The showcase went pretty well. Everyone's stuff looked really good displayed, even some the people's I was worried about looked good. I got some really good feedback on my work and also got two commissions (sort of). Kealton's work really inspired me to learn more about and do more photography. I am super jacked to get some more work done (mostly the comissions and photography.)

I'm pretty excited for the AP Showcase, I just loaded some smaller pieces in bisque that I will smoke firing next week that I specifically made to sell (or try to at least).

My instruments came out pretty nice, one got another piece stuck to it so that sucks but It won't be that noticeable. I will string them up over the weekend, I hope they make sound.

Here it is finished, I don't think its my best but it turned out okay. The bigger one turned out quite similar.

I started on a bunch of little wall spikes to sell at the showcase, I think next class I am going to make a whole bunch more little things to sell (and possibly use in my portfolio).

These are the two pieces I am firing at at the moment, the bottom picture is after I fired it TWICE and it is still super light, so I need to fire it again. I haven't fired the top one yet, it barely fits in the kiln.

I got two pieces in the noble hill firing, I wanted one to be on its side and one to be laid flat but due to space constraints they were both fired on their sides. The one that was going to be laid down got wadded upright with a platter wadded to it, I'm pretty bummed and hope it turns out okay. There are very few pots I have seen that I like that having wadding spots on front and I hope my pot isn't completely in shadow of the platter and still gets enough ash. If I don't like how it comes out I can always re-fire it.

I am pretty much done with my portfolio for this year, I am just finishing up the spike bottle forms and stringed instruments. I think I will use some of my pieces from my portfolio last year in my breadth to replace ones from this year I don't really like. I'm going to do some more breadth pieces to show, well, more breadth. I'd like to do some throwing and wood/metal pieces. Not sure what I'll have time for but after I the last of my concentration is out of the way I'll just see how it goes.

This is a piece I threw last year that I will probably include in my breadth:

Despite Amy making faces at me when I said I was going to fire the Rhino even though it kinda blew apart during bisque I smoke fired it. It turned out okay, obviously it would be better if it wasn't broken and if it was burnished (which I didn't do because it was going to be wood fired). From this angle you cant tell it broke anyway. I'm glad I fired it. I also fired the fish but you all can see it in class.

I have 2 bottle spikes ready to be bisqued, 2 leather hard, and 1 still just slabs. Hopefully Amy will give us some work time so I can assemble the one that is just slabs before it gets too hard. I also cut one of the ones that is leather hard out so now it has a sound hole (which might be too big), peg holes, and a string attachment point. On the next one I might try a different string mounting method.

I am almost finished with the forms I talked about in the last post, they just need to be burnished one more time, bisqued and smoke fired.

Next I would like to make a stringed instruments out of clay. I think I am going to make 3. One to be wood fired, one to be fired to cone 6 but without any glaze (or cone 10 in Matty's kiln depending how the test tile comes out, and the last to be smoke fired. They will probably be stringed with violin strings. We'll see how they go.

This is the game plan for the project I'm working on, a cross between the wall spikes and the bottle. I got them cut out Monday and scored together today. I made two, a little one and a big one, I hope one of them turns out okay. They will be burnished and smoke fired. When sketching them I was thinking about the leaf/fruit/seed pod forms so that's the thought behind them. They were originally intended to be wall hangings but they might be a little big and not flat enough, so we will see how I decide to display them.

The Rhino died btw. The stomach blew out and one of the legs cracked off. I will probably smoke fire the pieces I have left just for shits and giggles.

Above is the piece I just finished for the upcoming wood fring, it took me 3 class periods to do it and I'm not sure if I like how it turned out. There is a good chance it will break during bisque firing because I was not able to let it dry properly due to time constraints. If it doesn't break in bisque there is an even larger chance of it breaking in the wood kiln because I would like to have it placed in the firebox so it get a really crusty raw finish on it. The problem with putting work in the firebox is the heat is less even than in the rest of the kiln and people throw logs in it. Unlike a real rhino my piece would not survive getting hit by a log. I'm not sure if I like how it turned out, it is more realistic than I usually do and the strength in most my pieces really comes from their abstract forms. We'll see how it turns out... Hopefully in one piece.

I fired those bottles but one turned out 1/2 good and 1/2 uber light and the other is almost straight black. I am going to re-fire the black bottle in bisque to try and burn out the carbon so i can start over, we will see how it goes.

I made 2 fish form but I dont think either of them will turn out, well see though. I also need to make a peice for the east creek firing like now cause I need it by next weekend.

I would like to try doing a saggar firing in our electric kils cause you can get some pretty bad ass resulsts, such as this one I found on google:

I've done a lot of sketching of ideas for my next project, I have a pretty good idea of how I want it to look but I'm stuck on what to do with the tail. Its going to be a abstract fish which is turning out t0 be a fairly hard form to abstract without loosing its identity because of its already very simple. Tomorrow I am just going to bite the bullet and make it, it will turn out or it won't.

I finished applying to Alfred and I'm really curious to see if I get in, still not sure if I want to go though. It would be cool but its a big decision.

I'm sure you have all seen it but I'm really happy how my Dinosaur Teapot turned out,
After the two bottles I have started now I would like to make some fish forms, I found that motor oil (it was used, not sure if that makes a difference) soaked paper towels leaves a cool scale like pattern behind and would look really cool on a fish.

The dinosaur teapot in process of being fired. Notice how close that is to the drawing I did of it earlier. Yeah, I'm THAT good.

I was unable to get the bottle forms finished in time to fire them today so I am making another piece that y'all see in class because I'm too lazy to go take a picture of it. Its made of wood and metal.

This is a tile I made when I made my last concentration piece (a grid of tiles on a board), the reason this one was not included is I unloaded my kiln at night and missed this one. I found it later when walking by. I really like how it turned out but it doesnt really fit with the rest of the tiles I used. For some reason it got washed out when I took a picture of it, the grayish side in the picture is more black in real life. I'll probably end up incorporating this into another piece.

I have three more concentration pieces in the works, the dinosaur teapot that you've probably seen in the studio and also two more bottles from the same pattern that I made my first bottle from. I made three little teapot forms like I mentioned in the last post but none of them really looked right to me so they didn't survive. I think I will give them another try.

I noticed that this picture is on the Oregon Scholastic Art and Writing page, that pretty cool. I think they looked pretty good on display, i was a little leery of how they would look mounted on the wall. I also thought it was cool how it got to be displayed on the wall next to the other American Vision pieces. I was also pretty jacked that a picture of my bottle was on the back of the program and my name was in it from last years national show.

I have consecutively forgotten about my blog. Shame on me. And this post wont be super exciting. I plan to really crank out some work tomorrow. I really like how my dinosaur tea pot is turning out. I plan to make some more "tea pots", the next one will be like one I saw at the gallery at the Contemporary Craft Museum. I also plan on making some more bottles like the one that broke at PNCA. I still have the template I used to cut the slabs out for the last one so I'm going to try to make some more off them. They should be similar but noticeably vary even thought they will be made from the same pattern. Also they will be fairly easy to crank out because of their simple construction.

I should be getting my new camera in the mail pretty soon, it actually came today but I didn't get end up getting it (longish story) so hopefully I will be posting some super kick ass pictures soon.

Part III: Congratulations to everyone at scholastic, Lakeridge was probably the highest awarded school there so awesome job guys.

Cant you tell I'm writing my English essay right now?