Owlware

                                Owlware

  In addition to making sculptures I enjoy making pots on a wheel.  Lately I have made a series of cups, bowls, and vases with owls depicted on them in underglaze.  The pots are made from clay bodies that fire at cone 6 and cone 10.   At Alki Beach where I teach classes, we use clay and glazes that fire at cone 6, because we only have an electric kiln.  I make pots from a porcelain body called ckk6, another yellow stoneware called Vashon White, a Vashon Brown, and a Kalama Red.  Some are also hybrids from various bodies mixed together.   At Kirkland Arts Center we use cone 10 bodies.  These are generally more hard, and have more color due to reduction firing and heavy iron in the clay.  We use Laguna B Mix as a white stoneware.  In some ways it takes on a porcelain consistency.  I also occasionally throw Columbia White, Dakota Red,  and Rod's Bod--  a gritty iron heavy clay.

Cone 6 porcelain teacup

cone 6 porcelain, bronze glaze, underglazes, clear gloss glaze

Cone 10 stoneware, Bryan's Matte white glaze with black stain on eyes and talons

              
Some owl ware is carved.  I like to add texture and carving is a way to add detail. I carve the pieces when they are leather -hard.  I like to use repetition to create pattern. Numbers play a role.  Sometimes I like to count as I carve, other times I'll look for mathematical meaning within the work, as crazy as it sounds.

Owl Vase 6" tall x 6 1/4" diameter

Coffee Cups

Porcelain with black glaze, under glazes, and a clear gloss glaze

Earthenware extruded owl with majolica glaze and stains

coil built owls L to R:  eartheware with majolica and stains,   earthenware with clear gloss glaze,  Mid-range stoneware with various glazes

Owl Jar Coil Built with glazes and stains

This owl's head fits well as a lid to the jar.

Stoneware Owl Vases
7" tall X 6-8" Dia.

8 1/2" tall x 6 " dia

more coffee cups

textured brown cups

Brown Owl Vases

Pinch pot owls with stain and underglaze applications

Oh! Deer!

Oh ! Deer!


I decided to make some deer for the holidays this year.  The deer are pinched and pulled from stoneware clay at my house on Beacon Hill. I bisque fire them at Alki Beach.    I glazed them with paprika, Ohata Kaki, and tenmouku glazes and fired them to cone 10 at the Kirkland Arts Center.  Each deer is unique and is stylized in a general way to look deer-like.  None are meant to represent a particular deer species.  

mixed herd

Paprika glazed with tenmouku glaze on horns and black underglaze on face and hooves

Ohata Kaki glaze with Tenmouku over

Antlers

Mixed Herd

Other attempts to make deer have been made, but this is the first time I've made a herd of 3 or more.  It is always a challenge to make them, especially the horns.  This is the first batch of ten.  I have twenty more on the way to being fired.  Special thanks to Pat Collyar, Wayne Pennington, and the KAC gas firing squad.  

Stuffs : Ceramic Plush

        Stuffs 

These are sculptures based roughly on plush animals.  As a child I owned several different animals made from various materials.  These plush toys were often a source of comfort.  As an only child that often spent time alone, these plush friends would often act out scenarios that were important to helping me understand the complexity in the human relationships that I was witnessing on television and in real life.  

These sculptures were also made by stuffing various papers inside and in support of various slab and pinched forms.  Their hollow bodies were created by burning out the paper inside.  I used stains, oxides, and under glazes for  coloration, and used glaze as accents on certain attributes.  

Brown Bear

Glazed and stained earthenware,

The Brown Bear and the Cow Boy were both made from a white earthenware body.  I found that at the lower temperatures, some of my stains weren't melting to the desired texture that I was looking for.  So I began constructing the other Stuffs using stoneware.  The stoneware also adds durability to the pieces, as they are fired to a much higher temperature in a gas kiln.

Cow Boy
Glazed and stained earthenware

Cow Boy Detail

I made these sculptures by using various construction methods.  Most are a combination of slab, extruded, and pinched forms that are assembled by scoring and slipping.  Sometimes I will also use coils as reinforcement and to fill minor gaps.

Elephant

Stained Stoneware with clear gloss accents

I used various stain applications on the surface of each sculpture.  I used some commercial Seattle Pottery Supply (SPS) underglazes that fire to cone 10, in addition to rutile, cobalt, and iron stains.  For  a few I mixed together mason stains with some ball clay.

Hippodancer

Pinched and slab built stoneware15" x 11" x 5"

Teddy Bear
14"x7"x3"

Rutile and underglaze on slab built stoneware

Some of these sculptures were inspired directly by the plush animals I owned as a child.  The bears above and below were attempts to actually reproduce their actual likeness in clay.

Panda Bear

Gunbunny
14"x6"x 4"

The Gunbunny sculpture was based on a resin Easter magnet that I acquired at a craft store back in the 1990's.  The magnet was slightly different in attire, rather than sporting a bow tie, it had a yellow "ribbon" tied around it's neck.

Krazy Kat
20 1/2" x 9" x 4"
Iron stained stoneware

Some of the characters may reflect cartoon characters as well.  Their characteristics give them a personality.  Sometimes I wonder what they would say if they could talk.

Koala
Stoneware with underglazes

The Koala was solely constructed and assembled from pinched forms.  It is also a reproduction of a plush that I have owned since I was a child.

This series is intended to be shown eventually at a public or private venue.  The "Stuffs" collection will eventually consist of 20 or more forms.  Most of the characters will be wall-mounted, with a few free standing as well.