Urns Get Underglaze Decoration

Three urns. Right now they are raw clay in the drying stage, with designs brushed on in underglaze colors. The colors will intensify radically when clear glaze goes over them and the urns are kiln-fired.

One will be Cristina's when her son chooses next week. The rest will then just be nice covered jars. 

Meaning is what you put into something.

She rode her blue bicycle everywhere, winter and summer and in between. She didn't drive.

I passed some flowering quince several weeks ago. It is a brief and outstandingly beautiful burst of blooms on an otherwise nondescript bush. 

There are 3 shades of green in the leaves, plus pink/peach flowers. She had a wonder of the outdoors in all seasons.

Beautiful cord can go through the handles and over the lids of each for a secure closure.

Mezuzahs and Trays

It's time for a bit of work away from the potter's wheel. I'm running low on rectangular serving plates, which I call "trays."

Texture is super nice on these. 

I've also been asked for mezuzahs lately, and I'm pretty much out of them. (These are cases only, for the uninformed. The parchment that goes inside has to be bought from a Judaica store.) The mezuzah cases can be as simple or complicated as I want. I let the spirit move me (ha ha) when I go to the texture bin for inspiration. The ones shown here are fairly simple, with just one flower or swirl stamp at the top and a letter "shin" stamp on the front. The glazes I put on them will finish the decoration. 

From preparation, which means making paper templates (and making polymer-clay forms to wrap the rolled and cut clay around for mezuzahs) to accumulating raised fabrics and plastics and making stamps, for texture (to press into the clay slabs for the trays), even relatively simple pieces have a series of steps in their creation. Like the psychiatrist says in Analyze This, "It's a process." 

A photo of the rawware step of the process- some pots so far, this week:

(The mezuzahs will attach to their eventual door frames with heavy duty Velcro that I double-epoxy onto the back for extra security. I don't risk using nails with these.)

Up from the basement now and out into the spring afternoon!

Hauling Clay, Making Pots

A day with fresh clay.

Picking up new stoneware at Ceramic Supply, trimming pots I made last week, and preparing for a throwing-on-the-potter's-wheel student who begins tomorrow.

Hands too full of clay to type.

See you Thursday, from the basement studio! 

Fresh From the Kiln

Cookie jars

Porcelain jar with slips and underglaze, cone 6

Porcelain jar with underglazes, cone 6

and a vase I like

Underglazes, glaze, overglaze on porcelain, cone 6

And some very colorful bowls!

I updated the website with these and more. Feel free to browse the Dining and Serving page for some more new bowls, and the Decorative page for cookie jars and the red vase. Feel free also to post comments here on the blog. Thanks for visiting, as ever!

A Day in the Potting Life

Imagine your day as a studio potter. You, the potter, are the time keeper. (The clock, if you will.) And you are also the employee, keeping the work current. You are the owner, the manager and make no mistake, you're the manual labor. You're the designer and the quality inspector. You're the cleaning crew that comes in, sometimes after hours. You are the bookkeeper, the sales clerk and the shipping clerk. You're the publicity agent and the shopkeeper.

So there you were, on a hypothetical Monday, in sweats and sock feet at 10:30 a.m. Why didn't you punch the (also hypothetical) clock earlier? Well, you had been at your studio photo booth setup in the laundry room till 10 PM Sunday, the night before, taking photos of the new pieces you just unloaded from the kiln. You were up again at 6 Monday morning measuring, weighing and writing descriptions and prices for the new pots, for your website.

Then you went to the gym, because being a potter is a beating on the body, and that body needs care to be strong. After the gym, groceries for the household because you are still chief cook and bottle washer there. Breakfast for you came late. It was already mid-morning on Monday, and you were not in the studio working yet. You were in those sweats and sock feet and had not changed to studio clothing. No- you needed to be at the computer, cropping the new batch of photos and adjusting the color to reflect reality. You added the photos and text to the website and the written data to a spreadsheet. By the time you were done, and wrote up a blog post and a Facebook post alerting people about the new pots, it was lunchtime and you had still not gotten into the studio. 

