Siesta Time!

My husband is returning for good from his year long consulting gig in Switzerland!

That, along with the mountain of paperwork in my office (yes, I did mosaics and ceramics while going into complete denial about the gathering forces in there), the large amount of outdoor work which we have in store for us (remember all those fallen trees from the snow? It's chainsaw time...) and the upcoming renovation project have all conspired to tell me to take a little break from blogging. I will be back in a couple of weeks with some new ideas and inspiration -- so please check back then and we can continue to have some fun together.

Stay healthy and enjoy the rest of your January.

Touches of Sweden and a Touch of Spring

Itchy today to bring a touch of springtime inside, I cut some plum tree branches to force. I arranged them in this beautiful Orrefors vase which we had received as a gift from our Swedish friends many years ago. I love Swedish glass and crystal, probably more than glass from any other country (with the exception of American Simon Pearce, which will be the subject of another blog). It has to do with the simplicity of design.




I needed to find a new home for my Sexy Bowls and Cups. I needed look no further than this small, darling wood wall cabinet which my friend Laurie Wolfert had found on one of her scavenger trips to Trelleborg and Kristianstad. They fit perfectly.


I put some fresh dried potpourri in one of the boxes which I bought years ago at a flea market in South Sweden. We used to go to the southern Swedish coast to celebrate midsommar with our old friends from IKEA. It was always such a treat to find things at flea markets and auctions there.


I guess my post from yesterday served to remind me just how much I love Swedish things.

If beautiful design from this part of the world interests you, do take a look at both Karin and Emma's design blogs. They are constantly introducing new, fresh and lovely ideas.

Ja Ja Ja

Hey boys and girls, looky what I found in my box of treasures.

What do you think it is (well, it's a bumper sticker, but...)?

Hints:

It's from 1985

It was for the first US Store Opening for this company

It was the opener for a teaser campaign which my husband, who was in charge of the project, cooked up with the ad agency.

It resulted in the single most successful new store opening campaign for this particular company worldwide to that point....

Over 25,000 people a day for 7 days in a row piled into the store during the opening week.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike had to be periodically shut.

We had the Fire Department present at all times to maintain order in the 1 mile line to get in -- in 90 degree heat and humidity.

A woman went into hard labor and a man had a heart attack in the store the first week -- statistically normal facts for such a crowd.

It was all anyone in Philadelphia could talk about for a very long time.

In 1985 and 1986, four babies born in the Philadelphia area were named after the store. We employees hoped that they were not conceived in the store rest rooms, but assumed they were. I personally hope they are using their middle names today.

Meatballs, anyone? Or a shrimp sandwich? Some lingonberry juice maybe?

Secret Courtyards

It's not necessary to win, but instead to convince

With support (something to lean on), even pumpkins can climb

The philosopher is masculine, but the philosophy is feminine

My friend Cosima's patio

One of the sublime pleasures of living in Europe is that in many urban areas, large doors hide the entries to beautiful and fully unexpected inner courtyards.

My favorite in Acqui it this one, directly on Via Garibaldi, one of the streets in the pedestrian zone. A former cloister, it has a mildly decadent, beautiful garden in the center. The surrounding residences which open onto the courtyard house restoration specialists, architects, designers, and artists. Written in cement are the philosophical thoughts of the residents.

On a spring day, it's one of my favorite spots. I sometimes stand in the middle and call out the names of the people I know. Someone normally comes to the window to say hi.

I love the philosphy that with a little help, even pumpkins can climb!

Excuse Me Sir, Can You Please Pilot Every Flight I Take From Now On?

photo: NYTimes Online

Captain C.B. Sullenberger, US Airways

Mosaics

Mosaics really raise people's interest. I think we are all fascinated by the collage nature of mosaics.

