This past weekend’s firing…

Sometimes, no, always - potters always have an idea in their mind’s eye of how a piece will look when it comes out of the kiln when they have used that glaze before and know it well. The lighter glaze is a forgiving semi-matte glaze that turned out as I had envisioned.

This beautiful dark clay is a new clay body for me - M390 by Plainsman. I started looking into whether there was a recommended firing schedule for it - for semi-matte glazes. Something I’ve never done in the almost 30 years of being a potter. The dark glaze I’ve used before - it’s my own recipe - but I’ve never used it on this clay body. And the last time I used it, a number of years ago, on a white stoneware, I’d have to say that my regular firing schedule was doing the trick. It should have been a straight forward load and fire the kiln.

So why would I look for a new schedule? Yes, why would I? I can’t answer that. A change? Some excitement? Just trying to mix it up a bit? I don’t know. But this controlled cooling schedule to achieve the best semi-matte created a glossier than glossy finish in two of my bowls. Why? Because. Because the kiln gods were reminding me of their existence. The kiln gods knew I had a good firing schedule and that I was chasing a better firing schedule. And we all know that the enemy of good is better, said the kiln gods.

Glaze tests

In searching for a darker grey glaze, which I may have found - I was also pleasantly surprised by two other tests that came out of that larger test firing.

Gallery House

Table and wall piece by Randy Mugford. Vase by Urn Song Design.

Photo credit: Randy Mugford

Back in 2018, at my first Craft Nova Scotia Designer Show, I met Randy Mugford. Randy is a furniture designer and makes beautiful handcrafted pieces in his workshop in Portuguese Cove, NS. You can find out more about him here.

At Craft Nova Scotia’s 2023 show, he was telling me about his goal of building a “gallery house” that would showcase his work and lo and behold he finished that house in 2024. I was quite pleased when he asked if I’d like to make some pieces to go with his work and today he sent me a couple of photos.

Gallery House is also operating as an Airbnb in a beautiful setting next to the ocean about a 30 minute drive from downtown Halifax. You can find out more about his exciting new endeavour here.

Wall piece by Randy Mugford.

Vase by Urn Song Design.

Shadow (left) by Randy.

Photo credit: Randy Mugford

Scenes from the studio…

I’m currently working on a new winter project. Back in the fall, a new collaborator reached out to me to ask if I’d be interested in developing dishware for a test kitchen.

These are the first prototypes. Tomorrow I start some new glaze testing as only 2 of the 3 glazes are decided. Still chasing an elusive perfect glaze is the holy grail part of pottery.

Making muses and finding meaning

                           Kate Church

At the end of February this year, I had the luxury of participating in a 4 day Kate Church workshop. If you aren’t familiar with Kate’s work, you can learn more about her here.  katechurch.blog/about/

But briefly, from Kate’s website:

  “Combining the line and form of sculpture with the playful anima of puppetry has been my livelihood for more than thirty years. The intention of the work is to carry a silent imprint or sense of emotion through the posture and expression of the figure evolving in front of me. Built using a process that is movable throughout its construction, a tangible sense of emerging comes naturally to the finished sculpture: movement is part of the design.”

I had long wanted to return to sculptural form to explore another area of my work, and I felt that a workshop with Kate might help.

The workshop was in Chester, Nova Scotia, my old stomping grounds for my apprenticeship with Paula MacDonald. I stayed with Paula for the four days that I was there. It was heaven—all of it. The workshop, with other people (artists) I didn’t know, learning from Kate, and spending time with Paula—it was a lovely experience.

I went in with low expectations since I hadn’t worked with polymer clay before. We worked through things step by step, with some of the participants having attended Kate’s workshops before but wanting to finish up in-progress pieces, all the way to first-timers, like me, who relished the newness of this medium—how pliable, how forgiving, how unlike clay.

By day 2, I was starting to feel something for the polymer. I thought I’d like to make a muse figure to help keep me grounded, but I wasn’t sure if I could accomplish it. I decided to start and to feel my way there. After a couple of false starts on making a head, Kate suggested I start with a spoon and work with the polymer. Within an hour or so of poking, prodding, pinching, and smoothing…..a face began to emerge.

It was so interesting to sculpt a face that I began to recognize, and that resonated with me. At one point, as Kate was doing her check-ins, she leaned in to examine the face I was creating, and she happily remarked, “I see her. There she is.” Kate moved us through section by section of our figures—head, arms, and legs—the rest is wire and some wood, as well as a quick sew of some kind of garment.

All in all, as I pieced my muse together, following my instinct and taking instructions from Kate on wrists, heels, and toes, she was formed. Hair was tricky, and as I tried medium after medium, it wasn’t until I put the moss on that I said, “That’s it.”

As adults, we sometimes forget to approach new things without expectations. We lose our childlike openness to play. We attach to outcomes and put too much emphasis on the wrong things. We take ourselves too seriously. But sometimes, we have the great fortune to enter an environment that feels safe and limitless (a rare combination), and that’s where magic can happen. That was Kate’s workshop for me.

                                                             My muse, by Sheri White

(This blog was originally published on my old website in May 2024. I wanted to carry it with me to my new website as I think it captures part of this new chapter.)