Alfred University Summer Ceramics, Sunday July 2nd
On Sundays there’s less activity at the studio. I took it easy as well. The cross bowl and clay form were drying nicely, and five plates and a pitcher were now out of the bisque kiln and ready for glazing. Three of the women near my bench encouraged me to join in their game of creating a piece based on a randomly selected object found in The Pot Book, by Edmund DeWaal, “…an accessible and informative A-Z guide to over 300 makers, schools, and styles of ceramics from around the world.” Each page described one work of functional ware in the diverse collection spanning the centuries. To play the game, one person held the book, thumbing through the pages back and forth, front to back, until the other person said, “Stop.” The process was then repeated to select which of the two pages in the selected opening would be selected. When I played, it was determined I would make a slipware bowl fashioned after a Nishapur (northeastern Iran) bowl from the 9th century.
In the afternoon I trimmed eight bowls and put wax resist on the bottoms of all the bisqued ware, to prepare them for glazing. I put white slip on two ‘leather hard’ clay bowls, and once dry, painted wax resist designs and then applied black slip. This time the effect was quite messy, but I’ll try to adjust/fix it in the morning.
Over supper I examined a book about Picasso’s ceramic art (Picasso, Catalogue of the Edited Ceramic Works 1947-1971 by Alain Ramie), read the forward by Bernard Leach’s wife to the book Hamada, Potter by Bernard Leach, and reviewed the work of Sung Jae Choi from the Pucker Gallery in Boston (Abstracting the Past, Buncheong Pottery). All of these works (with the exception of some of Picasso’s) were new to me. I am intrigued by Buncheong ware, a form of traditional Korean stoneware, and I will try to incorporate it into some of my pieces. I later found out that Sung Jae Choi may be a visiting artist at Alfred next summer.
The day passed quickly, and although I intended to glaze the bisqued ware, that will have to wait until tomorrow.
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