Over the years, I have collected some mosaic experience. When I was learning ceramics at the Keramik Art Studio in Hamburg, one of the two ceramic masters there was working on an unbelievable project. Four mosaics of the four seasons, depicted in mosaics. The mosaic pieces were hand made from clay and glazed in formulas which he himself developed ( I learned glaze chemistry from him), each piece less than a centimeter in diameter. I don' t have a great photo of the pieces, but here is a small one, to give you an idea:


Learning the technical part of doing mosaics will result in your mosaic functioning well and lasting a very long time.

It is very important to construct your mosaic on a stable base. Wood is not a stable base, unless it is marine multiplex and has been sealed for moisture on both sides. If you use a simple piece of wood, as soon as the moisture hits it, it is going to absorb moisture on one side and will eventually bow. When it dries it will contract. This means that the pieces of the mosaic pieces will disengage from the glue, that the grout will break.

Other stable bases include: cement, metal, plaster, stone, sealed MDF.

Here are some mosaics I have done. The table tops were done with all handmade pieces, as were the pizza oven doors, the mirror and the art collages. The floor mosic is a mixtuer of handmade pieces, purchased tile, and river stone.

You'll need to click on the collage to enlarge to see the detail.



The collage wall art tiles are mounted on sheets of pliable lead, which are then mounted on to stretched canvass, covered with rice paper, painted and waxed.

Several of these pieces were private commissions. The mosaic for the half-round console table top took over three months to make -- first I cut the clay into the pattern, and let the individual tiles dry very slowly under plastic for 4 weeks. I numbered the tiles from the back so I would know where to place them on the table -- the whole thing was like a puzzle that hd to fit exactly. Then I bisque fired the tiles, then glazed them in a midnight blue and a beige-green, then laid them in. I made doubles for about 30% of the pieces in case something went wrong. The whole table top had to be constructed at 110% of the size of the actual board, because clay shrinks 8 to 12% after it is fired. But the result was worth it.

All of the mosaic surfaces have been: sealed before application, and grout sealer is applied afterwards, to protect the grout color.

It also pays to invest in high quality ceramic cement glue and grout. I often mix pigment into the grout to get the color I want.

As with the ceramics series, I will be sure to post as I do some mosaics. For me mosaics can also be works in progress; I have several started on this property which I will finish over time, as the muse comes to visit.

In fact, here's a little snippet of one back by my pool which is a long term work in progress.

The Salt Diaries: He Just Wanted To Go For a Walk

The girl looks at her dog. He seems to be a bit frustrated. He wants to go for a walk.

After the lunchtime break, it is time to search for salt. Salt, salt, salt. The whole world seems to want it, need it. Because there is none. None in the shops, none at the agricultural co- operatives, none anywhere.

And the girl has a very long, curvy driveway which had been snowed on, rained on, snowed on again, frozen, thawed, frozen again, until the curves have now become a perfect Olympic Quality ice skating ring. Meaning the girl's car remains at the entry, and she has to schlep her groceries and her dog's biscuits up the quarter mile icy drive by foot. Meaning that there is not a propane delivery truck on the planet which could come and fill the almost empty tank. Meaning that the two falls she and her loved one had already taken have been duly noted with large black and blue spots on their backsides.

Salt. She. Needs. Salt. So she sets out, with her dog, on a salt finding mission.

But the only thing left in the entire city are water softening tablets. That's right -- those one inch by one inch tablets you put in your water softening machine.

The man behind the counter says, well, if I were you I would take them.

After all, The Snow Of The Century is coming next week.

The girl recoils in fear. She thought the Snow Of The Century Had Already Come And Gone.

So she buys 150 kilograms, that would be 330 pounds, of water softening tablets.

Her dog, patiently waiting in the car, is very hopeful that after this ridiculous drive around town, he would get a nice long walk out of the girl.

