Elisa is very energetic and exuberant, she tried to help the students in the workshop try new ways of thinking outside of our normal boxes.  Of course this is one of the reasons that one takes a workshop but she did it in ways that I have yet to see other instructors use.  The workshop was about creating pots for food and the focus really was to get us to consider shape, form, function and color for the possibilities of each pot.  But something else was involved in the workshop.  Elisa has a teaching style and a personal charisma that is infectious.  It did not take long for a bond to develop between her and the students.  Where this is nice and makes for a great workshop it also makes for a strong desire to continue growing the process and continuing the bond through our own work.

I highly recommend taking a workshop with Elisa, it’s an experience you won’t soon forget.

The short video clip that shows a little bit of Elisa’s teaching style and also her excellent English skills.

ElisaHelland-HansenShort

Brinson's Race Barn by Lori_Buff

During a break in a recent workshop with Ryan McKearley I started painting on one of the Rustic Buildingplates. One of the workshop participants started watching what I was doing and admired the work. Then she asked “are you an artist or a potter?” What kind of question is that?
I threw the plate, so clearly that makes me a potter, but I’m also painting on the plate which would make me an artist. Maybe I’m a ceramic artist. I know some artists don’t include pottery as art, even though it is one of the oldest art forms. For some, it loses credibility as art because it is functional. On the other hand, we do raku, which is typically not functional.
I recently read Janet McGregor Dunn’s blog post about how she was treated by a fine artists group. They excluded her because the group does not consider pottery to be art, no matter how artistic her pottery. It doesn’t make sense to me. I think potters are artists and crafts people. However, some people reason that because potters don’t necessarily know what a piece is going to look like until it’s removed from the kiln, then they aren’t artists. Because we aren’t completely in control of the final product? Where it’s true that a potter also benefits from being a chemist, testing often lets us know fairly accurately how a piece should look when it’s complete. I could argue that thought often painters have an idea of what the painting will look like, many have expressed having issues determining when a painting is “done.” I would argue that there are many types of art where the end product is different from what the artist initially envisioned.
Ceramics are included in the definition of visual arts and visual arts are included in the humanities – that makes us all humanists. I wonder what types of questions that would raise when printed on a business card or used as the answer to the question “what do you do for a living?”
I don’t imagine I will be able to solve the debate in this article, or maybe ever in my life, so maybe we should think outside the box as my friend Gary Rosenberg suggests in his video about people grouping.

Syrup Shed Plate

Here’s another plate in this series.  This is a different view of the same syrup shed I painted a few weeks ago, this plate is a few inches larger at 11 inches.  I like painting the larger plates better as I can get more detail and show the vastness of the fields.  I’ve also been working with more low fire glazes and washes.  This plate uses a combination of colored slips (a.k.a. under glazes) and high fire glazes.  I really like this view and may do some variations.

Ryan McKerley demonstrates his technique

One of the reasons I enjoyed this workshop is because Ryan is very entertaining.  The workshop wasn’t filled with uproarious laughter but more of a genial smile and quite a few chuckles yet at the end of three days we had all discovered we had learned quite a bit.  Not just how to carve into clay using wax resist and water but different throwing techniques, some hand building and attaching processes, glazing tricks, how to design a and fire a salt/soda kiln, glaze recipes and even a little bit about the city of Austin, TX (where Ryan lives & works).

I highly recommend taking a workshop with Ryan, it’s very through, moves at a comfortable pace and is a good balance of hands on and lecture.  I also recommend picking up some of his pottery while it’s still affordable.  The Gallery at Mudfire almost sold out this weekend just from people who took the workshop.

Horse Hair Pot

I’m not trying to get all metaphysical or spiritual, with this idea, what I’m trying to say is that when we need something; we can often find it just by looking and knowing we will find it.  I think that’s a pretty good outlook to have.

Miso - Ginger Soup

1 Tablespoon grated ginger (more or less to taste)

4 cups vegetable broth

2 cups water

7 tablespoons Miso

2 green onios, finely sliced

6 large shiitake mushrooms, steamed

1 teaspoon nut butter

1 teaspoon soy sauce

Wisk together the broth, water and miso, heat gently to a simmer, add the remaining ingredients while simmering.   Do not boil.  Enjoy

Syrup Shed Plate

One of the buildings on the farm that attracts me is the old syrup shed.  It’s a few hundred years old and out of service so it’s not in pristine condition but the old bricks are still in place and the metal work, including the huge iron cauldron and gears are still there (albeit a bit rusty).  I’ve even found some of the old, empty syrup bottles in tact.  Being around the shed is a reminder of times long past; seeing it’s decline reminds me of our impermanence.  So I have created a plate with it’s image to save it for just another moment.

Teapot

hidden by plaster.  After many years the plaster stops sticking well and the brick, the foundation of the wall, starts revealing itself.  I’ve also been noticing what appears to be an increase in graffiti lately.  This has me thinking about the message people are painting on walls.  I’m not an advocate of defacing property but I have seen some graffiti that is really amazing.  The difference, in my opinion is tagging vs. urban art.  I can get into a big discussion about that but I’ll save it for another post.  It just got me thinking about what graffiti used to look like and what message I would like to present.  This teapot is just one example of the series in progress.

Tea Bowl

A friend on Facebook recently posted about counting glazes instead of counting sheep when sleep is allusive.   I do the same type of thing but it doesn’t normally get me to sleep, it has the opposite effect.  I’ll be laying there all warm and snugly with the Whiggle as ideas start popping into my head.  Which of course makes me want to jump out of bed and rush to the studio to start working on these ideas.  Of course the problem with pottery is that it requires patience.  When I have an idea for a great glaze design I can’t just start doing it, often the correct piece needs to be made first.  Sometimes it’s several pieces in a series.  These pieces have to be thrown, trimmed, dried, and bisque fired before they will ever see the glaze.  Please understand, I’m not complaining, I love the process of ceramics and the time it takes.  I even love the fact that, unlike some other art forms, the results are not instant; pottery always has some nervous anticipation to it.  Opening the kiln is like Christmas, and I’ll never complain about that joy even when it does mean you get something that you don’t want (think pink bunny pajamas).  Pottery forces us to become patient.  Patience is a virtue.  It’s such a nice feeling to be a virtuous potter.
Right now I have several series ideas running through my head, they have started to take shape into the clay.  I’m so excited to see the results and share them with you.