Sculpting for Charity: The Steve Martin Torch

As part of an upcoming charity event, this morning I sculpted the "Wild and Crazy Guy," Steve Martin.  If you pay any attention at all to Bluegrass music, you're probably aware that Steve spends a lot of his time these days playing banjo in a band called The Steep Canyon Rangers.  Just so happens, the Rangers are homies of mine and everybody in our little town has witnessed the recent spectacle  of this band going from a local favorite to that of international celebrity.  Along with Steve, they can regularly be seen on Letterman, Colbert, The Prairie Home Companion, Grand 'Ol Oprey--just to name a few.  Anyway,  in an effort to raise a little money for our local Boys and Girls Club, I've decided to cash in on this notoriety.  I've made a patio torch collection of the whole band, and will soon  offer it up for auction.  Bidding for the series will start in a few weeks and will continue all the way to September when the winner will be announced at The Mountain Song Festival--a premiere bluegrass event hosted by the Steep Canyon Rangers and a benefit for our local Boys and Girls Club.

Let Your Freak Flag Fly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greg Brown getting "torched"

I've discovered that one of the  great things about being a sculptor of  caricatures is that the work allows me to interact with many cool and interesting folks.   Several times over the last few years, for instance, I've approached a favorite musician--always someone who's from away and is touring through the area--and have given them a patio torch rendered in their image.  For me, it's a fun way to share a little of my shop while giving thanks to someone for their music and the enjoyment it's brought me--usually while making pots in the studio.   Back when I was strictly making pots , I couldn't just approach a favorite musician and say, "thanks for your music.   Here's an olive oil bottle."

It would have been too awkward.  The torches are a bit different.  People are usually very surprised and at the very least, get a good laugh.  One guy that I "torched" several years ago was Greg Brown. Back in the days when Shannon Whitworth worked with me, bootleg Greg Brown recordings were a listening staple in the studio.  We just couldn't get enough of his music and when he came to play in Asheville, we all shot in to catch the show--with Greg brown patio torch in tow, of course. 

Shannon Whitworth (right) and friend.

After the concert, we hung out with Greg a bit and gave him the head , letting him know all the while how much we appreciated him and his music.    He was very gracious and said he had just the place for it back on his farm in Iowa.  I just loved the idea of that torch living out its days on his porch and giving light to the magical music being made by him his wife, Iris Dement. As it turned out, Greg was flying home and couldn't carry the torch with him. He asked that I'd ship it to him.  As luck,(or rather, incompetence)would have it, I immediately lost the piece of paper with the address written on it.  I'm sure I had a dozen too many beers that night and probably dropped the damn thing on the way out of the bar.  Over the next few months, I made several attempts to contact him through his Daughter, Pieta, but had no luck getting a response. So, for the next four years, the head just sat at the side of my shipping room, orphaned, and out of the way.......until this week.

On Friday night, Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey made their return to North Carolina.  They played right in Brevard at the Porter Center to a near capacity crowd of 500 people.  And to add a serendipitous twist to this occasion, Shannon came not as a spectator this time but as the opening act for the show (right on, Shannon!!).  We caught up with Greg afterward and had a few laughs at this final reunion of the torch.  After all this, I can only think that if I'm not the first person ever to give Greg Brown a patio torch, then at least I'm the first to give him a patio torch sculpted in his image.......and if not that, then DEFINITELY the first to give him a patio torch sculpted in his image.......twice.    

The video below is Greg at the performance playing his new tune, "Let Your Freak Flag Fly." It's a beautiful song and one that really brought the audience out of their seat that night.  For many people, these are hard times we're living in and everybody-rich and poor alike-have good reason to worry.  But as is the message of this song, I believe it is in just such times that resistance to conformity and staying true to your heart is a valuable prescription for living a meaningful life. Tell it like it is, Greg!   

     

A Clay Film Festival in the Works?