You dragged your feet a little because it had been a long morning already and you were a bit tired from a morning of many different, necessary parts that, still, had not taken you to touch clay. You checked your email, and perked up to discover that someone made a purchase from your pottery website. You immediately packed up the order to ship, printed up a postage label, and put out the package before the mail carrier arrived. You had lunch, did dishes, made the beds, put in a laundry, and at last, you went downstairs to the studio.  You had been thinking about covered jars on and off all weekend, and you had spent a lot of time considering where you might sell them.

In the studio, you needed to prepare the clay for the next couple of days of wheel work. You checked the chart you'd formulated over time, noted the amounts of clay you would need to weigh out for those jars and lids, and weighed the clay portions on the gram scale. You kneaded the individual pieces to rid them of air bubbles, and bagged it all up to keep it moist and ready for Tuesday morning. You didn't start at the wheel yet, since you hadn't cleaned up last week's glaze area mess. You wanted to clean all that up before you would be walking around the pottery studio during the course of the wheel work, raising nasty glaze dust. 

You went back over the glaze area with sponge and mop. You wore a mask because the glaze spatters on table and floor dried to a powder that's bad for your lungs. You stowed the glaze buckets under the table and washed brushes and glaze stirrers you missed at the end of last week when you were kind of fried after glazing pots for 2 1/2 days. You noted which glaze bucket needed refilling and checked the recipe and the ingredient storage to make sure you had all the powders and colorants you would need when you'll come around to making glaze again in a week. You added the ingredients to a list for the next order from Ceramic Supply.

It was 5:30, and you hadn't made a single new clay vessel on the wheel. And you were ready to call it a day. You were tired, though getting paid for today's work would not come till you sell the pots you prepared the studio for, and which you will begin making tomorrow. You started to ponder sales again, as you do several times a day. You noticed the day was still light and knew it would be good to get outside and away from dust, computer, and business plans, so you called someone at 5:30 to say "Let's walk." She said, "I'm too tired. I worked today."

You went for a walk by yourself, going over the design for tomorrow's jars in your head as you went.

A Funerary Urn for Cris

She cleaned houses. Mine was the first after she came to this country. For me her work was a luxury; for her, necessity. We never had a bad moment. We trusted one another implicitly. We knew each other for 12 years, and I never regretted having her in my home. She surely cleaned much better than I do, and I was always grateful to have the privilege of employing her.

She knew about plants, she loved physics and natural sciences, and she studied the stock market. She had practiced reflexology in her country, but cleaning requires no certification, and cleaning jobs were available to the single mother of a young child. She spoke Spanish and I speak English, and though we both spoke a smattering of the other's language with one another, somehow we had in-depth discussions about life. We never gossiped about people we knew in common. We often spoke philosophically. She came every Friday morning, riding her bike to and from the job, and while I cooked and ran errands as I always do on Fridays, she made order out of our disorder. 

This lovely, intelligent and kind person died of a very aggressive cancer last week, after only five months of apparent illness and barely a month after diagnosis. Without medical insurance, she did not receive proper testing or proper care at the hands of an indifferent hospital. Legal permanent residency came just ahead of illness, and Obamacare came too late.

There was no ceremony because there was no money for one, but some of those she worked for had given her and her son a collection of funds towards the end of her life, and they were able to afford cremation.  Her son, a grown young man, the age of my youngest child, came around to thank each of us who contributed.

He said I was her closest friend.

I had no idea. Sometimes you do not know how you might affect the people you care about in your life. No idea at all. I hope she had great friends who knew they were close to her. I always knew I was blessed to know her.

This is what I have been thinking about for several days. It is a jar with a cover, an urn for her ashes. On one side will be a drawing of a black-capped chickadee that is sitting on a branch of flowering quince. She loved the little birds and she loved the great and beautiful outdoors, riding her bike in all weathers. On the other side of the jar is a bicycle, and her name.

Life is so very strange and sometimes so very sad.

