiet part. There is no glamor to be found sitting in front of a fire at 3:45 in the morning, there is no one to watch, no one to applaud. Even the spring peepers are quiet tonight. A bullfrog sounds in the darkness.

There is one question that comes back to me over and over. Why do I feel, amidst all that is happening in this world, that the only thing I can do is make pottery? Is it because of some resignation? Is it because I grew up in a family of artists, like a learned behavior ground into my bones from a childhood of watching two parents making their art.

In my family there are those who strayed from the path of art, quite a few actually, but the feeling remains; I come from a family of artists. My mother, my father, my sister, my brother, my step grandfather, my aunt, and my great grandfather.

The latter is the one who weighs down the heaviest. I never even met the guy. He died thirty years before I was born, but that man has provided both a great gift and a great weight. Old Henri did things that can’t be repeated and he casts a very, very long shadow.

It hasn’t been until recently that I’ve come to understand a few things. If you hide in a shadow, denying its existence or trying to melt into the darkened ground, it will go nowhere. Instead it hangs heavier, like an enormous over cast sky extending as far as the eye can see in every direction.

You also can’t run from it as the shadow has no end. You can’t change your name or lie about it. It would be like trying to run out from under that endless grey extending interminably on the darkest days. Instead, there seems to be only one option left and that is to look directly into the shadow and acknowledge it. Spread you hands to the sky and await the rain.

When people ask me about Henri Matisse I rarely know what to say. I get fidgety and nervous and before long word spreads not to ask that kid because he hates talking about it. And there is some truth to that, but also a bit of falsehood. Its been my own denial all these years that keeps me in that place. My own shame for not knowing anything about the man, not asking, and not caring. But I would like to clear the air. I might not be able to tell you the name of his favorite model. But if you ask, Ill tell you what its like to be me.

I know maybe this seems like a roundabout way to breach this subject but it’s not the easiest thing for me to work into. Sometimes the pen just has to start moving somewhere. We all want to be recognized for our works and labor. I don’t want to over shadow the shadow. I just hope that one day, many years down the road, people will look on my work and see an integrity and honesty that equals some of those who came before.

Alex Matisse
2150 degrees
4:30 am
May 18th 2008

Jung Jeezy's update..

2008-05-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

I am sitting on my couch, drinking one of Milwaukee's finest creations....a tall, slender, 16 oz can of PBR. As I stated in my last post, Matt and I have been working very hard. Well not much has changed. Today we got all the big pots loaded. Now its just the smaller stuff which takes more time but less energy.
Much has happened in the time that I dropped off the cyber face of the earth. A few notables are as follows....I put some pots in the Crimson Laurel Gallery in Burnsville NC. This is my first foray into the world of galleries and so far has proven to be quite pleasant. The gallery represents some fine potters as well as other craftsfolk and if you are ever in the area I strongly urge you to stop by! The second is the confirmed trip to Turkey. I finally got in touch with Mehmet Gursoy and will be leaving for Istanbul on the 5th of June. A few days in Istanbul and then down to Kutahya and then back to Istanbul and off to Athens for a few more days before returning home. Once I get back to the states it is two months of R&R and then off to Mark Hewitt's for a year or so more of what he calls "finishing school" (all in jest I am sure).
That is the very abbreviated version but its all I have in me. I will let some photos do the talking for a little bit....

Sitting in the empty kiln save for the old wads left behind from the previous firing, completing one of my least favorite things to do in the world....cleaning shelves.

More cleaning, this time a veritable mountain of posts. Each has to be cleaned and washed with Alumina and organized according to height inside the kiln.

We have loaded the tunnel part of the kiln with plates and some larger pots and now Matt is laying wads down for his big jug in the main chamber.

Here the big jug awaits being put into its final position. We use the sheets seen wrapped around its base to move it around.

The jug is in as well as the two larger pot's that I made this cycle (which seem dwarfed when put next to Matts pot!) The tall skinny thing is a lamp.

Here we have moved onto the third row and Matt is wadding the rim of a planter.

With the third row complete we move on to the second. The following should not be attempted at home. Stacking three bricks high is reckless and crazy and performed only by complete lunatics under the supervision of trained.....uhh....lunatics.

....and here, Jung Jeezy as Matt has affectionately begun to refer to me as, poses for his close up at the end of a long day.

Long time....