I'm finally down in Florida taking a little vacation this week.  It's really beautiful here in St. Augustine right now, but as luck would have it, we're not escaping any winter weather back home.  It is spring-like back in the mountains and I hear all my friends are outside getting those gardens ready.  Still, to be laying on a warm beach in February.....it's divine.

The only clay news I have this week is a discussion I had online with Ayumi Horie on Facebook relating to the idea of  hosting an online Clay Film Festival.  This idea is merely in the germination phase, but the more I think about it, the better it sounds.  I mean,  there is so much creative documentation being done in clay studios these days, I think an annual people's showcase for this work complete with sponsored prizes and such would be awesome.  When it comes to making films on craft, my personal preference are those that go beyond documenting process and somehow capture an artist's spirit behind a process. My best example for this is a film that my Nova Scotian friend, Catherine Busierre, made recently about Rug Hooking.  If you never thought you could be moved to tears by a film on rug hooking (and inspired to get back in that pottery studio to create), you've got to watch this film.  We showed it during set break at a Duckpond concert last year and it was a big hit with potters and non-potters alike.  Also, be sure to check out Ayumi's very artfully done short film documenting her process of "dry throwing".  In the First Annual North American Clay Film Festival's "process" category, I think she's got a real contender.

......Here's Catherine's Film:

     

......And don't forget Ayumi's Film:

Pricks on Sticks: Finding a Satirical Voice in Clay

Yesterday some beautiful spring like weather came up into the mountains making it a perfect time to get a little early evening photography done out on the back deck at my shop.  Pictured here is my patio torch collection "pricks on Sticks." This series is a satire of the leaders of finance and their collusion with the federal government(please check out my short silent film). I'd finished this work just before the Christmas season, but decided its vibe wasn't exactly helping the holiday cheer in my showroom, and so shelved it until the new year.  Now that it's been over a month into 2011, I've had some time to ponder the series and the direction it will take.  I've decided "Pricks on Sticks" will live on as more than just a one time satirical piece and instead will find new life 


as an activist blog at www.pricksonstics.blogspot.com.  Once a week or so, I will feature a sculpted portrait of the week's standout "prick on a stick" and 

Bernie Madoff and Friends

explain in a word or two how they achieved "the honor." To be eligible someone must demonstrate a psychopathic willingness to place their personal greed before the needs of the planet and its inhabitants.  Unfortunately, these days the competition for the award is very stiff indeed.

The Back Story

What Prompted you to make this series? 

Well, since 2008 I had become increasingly outraged with Wall Street's reckless behavior and the government's apparent complicity, if not out right assistance.  As a simple (and poor) potter, however, I felt powerless to vent my frustration.  It eventually occurred to me, however, that through my clay caricatures I might find a constructive voice of dissent.       

How is Satire constructive and not destructive?
 
To be honest, I've been asking myself this same question, and have had occasional bouts of apprehension about continuing the series.  The question of whether negative karma was attached to doing this kind of work definitely occurred to me.  Recently, however, I had a transforming conversation with an activist friend of mine, Dana Smith, attorney and Founder of the Dogwood Alliance.  Dana is in the trenches full time working to change unsustainable forestry practices in the South (see video below).  She makes a career out of leveraging pressure against corporations whose actions are motivated only by the dollar.  In our discussion she assured me that gaining public support for their cause is a key to making corporations re-shape harmful practices and that satire is one valuable tool for helping this happen.  We talked about different ways my clay work could help bolster their message and that of other activist organizations all over the world.


What Other Ceramicists have inspired this work?

Well Robert Arneson is definitely first to cross my mind.  Much of the political work he did through his career was insanely bold and 

Robert Arneson sculpture

memorable.....and often so funny.  Kathy King is another potter I'd mention.  I actually was around her in the studio at the University of Florida.  I believe she was an Associate Professor there back when I was taking my first clay class.  I still remember her humorous tackling of gender issues through the most amazing porcelain scraffito you could ever expect to see. In my opinion, there is a whole lot more room for satirical ceramics.  