The girl pulls into her driveway, as far as she could go, and, still dressed up from her salt shopping spree (yes she got dressed up for salt, she has little other occasion to dress up for at the moment), starts ripping open the 50 pound bags of water softening tablets and spreading them all over the Olympic Quality Ice Skating Corner. She then tries to back her car back out to the street to allow the tablets to melt the ice. And promptly slides into a three foot snow drift.

A little steamed, she climbs up the hill to the house and puts on her rubber boots, insulated jacket and pulls out her ice pick and two snow shovels and heads back down the driveway.

The dog is waiting at the car, thinking the walk HAS to be coming now.

Oh no. She starts picking and digging, slipping and sliding, shoveling and swearing, sweating and picking some more. Back and forth, the smell of clutch. Mud from the ice from the water softener tablets.

But car does not budge. The unique combination of slush, mud, snow, ice and water softening tablets make a soup which the car cannot escape. She feels a pinch in her back. It's time to stop. She looks at the dog, who is thinking, it's now or never. Slowly she walks up to the house. He follows, dejected. As a treat, she makes him an extra large portion of hamburger for dinner, and recalls fondly, when lovely Amanda told her that the pact the girl had made with herself not to drink wine during the week was never going to work, and breaks open a bottle of Barolo.

And toasts the upcoming Snow Of The Century, the Almost Empty Gas Tank, and the Stuck Car From Hell.

Regardless what happens tomorrow, the girl resolves that the dog is going to get an extra long walk. Absolutely.

Keep Trying

Trying is everything.

I had a conversation with someone here at the B&B awhile back about what it takes to conceive and execute creative projects. She said to me very clearly, "Well, I don't have any talent, so I don't bother trying. It's too frustrating." It's moments like this that I ride the fine line between being a host and shutting my mouth, or simply going ahead and putting my foot in it.

I understand that it's frustrating to want to do something and not be able to do it well. We get slammed from every side with beautiful imagery of people and things which we should be able to somehow internalize and replicate. But it's not that easy.

First we have to figure out what suits us, and what we like. That alone can be a daunting task when many of us have been told most of our lives what we should like and what should suit us. I think everyone should have to live in a room with no furniture in it for a month -- just a mattress on the floor and a white blanket. Wipe the slate clean. Start fresh. Get rid of every bit of preconception and paradigm which has been reigned down upon us by media, well meaning family and friends, spouses.

Not being able to do something well does not mean that a person does not have talent. When learning about creativity, I was astounded to learn how much each discipline was technical. Painting and drawing require learning to record perspective and proportion correctly. This is a technical discipline, not a creative one. It comes with practice, like multiplication tables. The talent comes later, when choosing what to paint and how to best express the subject matter.

There are five hand positions on the pottery wheel which, when executed, result in a bowl. They are five technical things a person must master. Nothing to do with talent. It's just practice and repetition. The talent comes later, when the bowl is made -- how can it be altered to be more interesting, what kind of glaze should it take, how does it fit in with the rest of the series?

Painting an interesting wall means understanding which raw pigments work together and which don't. Nothing creative about it. It's trial and error, and recording results. It's understanding the properties of different materials and learning application methods. The talent comes later, when deciding what colors and what treatments suit a specific space.

The interesting thing is, that one a few technical skills have been mastered, the creativity, yes, the talent, starts to flow, all on its own. I have seen it time and time and time again. People who perceived themselves as completely incapable of creativity blossom. Take on a new art. Internalize color. Learn what they like. View the world around them differently.

But so many people don't make it over that first hurdle because they believe that in order to start, they have to magically produce some sort of talent they don't believe they even have, when what they should be doing is starting to understand the technical part of the art which they might be interested in.

