Gulp. Make that Sunday, 2-4 PM

Well, this is embarrassing. I finally get my act together – in terms of letting people know about something – and it changes on me. The Visual Arts Center has decided to have a 30th birthday party on Sunday, February 9, from 2-4pm, in lieu of the second artist's reception on Friday night.

You're all welcome to attend that but I will be working at For ArtSake Gallery that day from 10am - 5pm. So you could still go see my exhibit, support the Visual Arts Center and see me; you'll just have to do it Sunday and you'll have to see me in the gallery.

As an added incentive, the gallery is debuting a special Valentine's show that day: The Dark Side of Love! So sorry about the mix-up. Hope to see you all soon.

Second Reception at the VAC

I know I didn’t give people enough notice about the opening party for my showcase at the Visual Arts Center in Nye Beach, Newport. Thankfully, there’s a second opening!

Join me at the halfway point, Friday, February 7th from 5 to 7 PM for another chance to see my exhibit "Ora et Labora". All the pieces are for sale and there may be still be a few available.

There will be free refreshments and there's great work on the third floor and on the first floor, the Toledo Art Guild has a fantastic exhibit that includes fellow For ArtSake member Cynthia Jacobi.

If you can't make it, you can at least watch the video Angelique made:

SHOWCASE – Newport Visual Arts Center

So sometime around Thanksgiving, Angelique brings to my attention a showcase opportunity at the Visual Arts Center located right smack at (and nearly on) the beach in Newport. It’s called COVAS, Coastal Oregon Visual Arts Showcase. It’s specifically for professional mid-career visual artists to showcase their work. That seemed perfect for me. The application was due in short order so we rushed to get the paperwork done and the photos and get it dropped off in time, briefly noting that the showcase was sometime in January which seemed miles away at the time.

Cut to a few weeks later. All the pots I’ve made have been delivered to galleries for Christmas sales or put up on Etsy. I’m in the studio working on custom orders to get them done for the holidays. Pots are put aside for gifts or already delivered. Etsy sales are coming in regularly. Then, we get the notice that I’ve been selected for the showcase. Great! We keep going. Nose to the grindstone until Christmas. It isn’t until around December 27 that we finally come up for air and realize that we have no pots left for a visual showcase, much less my absolute best showcase-worthy work. Coly how!

Start to finish, it takes about two weeks to make a pot to allow for all the adequate drying and firing in between the steps I have to do; it just can’t be done any faster. This is not an art for the impatient or the easily distracted, which makes one wonder how I ended up doing it. I have to believe that pottery found me because it was something I needed. I needed to learn patience, to learn to slow down and focus, to have quiet time at the wheel without my thoughts bouncing around in my head, to have something that I can point to and say “I made that, from start to finish.” It might be why my show is called "Ora et Labora - Working to stay centered." 

Ora et labora, which means “prayer and work” in Latin, is how we spent our days at the monastery – which is where I first learned pottery – prayer and contemplative work. This work is intrinsically tied to my experience while a monk at Mt. Angel Abbey and to my faith and as a man of many interests; I need something to return to, something that keeps me centered.

Long story short, I managed to get this thing together though I think it’s safe to say that my best work is still ahead of me. Which means you too will have to practice patience. If you live in the area, I hope you’ll stop by the Visual Arts Center in Newport, Oregon, to see the exhibit. It will have a retrospective element, comparing some of my older work to new work, and will feature a video of me working (THANK YOU, ANGELIQUE! You are an excellent film maker and I'm showcasing you through your amazing video). 

All of the pieces are for sale, though I believe you have to wait until the exhibit is over to pick them up. The showcase has featured artisans working in wood, metal, fiber, glass, paint, photography and pottery and it is an honor to be part of it. 

The showcase will be on display from January 10 to March 1, 2014. Also, there will be an artists’ reception from 5-7 PM on Friday, January 10 with food and drink. If you can’t wait to get your hands on one of my pots, you can always head over to the For ArtSake Gallery to pick something up. I’ll be working there on Monday, January 13. Come visit me!