Plate by Kathy King

What a great idea for the next Lark Books  publication.


Describe the torches and how they're made.

All the patio torches are initially wheel thrown bottomless stoneware domes.  I add facial features to the outside and then shape them mainly by pushing out from the inside.  It's actually a very fluid process for sculpting and ideal for caricature.  The torches are then decorated with a range of washes and glazes before being fired to 2300 degrees in a heavy reduction atmosphere.         



 .       

The Morning Head: Tom Waits

Tom Waits

I took up one of my first sculpture commissions of the year yesterday.  Just a few days after pulling Jerry Garcia out of the kiln,  A local woman wanted me to make a Tom Waits patio torch  for her son, a musician down in Athens, Georgia.  Now this is my kind of order.  At the close of last year, I sculpted quite a few musicians from the Jazz, Bluegrass, and
Rock and Roll worlds and I had hoped the trend would continue. Beyond just clay work, sculpting is for me an opportunity to commune with some very interesting folk.  Before getting into the clay,  I usually do a little research on the person, 

check out their career, watch a few of their videos, etc.  For that reason, having Tom Waits on the order board was pure pleasure (not to mention, he's got a great face!).

     The video I posted is a live performance of his "What is he building in there?"  Even in a concert hall with thousands of people, this tune still has the power to spook.    







A Little Back Story

What's with the name of this post, "The Morning Head"

Portrait Sculpting is usually something I only do early in the morning.  You could say it's my pre-dawn ritual.  By the time I finish my morning coffee, I'm usually done for the day.  I do this work in my little home studio before heading off to my "real" pottery shop down the road. 

 You sculpt a whole head in the time it takes you to drink a cup of coffee?  No way.
Pretty much.  But you have to understand, this is not the kind of formal sculpture you would learn in art school. This 

is more street level, gypsy wagon stuff.  One motto for my work might be, "I may not be good, but at least I'm quick."(note to self:  good t-shirt idea.).  Anyway, there is some truth there that explains a lot about this work and what it means to me.

Ok,so how do you do it?

Unlike traditional sculpting where an image is rendered from a solid block of clay, I sculpt from the inside out starting with a wheel thrown clay dome.  Working this way I'm able to render an expressive caricature of a person in an hour or so. The process itself is very fluid.

So what's so important about speed?

Well, just as with pen and ink caricature work, the brevity of the process makes it possible for me to be prolific.....and topical with my subject.  I find that as the sculpture process becomes rhythmic, my creative voice more strongly emerges.  With this process, I'm going after expressive portraits that capture the essence of somebody.  Static realism is not my thing. 

Going Ghetto: Firing Cone 10 Reduction in an Electric/Gas Hybrid Kiln

This week I've been scrambling to get the month's orders finished in my shop so that my family can get down to Florida for  some much needed kayaking, fishing and general loafing around on sand.  My oldest boy, Jack, is already 3 and he's never spent an hour out of the mountains--the poor kid.  So, while working around the clock these last few days, I decided to make a little video documenting the firing of what I call my "Ghetto Kiln," an electric kiln modified into a gas/electric reduction kiln.  

 

Here's the Back Story

carbon trap shinos fired in ghetto kiln

When I had first bought my shop 10 or so years ago, I was making my living mostly selling a mid-range production line of marbled earthenware. Though that work sold very well, I saw the establishment of a retail shop as an opportunity to jump beyond the rigid "production line approach" to pot making.  I wanted to return more to exploring new ways of creating and firing clay.  I fired mostly wood back in my college days and definitely longed to get back to that process.  Unfortunately, the acquisition of my shop and a new 30 year home mortgage put any ambitious kiln building projects WAY on the back burner.  Right around that time, I read about Nils Lou's early tinkering with electric reduction in his Art of Firing, and decided to give that a whirl.  For his electric reduction trials, Nils was using ITC refractory coatings to protect the elements in little test kilns and then he would introduce a tiny buzz burner through a side hole in order to reduce the oxygen in the chamber.  I decided to scale that same idea to larger kilns.   But in my mind, this wacky electric reduction stuff was only a provisional situation that would buy me some time until I could build some "real" kilns out in my yard. 