I did an exhibition once in Hamburg. My installation was a door, raw wood, lying on the floor, one end slightly raised. On the door where 150 tiny icy green vases. The theme of the installation was "The Home". The door itself I found in a junkyard, and had about 20 coats of oil based lacquer on it. I learned a lot about stripping wood from that door. I learned that if you mix 10% peroxide with ammonia (kids, don't do this at home), it gets a lot of garbage off an old piece of wood. My colleague and Altelier mate Katharina Ortleb, who is an artist and a carpenter, taught me that. And you can just imagine what throwing 150 vases on the pottery wheel taught me. I pretty much knew it all about small vases after that. I don't have a picture of that exhibit, but I promise you it was very aesthetically pleasing. But the majority of what it took to produce that result was technical. The "talent" came only in the shape of the vases, color of the glaze, the final wax on the door, the positioning of the installation.

One more thing. If you try to produce something , and you think it's drivel, try again. And again. Don't give up so easily. Creativity is not for the thin skinned, believe me. Go ahead and criticize your own work, and listen if you want to the criticizm of others. But after that, put it aside and move on. Try again and again. Your work will move out of the drivel category to the eh-eh category to the well, that's a little better category to the not bad category to the hey, that's pretty good category to the holy shit that's awesome category.

But only if you keep trying.

Studio Day: Out of the Fire, Part 2-The Good, The Bad, and the Cracked

The Good.

These first two pictures are of a platter and three small bowls that some how took on a shade of pink. They were near those small red mosaic tiles in the kiln, which by the way, over fired and lost ALL their red ... and gave it to these pieces, which are really stunning! A good accident! Next time, I will spray a very, very light coat of the red glaze powder over a glazed piece before putting it in the kiln, using some kind of a stencil, like a heart. I will see if I can get this light, lovely pink shading in some sort of design on the piece. Yummy.

The Bad (and the Good, too)

I had put two tiles in the kiln, using exactly the same glaze. One was the water tile, the other was a more graphic leaf design. The tiles were side by side. The oven developed a hot spot where the water tile was and overfired the glaze.
While the result is interesting, it is not the one I had hoped for. It turns out I liked this tile more when it was white, I think. But, wonder upon wonders, the more graphic tile, which I thought was quite average before putting it in the kiln, came out really stunning! And although the two tiles were directly next to each other in the kiln, the glaze on this one is perfect. Go figure.


So our Canadian friends are going to get this tile worked into a piece of wall art. I will show the finished product. Now that I see the finished tile, I know exactly what kind of backdrop it needs to have. I love this tile!!

The Cracked.

Two pieces cracked in the oven. Melissa's tile -- sorry, Melissa, you will have to come back and make another one! The tile was too thick and probably could not take the glassy glaze. Bummer.


...and the big platter! AHHHHH! GRRRRR! It had air bubbles in the slab. Silly me. You can see, it looks like it had a bad case of teenager skin if you look closely at the surface. This goes under the category of "stuff happens".

The Good Again...

This was a test plate where I mixed cobalt and copper slips, engraved and sanded the surface. The picture does not really do it justice .... it's really a cool looking piece.



Birgit's tile is very cool!! It will make a great wall hanging or desk paper weight. For some reason, the little red dot turned pearly black, which is actually ok.




...and one more general overview of my everyday ware for the B&B. I am going to be doing some more pieces, of course, and paint the slip on in designs, and combine those pieces with these.


I hope you have enjoyed this little journey. In the next Studio Ceramics Series, we will be throwing pots and building pieces. Thank you for your interest!

Studio Day: Out of the Fire, Part 1

I opened the oven and removed a few (very few ) of the pieces. I will remove the rest tomorrow, with an explanation of the successes and failures. Here are a couple of the successes:


The little bowl, turquoise runny glaze on the inside, painted oxide black in a design on the outside. This may be one of my very favorite pieces ever. I will definitely be making more pieces using this technique.



Glaze test: Managnese oxide 1% and Chrome oxide 1% in the runny glaze. I thought it might turn out pink, but instead I got this gorgeous, glassy black-brown with tiny green specks! It's a keeper.


Glaze test Chrome oxide 2.5% in the runny glaze: really interesting with different hues of green. I am going to run this test again using only 1.5% chrome oxide to see if I can get it a little less opaque and a bit lighter. Very promising.

