Potter from Corning, New York

Another potter who I met on our trip to Ithaca, New York, is Stacey Esslinger.
She, like Colleen McCall, who lives in Elmira not far from Ithaca, attended Alfred University for Ceramics.  She works in cone ten porcelain, which she rolls out into very thin slabs and textures with cloth patters pressed into the clay. 

Then she hand-builds these really lovely shapes using techniques you might associate with sewing garments: making darts, adding little "button" accents,

 The color palette here is in various shades of turquoise blues and lavender, but she also had pieces that were white with pink and lime green decorations,

 I like the texture of the high fired pure porcelain quite a lot.
On this cream and sugar set, the bottoms of the pieces are gently curved up on four sides,

 This is a little business card holder -- very practical!

 I was so lucky to meet her at the booth at the Ithaca festival! 

A Bit of Bird Fun

 Well, after spending all that time trying to get my head around the underglaze test tiles, (more on that later!)  I do have a fun project in the works as well.
 Birds!

 I was quite inspired by seeing the sculptures by Emily Wilson in Asheville, and no doubt am influenced by her work with this set of birds, (more elongated-- planning to do in more colors)

However, even before that, I had wanted to do some more birds.  I made several some years ago for in my garden.  They were also about this size, about the size of a fist, with wings outstretched, fat bodies and tails up.  I glazed them in a glossy white, and they had a hole in the bottom large enough for a 1 cm wood dowel.  I used the dowels to place them on finials that i had thrown in sections.  I  am down to only one of these birds left, I don't know what happened to the others!!

Pottery Class

I'm enjoying the class that I am taking from the Clay Spot here in Savannah, taught by Mitzi Davis.  So far we've had 4 classes and I've also gone in on 3 other afternoons for the open studio time.
 It is really quite a lot of fun, and it has certainly re-awakened my love of working with clay.
I wondered what it would be like after a hiatus of 11 years-- what would come out this time..
I've thrown a little bit at the classes, with a cone 6 stoneware called Moon White.  It is nice to work with but I also want to try a more clear white clay body as well.
This time around, I suppose what surprises me most is that I'm really enjoying hand-building.  I didn't ever really explore any hand-built containers before.  I did some molding of little birds, fish and of course the rabbit additions, but not anything like vases or mugs.
However, in the past couple of weeks I seem to enjoy this, and am liking the look and feel of the items.

I'm also very impressed with the way you can explore on the internet.  It is fun to read some blogs from potters, and to follow up on artists who they mention by googling them and finding out if they have a web-site, blog, or are featured at some gallery.

We went to Asheville for a few days, and it was a lot of fun to go to the River Arts district to see working studios, and also go to some galleries.  It is also where Highwater clay supply is located, so I was able to go there and pick up some tools, underglazes and a couple of books.

Last night I glazed some test tiles, and did a little mishima with black slip on a couple of greenware pieces.
I also glazed 2 thrown pieces with a double glaze combination, hoping that it will break nicely over some simple carving. I also threw a few pieces-- some mugs that I think are too thin on the bottom and will probably crack, and a medium sized roundish bowl that I think will be fun to decorate if it makes it that far.
I set most of the greenware I made so far on the racks to be bisque fired.
I also brought home some clay to do a bit of hand-building this week since the studio will be closed while Lisa is attending NCECA in Seattle.