Flowering quince, April, 2014

The Value of Functional, Handmade Pottery

The pottery that sold online at my 10% off sale several weeks ago went on its way when the sale ended. Thank you to those of you who came by or bought online!

Those who came to the gallery itself over three days (-this is as low-pressure as it gets, short of browsing my website for handmade work while you are in jammies-) bought goblets, bowls, washing cups and serving dishes. Decorative pottery, which is functional but also more whimsical and one of a kind, and also more expensive, did not sell quite as much. It does take a particular sort of buyer to have confidence in that, though. I can live with these for longer than for mugs, say, which I expect to sell sooner.

Pottery may not be basic to life like eggs or veggies, but it is life-enhancing. When you use an individual, handmade object in everyday life and in celebration of events, an element of warmth is added to the moment. Gift-giving opportunities come up sometimes, and it is lovely to give a quality handmade gift, signed by the maker. It is not far-fetched at all now and then to buy something beautiful that has been hand made, even if it may cost a bit more than something mass produced. Treat yourself! With some care (or left in the right archaeological site for millennia!) pottery will outlast generations of humans.

The thing about using pottery or enjoying and appreciating other art and handicraft, once you have purchased it, is that it adds a human element to our world, this world that is increasingly plugged into digital data and machinery, and decreasingly touched by the creative work of human hands. Some ancient pots still bear the fingerprints of the maker in the fired clay, as fresh and evident of human endeavor as when those loops and whorls lived on two creative hands and made functional art. 

I find that many people feel uninformed and tentative in the face of an art form they don't know much about, particularly one that, like pottery, is art that also serves a day to day function. They seem to doubt themselves when it comes to spending the little bit more that American handicraft needs to command. 

The moral of the story? You, the consumer of handmade goods, should feel free to deliberate a little, then if it still feels right, buy the thing you fall in 'deepest like' with. Odds are you won't regret it.

Taking a Very Short Break!

I'm off this week, and the blog is on a hiatus, at least for today! 

May all your celebrations be beautiful!

All good wishes from Mimi Stadler Pottery.

That Passover Pottery Arrives

Here they are, fresh out of the kiln. 

You'll find them in person at my Gallery Downstairs at 196 Windsor Way, and on my website, which this blog is part of... Or call 732 492 8558 and reserve something for a look-see.

The two previous Seder plates, which are large, very simple ivory colored shapes (quiet parchment color, not bright white) with black lettering, have been taken  down to $65 each from $95 and $85 till Passover,  because I've had them for a couple of years and want to make room for more this year.

Although quite simple in appearance, these were deceptively hard to make, as the technique lends itself to cracking as it dries, so I had few in the first place; now there are only two. (Shipping varies- West Coast is about $21, $33 to rush, and east coast zones more like $12.)

I've tried various ways of making Seder plates over the years. Recent ones, thrown on the wheel instead of handbuilt, have the most strength and durability. One cracked in the drying. One came out really well. And one is for the blooper reel...

The 1 new Seder plate:

12" diameter by 2" high. Underglaze drawing on porcelain (2232 degrees F), clear glazed. $85.

and can be found here in more detail:

You can just see the red color of the side. Bottom is unglazed, and signed.

The matzah plates are between $54 and $58 , depending upon size. These are for machine (square) matzahs. Nobody's asked for matzah plates for the round handmade matzohs (that would be a nice pairing, don't you think?) but I would make some for next year if there's interest. (These are a good bit larger. Price would be probably between $60 and $80 depending what I do with the design.)

I have some beautiful goblets, as seen in Judaica on my website, and three cute and characterful search-for-chametz candleholders (NOT on the website yet, but found in my gallery, $35 each- Contact me if you'd like one. Time is getting short to ship anything, though). 

These are essentially the same, except I played with the shape of the handle, looking for balance. They are about the same when it comes down to it. They have large candle openings, good for an old-school Shabbat candle to be stuck in and melted on (the opening is roomy).

May all your celebrations be joyful!