carbon trap shinos fired in ghetto kiln

And that would have been true.........if the firings hadn't been so good.  And reliable.  And CHEAP!  Ten years later I am finally focusing on building that big 'ol ground hog kiln I've always wanted.  I can't wait to be off the grid and have more of the communal aspects that are part of firing with wood. But I'm still hanging on to that versatile little hybrid of mine.  It's just been too great of a kiln to give up.  If you're interested in a more technical conversation about this process, feel free to drop me a line.

I've tagged on a short clip here that was part of a documentary about one of my fellow "Ghetto Kiln Voyagers," the great Beatrice Wood.  She fired low fire lusters and got her reduction by inserting pieces of wood through the spy hole.
   

A Quick Solution for Making Custom Sink Shapes

Yesterday I took on my first custom sink order of the year (and brother could I use 12 more of these to get me through winter).  Over the last 5-6 years my sink business has become a pretty regular feature of my shop production.  This is a GOOD thing.  People that are in the market for sinks have something major going on in their lives--building a house or taking on a large renovation--and there often are a lot more orders to follow.  Beyond the look of my work, I think one reason that I've been a regular choice  with many of the designers and builders in my area  is that I'm able to custom make sinks to match almost any size or dimension needed.  I used to shy away from anything other than a wheel thrown vessel sink (mounted above counter top)until I discovered the wonder material for making custom molds:  blue board insulation.  With a jig saw and a sheet of blue board, I can produce in ten minutes a mold for almost any order that walks in the door.  I've done my best to document the process in the pictures that follow.

Using 1 " blue board, Set a Jigsaw to 45 degrees and cut the desired sink shape

Trace the bottom of the cutout on the next piece of blueboard and cut it out.  Repeat until a desired depth has been achieved.  Tack all pieces together with epoxy.

Drape a slab into the mold.  Most Sinks I use 3 overlapping slaps.  Compress and scrape.

I usually add and texture an extruded rim.  For sinks, heft is good.

Complete texture and interior elements while sink is in the mold

Important:  build up the bottom of the sink to ensure proper drainage to the hole (no flat bottoms).

After a few days, encourage the sink out of the mold.  I like to hold it on its side and separate the pieces.

Use a hole saw bit for making a 1.25" hole.  Here I added an extruded coil to make a foot.

I'm stiffening the foot so I can flip the sink and adjust for level.

Notice textured outside.

Nice sink.  Lousy photograph.

Not Your Typical Pottery Clip

Brian's little cat under construction

I recently came across a great little pottery film made by Montana potter, Brian Free.  Brian initially intended to make a "how to" film about process but instead was overcome by surreal impulses and made a film about the sensuality of a moment in his studio.  Definitely check out his blog where more such creative stuff can be found. Lately, he's been documenting his journey constructing a super cute little catenary arch wood kiln:

http://bfreepottery.blogspot.com

Tagine Making: A Culinary World Adventure

 

My version of a traditional Tagine.