Native Clay - a thing of the past

A native clay is something of the past. I mean that in two ways: 1) A century ago, potters searched for deposits of material that came right out of the ground and was ready to mold into pottery. But that's pretty much a thing of the past in our country. Sure, it's still done in a few places, but it's rare that a potter is fortunate to find such an ideal lode. 2) Clay is tens of millions of years old. If ever there was a thing of the past, it's clay. Clay is broken-down rock. Clay is not dirt. Most potters I know (including myself) do not generally incorporate native clays into their repertoire. We buy our clay from companies that charge by the pound. They put it into neatly packed 25 lb. cubes wrapped in plastic bags, two bags to a box for a total of 50 lbs per box. You do get a price break if you order it by the ton. I order it by the ton. But I got lucky last week.

Last week, a guy who came into the gallery told me where some dark clay was. He gave me good directions. I checked it out last Friday (April 12th). He was right. I could not believe my eyes. I have found native clays in Lincoln County before, but never so pure and always that yellow-to-red colored clay. But this stuff was really, really dark, was really, really pure, and was really, REALLY sticky. And whereas the native clay my mentor, Jeff Procter put me onto went to make a nice glaze, this stuff felt like it might even work on the wheel. And boy-howdy, it worked great. Here are some pictures:

 The first pot I made from the black clay was this little tea bowl. I put it to the throwing test right after I got home. I didn't even wedge the stuff. I simply formed it into a ball, sat down at the wheel and threw it!

 I lugged that white bucket filled with my shovels-full of clay from the location to my car. When I got home, I dumped half of it into the blue bucket and added water. I then blunged it until it became a thick slurry. I then screened it through a 40 mesh and almost nothing was left on top of the screen. It all went through. Just look at the very interesting "oil spots" on the surface in the following four photos. Click on them for a closer look. The patterns are amazing!

 Next, I poured about half a bucket of the stuff onto these two large plaster bats to hasten the drying process. The bats quickly became completely saturated with the water they soaked up from the clay.

 In the next photo, you can see how the very outer edge of the slurry is beginning to dry.

 Today, I peeled the two slabs of clay from the plaster bats and after drying them out a little more on some fresh plaster, was able to wedge it up into what turned out to be a 9 pound ball of beautiful, workable clay. I cut off a 2 pound chunk, sat down at the wheel and threw this bowl. The rectangular bar of clay in my hand has received an impression from a plastic ruler and cut to 3 inches. I will fire the clay and be able to determine a rate of shrinkage. Normally, clay shrinks about 12 1/2 percent from wet to fully fired.

 Just look at how smooth the lip of the pot is. I used cellophane to finish it, but this is anything but an impure, rocky clay. I have to admit, there's quite a bit of romance in finding a good native clay deposit. But even more romance in being able to make pots out of it! I told my source that I would give him a pot if it turned out to be something I could use. I'm SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS CLAY!

So, what will it look like when it's fired? I can almost guarantee that it will turn a very dark brown or reddish-brown. Whether you find native clay that is red, yellow, blue, green or black, it's color is almost always determined by iron content. And when it's fired, iron turns some shade of brown. The other mystery yet to be solved is whether this clay will withstand my glaze temperature of 2232 F. It may just be a lucky happenstance that I was able to form the clay into a pot, but that doesn't mean that it won't melt into a puddle of glaze at that temperature. That's why I'll be test firing a very small piece of the clay first. Stay turned (get it? wheel-thrown pot? turned? get it?) to see what happens.

"READ ALL ABOUT IT!"

The photo and caption in the Newport News Times definitely helped bring some folks to the winter version of Newport's Farmers Market -- "The Lincoln County Fairgrounds Farmers Market." There is no disputing the fact that being able to continue to offer locally grown, baked, crafted, roasted, prepared  products throughout our inclement winter months is a very good thing, indeed.

Thank you, Rick Beasley of the News Times for covering our market!

Think about this: When you go into any store and buy something that was made in another country or even in another part of our own country, you don't get to "touch" the purpose of that item as you would if you get to have a conversation with the person you're buying from. Someone purchased a pot from me yesterday and I was able to tell them the story behind that particular piece. Even some coffee mugs hold a story you'd never get to know about if you didn't ask the person (MOIS) who made it. Oh sure, I'll still buy my car's oil filters from George McGrath at the NAPA store in Toledo, but keep in mind that whenever possible, you should bring a piece of art into your daily routine.