2008-05-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

As Doug mentioned in a comment on the previous post...long time no blog. Life seemed to have taken over for a little while leaving little time for updates. Matt and I have been working like two stuck mules trying to get everything done for this up coming firing. We have loads and loads of decorating to do, I still have to clean all the shelves and a few more posts, mix up about 75lbs of wadding, throw a few bowls and a platter, the list goes on and on. There is lots of new news down here but I'm running out the door again to meet up with a potter friend for a drink or two or three. I promise I will sit down and actually spend some time on this thing in the next few days. We are coming up on my last firing at the Jones pottery and needless to say it brings up lots of different feelings. For now I will leave you all with an image of a plate. It is really satisfying to watch as patterns gradually shift and change to finally come to point of conclusion, a resting place. A place where balance is achieved, and intricacy is joined with simplicity.

Mid Cycle Update....

2008-04-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

Not much new news.... the firing is approaching rapidly. We've got a little under a month before our may firing (and my last firing at the Jones Pottery). I made three boards of birdhouse late last week. They are nice and easy to throw and really fun to decorate. Below are just a few of things I've been working on for Matt.... I've been a little obsessed with the slip trailing as of late but thats when I feel like real progress is made, when I just do one thing over and over and slowly it evolves. One theme leads into another and over the cycles things change and evolve into something that I feel is more my own. In the past few months its been much more of a back and forth between me and Matt where we both are looking at the others pots for new ideas.

Ball mill update...

2008-04-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my brother Robin I now have a camera that works! Thanks Robin!
So here are few more pictures of the finished ball jar. The quote on the top of the jar is read by Bascom Lamar Lunsford on a Smithsonian Folkways Collection. Bascom lived in South Turkey Creek very close to Matt's pottery. Me and Matt have listened to the CD quite a bit in the pottery and it'll be nice to have that concrete remembrance of my time in the "Mush". More details of the ball mill to follow. I gotta get to work..... Have a good weekend every body!

Fried chicken helps...

2008-04-18T05:58:00.000-07:00

...you remember which side of the grass you're on.

It seems only right that on a blog about pottery there should also be a few recipes. Perhaps this will turn into a weekly thing. To start off I am going to show you how to make the best fried chicken in the world. That is a bold statement some of you might say but I feel that this recipe has the stuff to back it up. To give credit where its due Scott Peacock and Edna Lewis came up with the recipe in their fine collaborative work The Gift of Southern Cooking. I recommend this book to anyone who likes eating food.
The ingredients are as follows:

-One 3 lb chicken cut up into 8 pieces and brined for 8 to 12 hours (brine in cold water with the ratio of 1/4 cup of kosher salt to 1 quart water, table salt is too salty)
-One quart buttermilk
-1 lb lard (good fresh lard is tricky to find in most places and the stuff in the supermarket is just gross!)
-1 stick of unsalted butter
-1 thick slice of country ham
-1 cup of all purpose flour
-2 tablespoons of corn starch
-1 teaspoon salt
-1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

For this recipe the chicken gets two longs soaks. Apparently this is called "Alabama Style". First in the brine and then another 8 to 12 hours in the butter milk.
Once your chicken is sufficiently soaked (cue the Neil Young) style you must prepare the fat. This is what makes this dish so darn tasty. Below is the lard, country ham and pickled okra (just for snacking)

Take the lard, country ham, and butter and put it in a large skillet. Heat it on low for 45 minutes to an our to get all that tasty flavor out of the ham. After its food sufficiently remove the ham and give it to you dog. (Or make some pork stock out of it)

Things got a little crazy here and I stopped taking pictures but the next step is as follows...
Now turn the head up to about medium. In the book it says to get the fat to about 355 degrees but although we use a pyrometer to fire our kiln my kitchen is lacking in such high tech instrumentation. Combine the flour, corn starch and salt and pepper in a bowl and take the chicken and dredge it in the mix. Fry it in the fat, skin side down first for 8 to 10 minutes a side until its done all the way through. Be sure not to overcrowd the pan and do it in batches if necessary. Enjoy!

Exciting horizons...

2008-04-17T10:14:00.001-07:00

With the help and connections, of folklorist, historian, and writer Dr. Henry Glassie I am working on a trip to Turkey. I don't want to get ahead of myself here and jinx things but this June I am planning a trip to Kutayha where Mehmet Gursoy lives, works, and teaches. My hope is to some day in the next year or two return for a more extended visit and learn some of the tequniques of what I consider to be some of the most beautiful and refined brushwork in the world. This is all just a work in progress but I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Plate by Mehmet Gursoy