Passover Pottery

In a last-minute push to the finish line, I made pottery for Passover last week. I bisque fired two kiln loads of new work on Wednesday and Thursday. Today and tomorrow I am glazing some of those pots, and by Thursday afternoon I should have two seder plates and three matzah plates.  Check my website late Thursday for photos and price. Remember: very limited quantity of Passover pottery.

There will also be some more beautiful bowls in several very handy sizes to take with you as gifts when you go to your Passover hosts, or to enhance your own table. 

There's nothing like a deadline…complicated with a touch of bronchitis...

Polishing a Foot

Once, early on in my craft show days, a woman bought a cup and plate. Her husband said, "What do you want that for? Isn't it going to scratch the furniture?" He was a grouch, but his words spoke a truth I remember to this day.

So lately (having learned this from the videos of the potter Hsin Chuen Lin) I polish the foot ring of bowls and smooth the bottoms of pots that seem scratchy. I have some pots left (nice, and inexpensive because they've hung out with me a while,) that were made of a groggy brown clay, and I did my best to smooth the feet of those pots. In the last six months, I began working with porcelain. You may not know it, but without a bit of smoothing, most unglazed porcelain (like the part that touches your table), is not naturally very smooth.

When I am done trimming a foot into the pot, I take a glossy river rock or a smooth glass pebble, and while the wheel is turning, I polish the surface of that foot till it feels nice and smooth.  

A closer look at the shiny pebble and the foot turning around and the harmony they are making.

Ongoing Preview Sale

Yesterday was Day One of introducing my little showplace. It's great to open the door and let some people into the gallery for the first time, and show them what's doing in the studio. Feels almost like spring despite the still-chill weather. It's spring in the gallery!

Today is Day Two: I'll be in my studio and gallery again, essentially 9-5, and you can stop by after that till 8 PM today and then tomorrow, too, 9 AM to 8 PM. I'm still giving 10% off as an introduction to The Gallery Downstairs. (Contact me for a coupon if you're shopping online!) We're at 196 Windsor Way, Hillside, NJ, 732-492-8558. Here's what you can do: Repost this on whatever social media you use. Tell your friends. You can "Like" Mimi Stadler Pottery on Facebook, so your friends there can see the goings on at studio and gallery, too. If you haven't gone, you can go see my website at http://www.mimistadlerpottery.com. You can feel free to Comment on the blog (on the blog itself- where you can also find a blog RSS feed button to receive notice of new posts. And (of course) you can shop at The Gallery Downstairs or on this website. I recommend the gallery itself if you are local, as it has additional items not found on the website, some at nice sale prices.

I thank you if you do any of this; it is really appreciated; and in the course of doing them you may well find some handmade things you will love.

It's another great day for handmade pottery! 

(10% off sale extends through tomorrow, Tuesday March 25, 2014.)

Preview to Show and Sale @ The Gallery Downstairs

In honor of Spring (sort of) springing today, we will offer a three-day preview with a 10% coupon off your entire purchase, to be honored on Sunday, March 23, and continuing through March 25.

Contact me for your coupon with its individualized code. Or you can sign up for the RSS feed on this blog post (to the left of the title), and I will send you one. You do need to retrieve your coupon in advance, though. There will be no 10%-off in person without it- sorry. It's easy. I will need you to do that in order to know where to find you to email you in future with sales and events and coupons. There is no downside: I will give you an easy opt-out if you do not wish to receive further emails about sales and events.

Your 10% off coupon will be good for shopping at both this website, and The Gallery Downstairs at 196 Windsor Way, Hillside, NJ (732-492-8558, usually Sunday through Friday 9-5 and by appointment except Friday evening and Saturday).

We will have a more formal show and sale on May 3, 4 and 5 with new work. This preview is to introduce you to my pottery in person. I make one of a kind wares, folks. Every show and sale is going to be a little different. If you love it, but don't purchase it, someone else may get it, and there won't be another exactly like it.  Uniqueness is part of the beauty of handmade. Do you want a special gift for family or friend? Need a mug that feels just right for you? Do you require something special for a holiday? That's the charm of coming to the sales- and at random times all year! You never know what just-right thing you may find.