My standard glaze on the Sexy Bowls (thank you Amanda for that name!) worked perfectly as usual, I did not screw up the recipe :)

Come back and visit tomorrow for the rest. I have a lot of work waiting out there in the studio for me!!

Sankt Peter Ording: Out of the Earth, Into the Fire

The kiln is still cooling, I can't quite open it yet. But I thought I would show you these two North Sea beach pictures that I took in the winter of 2002 - 2003 while still living Northern Germany. It is the national park beach at St. Peter Ording, where, during ebb, the water goes out over 3 kilometers, and comes back in during tide. You have to be very careful when walking on this beach. The incoming tide, which is deceptively slow, can catch you -- many people have lost their lives in the North Sea this way. It is particularly dangerous in the winter, when fog rolls in, and you can lose your orientation completely.

But if you pay attention and understand Nature's rules, it is one of the most unusually beautiful beaches you can imagine. Fresh and breezy in the summer; haunting and stark in the winter. When I took my sister to St. Peter Ording one time, she said " I feel like I am in the middle of a National Geographic photo shoot." Indeed.

What does St. Peter Ording have to do with ceramics?

Quite simply, the sand. I collected sand from this beach, which I still use in some glazes. The quartz and silica content of the sand is high, so I experiment with the sand, replacing a portion of the quartz in the glaze recipe with it. Since the sand contains other impurities, it reacts differently than quartz, and one (as usual) never knows the outcome, until the oven is opened.

But this is an example of how the potter's world relies on the natural world to create new and beautiful things.

You see, pottery is a metaphor for life. It requires earth (clay), water (to make the clay pliable), air (to dry the clay), and fire (to solidify the clay). All the elements are present.

And the role (and luxury) of the studio potter, in my opinion, is not only to rely on things she knows works; it is to risk the things which might or might not work to get unexpected results.

To keep moving. To keep going. To push further. To take risks, and learn from errors.

And to see the possibilities and seize them, even though they are invisible to all those around you.

End of the Week - Veal Stew with Polenta

The weather, the week and the return home of my husband called for a nice meal and a warm atmosphere.


2 pounds of veal, cut up into small pieces, an onion two carrots, three celery sticks and garlic, all diced-- and some bay leaves.


Flour and brown the meat in olive oil. Remove. Brown about 100 g. of pancetta. Add the veggies, and let them sautee until the onions are transparent. Add a half a bottle of a decent red wine (I used Barbera). After the alcohol evaporates, add a 14 oz. can of best quality tomato pulp. Add a couple of whole cloves. Put the meat back in the pot. Salt and pepper to taste.


Let it all simmer together for two hours. If the sauce gets too thick, add a little red wine. If, at the end, the flavor is too acidic and the sauce is too thin, you can mix a bit of melted butter with flour, and add to that a teaspoon of honey. Add this to the sauce and let it cook together. Make some polenta.


Light candles and fireplace, if there is one.

Put on some nice music. Set the table.


Serve the veal stew with a nice red wine -- I served a wooded Barbera.

Studio Day - Loading and Starting the Kiln

Today I filled the oven. I started with the biggest, flattest pieces towards the bottom, and built up from there, filling in any available spaces with tiles and tests. Nothing can touch each other, and colored glazes have to have even a bit extra distance from other pieces.



I put the water tile up on stilts in case the glaze runs a bit, I can still save it, and it won't stick to the platter.

And, little by little, the space gets filled...


The computerized timer allows me to control exactly the speed which the oven heats up. It will take 22 hours for it to reach 1240 degrees, then it will maintain that temperature for one hour and then will have to cool at least 12 hours before I can even crack the door open. Otherwise, it can be very dangerous. The color inside the oven at the highest temperature is absolute white.


So, the firing will be done by tomorrow at this time, and I will be able to crack the oven on Sunday morning.