The Return to School

   
     The dawning of the fall semester is always an awkward time for me in the clay studio. From having the studio all to myself for three months, I must rapidly readjust to having other people and classes in the studio all the time. Luckily, with my graduation in December, this is the last time for that.

What every good studio space needs

   
     The last week or so has been pretty scattered for me. Along with going back to school and pushing out 35 plates, I have also fired 2 soda kilns over the past 10 days. Not bad if you ask me. I fell in love with soda firing while I was still in high school. Our ceramics class was lucky enough to travel to the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts in Southern Indiana to fire their soda kiln. I was hooked after the first firing and over time became very close to the studio director, Norman Silva. Norman is one of my greatest ceramic influences and probably the main reason I still make pots today. When I graduated from high school and was left with nowhere to work, Norman created a job for me at Mount Saint Francis. I got to do all the cleaning work he hated, and in turn, I got to make work up there for free.

Norm, me, and my mop!

      Through working with him at The Mount, I fired more than forty soda kilns over the next two years. After awhile, dividing myself between The Mount Studio and the studio at UofL became impractical, and I began working solely at UofL. Luckily for me, there was a nearly new soda kiln here as well. Unfortunately, there was also a BRAND NEW wood kiln. Needless to say, I have focused pretty heavily on wood firing over the past few years while soda firing has fallen by the wayside. After taking the soda firing workshop at the Archie Bray Foundation with Matt Long and Brad Schweiger this summer, my soda firing interest was sparked again. Why not soda fire some of my plates? The atmospheric surface of soda firing is both similar and just as beautiful as that of wood firing.

Soda Kiln @ The Meadows Pottery

   
     The first soda kiln I fired is located at Matt Gaddie's studio in Bardstown, KY. I have worked closely with Matt for the past few years, and this soda kiln is something I have pushed him to build for some time now.  We started the build in late spring of this year, and with gas lines run and burners built, we were finally ready to fire.  For a first firing, the kiln came out great, and I even got a few finished plates to move my tally up to 8. Sadly I left my camera down at his studio, so no photos of pots for now. I also fired a soda kiln here at UofL with a buddy of mine from the studio. This kiln also came out really well and gave me further hope about incorporating soda fired plates into my plate wall. I promise I'll post photos as soon as I get my camera back!

A full space..and my "borrowed" cart

    
     One major downside to the semester starting (in my opinion) is the need for my space to appear "cleaner than usual". I would not consider myself messy; however, pushing so many pots through a small area can create quite a bit of clutter. This is especially true with all the plates I will be making. They do not take terribly long to throw, but drying and trimming can easily take a week. With limited space to store a large number of drying-sensitive plates, I was left scratching my head for a few days. Luckily, there is a super nice cart that I have "borrowed" to store trimmed plates on. I may not be able to walk into my space, but who cares!











...and always.. the random of the day

I have a twin somewhere! (this isnt actually me believe it or not)