Best regards from the studio!

Mimi

Coupon for March 23-25, Now Available!

Hello from The Gallery Downstairs!

The Gallery Downstairs is a small business right in the neighborhood (if you're in the Hillside-Elizabeth, NJ area,) where you can touch and pick up the work in your hands, and really feel if something is "right" for you. 

My gallery visitors so far have been discerning people like you, who like owning and using handmade items. They sometimes ask me about particular pieces as they look around. Knowing the "how" and "what" of an individual piece of pottery seems to make it that much more interesting for them to own and use!

This pottery is made only by me, and sold only on my website and in person at The Gallery Downstairs. It is the closest-to-the-source you can get when shopping for handmade work!

I will email an individual, introductory coupon code to each of you, a one-time use, in gratitude for your helpful publicity and in honor of your good taste, to be used only on Sunday, March 23 through Tuesday, March 25, 2014. It will be good for 10% off everything you buy on those three days, either online or in The Gallery Downstairs!  But if you want that coupon, you must send your email address via the Contact form, please, so I will know how to find you!

I look forward to seeing you!

The Added Value of Handmade

Because I make each item by hand, even similar mugs, humblest of pottery creatures, are not exactly the same.

Buyers have the opportunity to buy THAT ONE. No, THAT one! Or... It may be the curve of a particular handle. The run of a glaze in JUST such a way. The slightly different curve of a particular rim. This experience is personal. 

It is a radically different experience from shopping at the china department in Macy's, or Bed Bath & Beyond. On my website (reachable on the above menu) and in The Gallery Downstairs (196 Windsor Way, Hillside, NJ), if someone likes something very much, but does not buy it when s/he "feels the like", it may be gone soon, and the next one will not be exactly like it. 

A human made it, a human with a range of aesthetic choices going on at every creative moment and wares that reflect them. Experience and continuing creative growth are in the work. Sometimes, serendipity also dances with my years of experience, for added value in the finished piece.

I didn't know exactly how this washing cup (click on highlighted words for price and information) would turn out, for example, as results will vary from a little to a lot, depending on thicknesses of glazes, areas of overlap, and where the pot sits in the kiln as it fires. The next one with these glazes will be a little different.

The lines on these bamboo-style vases (click on the highlighted words for prices and information) drew the red glaze into the indentations in the kiln firing, leaving lighter outlines around them. Each drawing on every piece, being incised into the clay freehand, is always at least a little different from the next, though often I make items with the look of "sets."

Handmade. Highly recommended.

Mug Days

Mug inventory is low! Making many mugs today on the new wheel. Looks like in May we'll have Mug Madness Days with a special sale on...you guessed it.

And a ginkgo goblet, just for fun.

The New Wheel Tests Me

Monday morning I bought the great little potter's stool that fits with my new electric wheel.

Shimpo stool has adjustable legs. I made the back one notch higher than the front to help my back.

So Monday, for the first time, I threw pots not on my trusty old kick wheel, but on the new electric. 

I felt a paradigm shifting.

 For a little while I was like a Ceramics I student. The clay was strangely hard to center. It seemed to need more water than before, somehow. But by the third bowl I was feeling better about things.

I did say the wheel would never be clean as new again...

I just like to keep the wheel fairly slow, it seems. I have been trained by using my old kick wheel.

Curious to see what changes, if any, ensue in the pottery. 

Thrown pottery isn't all about the wheel, though. Today I put homemade colored slips and commercial underglazes on some bowls and cookie jars. Now they are nearly halfway there. 

Damp clay pots drying before their first firing in the kiln. Colors are chalky now, but wait till you see them done!

It's all been a gift. Having the inclination, getting the education, the equipment and space, and having the energy and drive to follow through. There have been lots of frustrations along the way. I still open kilns and can't believe some of the cracking and ugliness. But then it's all about a whole effort, not random events; what an interesting life this is.

Two Tiny Onta Pots

I have a first cousin who is a potter. We do not live near each other, and have met just recently for the first time. 