The other day a friend of mine came into the shop to guide me through the throwing of some "Tandoori" pots he wanted for gifts.  I thought I had a pretty good idea of what a "Tandoori" was because a few years back a restaurant in town had me make some dozen or so for them.  Later that day, when I did some research to verify that what I had made was actually a traditional shape for a Tandoori, I came to learn that I had made not a Tandoori but a "Tagine."  Tandooris are in fact huge cylindrical clay ovens used to roast skewered meat over an open flame and are used all over India.  Tagines, on the other hand, are Moroccan decent and are used for cooking stews which traditionally are comprised of lamb or chicken with a medley of ingredients or seasonings:  olives, apples, pears, apricots, raisins, prunes, dates, nuts, with fresh lemons with or without honey.  Traditional spices used to flavor include ground cinnamon, saffron, ginger, turmeric, cumin, paprika and pepper.  YUM!!!!!!!!!  I cannot wait to fire a few of these for myself and start exploring the wonderful exotic world of Moroccan Cuisine.  I'm going to start with a few of the more famous tajine dishes: Mshermel (a pairing of chicken, olives, and Citrus fruits) and Mrouzia (lamb, raisins, and almonds).  I'll let you know how they turn out.

Traditional Tagines at Market

Giant Tandoori pots being made

I'll leave you with an excellent BBC video that looks at Tagine cooking in Morocco.  If this doesn't make your mouth water, nothing will.  I'm already making plans for our next dinner party.

John Thain and I Are Fellow Renovators

     Lately, I've been reading many potters' blogs on the topic of studio design.  Emily Murphy in particular has documented her lengthy journey in the last year moving from a group studio situation at LillStreet Art Studios in Chicago to setting up her own studio in the basement of a new house in Minneapolis.  She notes how such a move includes emotional and social adjustment as well as a whole litany of practical challenges.  And, of course, work that is produced in the new space is sure to be shaped in some way by the new environment. 

Her posts on this subject have made me reflect on my own experience this fall setting up a micro studio at my home.  In an effort to both make my work life more comfortable during the coldest months and to help me better meet the needs of my young family, I converted a gloomy 4" x 8" carport closet into cool little space for producing portrait sculpture.  My pottery shop is a mere mile down the road from my house, but it's heated with a single wood stove and in the colder months can take an hour or more to become something close to "comfortable" for working.This was only a slight inconvenience back in the old days before my wife and I started having babies.  Now, with morning diapers to be changed, and mouths to be fed there simply is no time to be blissfully staring into a wood stove for an hour every dawn waiting for the shop to warm.  My new space at home is making my winter much more comfortable as I can now quickly get to work in a cozy space not 8 feet out the door of the house AND more importantly, I'm at the ready should a baby need tending.   

 

   Ironically, one of the first portraits I was to undertake in this new space was fellow renovator, John Thain.  Remember him?  John was the former head of Merril Lynch who commissioned a 1.2 million dollar upgrade on his office as the American taxpayers went on the hook for billions of dollars to keep his bank from cratering.  Well, sure, John did a much fancier job on his space than I did but I'm thankful for my garage closet turned sculpting studio just the same.    

I think I like John  better as a patio torch than a banker.

 

 

Season's Greetings from The Duckpond Pottery

This past fall I began taking on greater numbers of commissions for doing portrait sculpture.  I enjoyed the work so much I made the decision to continue my focus on this work into 2011.  I've always been a fan of the great California "funk movement" sculptor, Robert Arneson, and really appreciate how the avenues of satire open up with this personality directed approach to sculpture.  You can begin to pick up on this new direction in the following slide show where I include a series entitled, "Pricks on Sticks: A sculptor's interpretation of the Financial industry." This is an ongoing creation of hand sculpted patio torches which include many notable figures in the banking and political realms. All the people I have chosen in this series have demonstrated having a great hand in crashing the world economy while unscrupulously helping to enrich themselves.  I find this kind of work empowering.  After so many years of just producing craft for an art market, I have enjoyed the political voice that this work has enabled in my work.

     As with all my potraits, they are made from wheel thrown and hand sculpted stoneware and are fired in heavy reduction to cone 10 using an electric/gas hybrid kiln.

 One of my favorite things about mountain living is when the winter snow hits, "island time" begins.  After the frenzied pace of making and selling pots through the Christmas season my body and soul need a few weeks closer to home and family.  And with two toddlers afoot, a few feet of new snow means Dad's not going to work for a while.