We talked about pots, pottery places, pottery people, materials and techniques for hours. 

It was the happiest "geeky" I can get outside the Potters Guild of NJ.

She has a beautiful studio, full of light.

We began planning to meet some months ago. In the meantime, she went to Japan on a gardens-and-pottery tour. 

She brought home two little pots just for me. They are from Onta. The women of the potteries* in Onta process the local clay, rich and yellow in the raw state with iron oxide. The men of the potteries form them into pots on the wheel. The pots have white clay slip brushed and trailed on the surfaces, and chatter marks made with special trimming tools designed to hop over the skin of the pot lightly.

Now I have a teeny cup , and minuscule storage for something special, all the way from Onta village, Japan.

The yellow of the raw clay turned brown when fired in the kiln. The clear glaze darkens the brown further.

The covered jar is perhaps 3 1/2" tall with its lid on.

* A "pottery" is the place where pottery is made.

Turning 100

My mother's sister, Leah, celebrates her 100th birthday today, the third of her siblings to reach that age, with one more sister close behind . Here's to you, Aunt Leah!

This shining gal is my mother's sister.

Aunt Leah is one of a strong, opinionated and wonderful breed of human who lives life on her own terms to the best of her ability, working hard through her lifetime and trying to do it with style and grace despite serious adversity. Her century-mark is a remarkable milestone.

So today, inspired by my aunt, I choose to celebrate three potters, one living, who is nearly 100, and two now gone, who lived and worked beyond that age while continuing to do what they loved. 

Rose Cabat, whose 100th birthday is this June, is still working, making her "feelies."  There will be a major retrospective of her art at the Tucson Art Museum to coincide with her centennial.

found pinned on Pinterest- sorry I can't attribute this photo properly!

The "feelies" are easier to show than to explain.

They have satiny textures.

Their colors and surfaces are extraordinarily inviting.

Here is a photo of Beatrice Wood, who lived to 105 and till age 103 worked nearly every day in her studio in Ojai, California:

image found in her autobiography, I Shock Myself.

A set of Beatrice's lusterware. She experimented extensively with luster glazes & the work was carried for years at the Garth Clark Gallery, NYC.

And one of Beatrice's figures:

from oceansidemuseumofart.blogspot.com. Her sculptures were like her drawings, whimsical. 

Then there was the artist and industrial designer Eva Zeisel, who lived to 105 as well and was active in design nearly to the end of her life.

I can only aspire.

Happy birthday, Aunt Leah.

Go to School! or, The Long and Grinding Road

(Spoiler alert: This is short, but it hasn't a single photo. And it's didactic. Sometimes...I gotta preach.) 

I started out with some natural talent for drawing and a love of found materials for creating random art projects. That, some spare change and an application might have bought me an interview for art school.

But I didn’t get to go to art school. Even more than there being no money for such fripperies, I was told the usual: it was impractical, and might make me nuts, to boot. Somehow I managed to get a degree in English instead, because if I could not learn art I would write. I am still surprised over this turn of events. After all, it was not exactly a course of study any better inclined to earn me a living than art. 

I leave these bald facts there without further explication and just say that despite the lack of formal art education, if you are determined, do lots of reading, observing, practice and work, you will get much further than talent alone can ever take you. Talent is a speck of a starting point. I spent more than two decades learning the technical parts of this craft, and the practical aspects of turning it into a small business, before I started giving out business cards. I don't think the best is behind me yet, either.

Better business savvy is also ahead of me, I hope. While I have lots of practice and determination to keep my vision rolling and improving, business courses would have been a big plus. I struggle to apply what I keep learning. It would have been a good idea to pay attention in math over the years (duh). And art school would have been great back in my early 20s. Truly great. There are lots of "woulda, coulda, shouldas." I pay for it now in slow increments of change and development. I take classes and seminars when I can, and I consult my business experts- who did go to school and paid attention, too- when I need advice. 

I see some young extended family members and others fumbling about trying to make it in this society without the benefit of a good education. More than one happens to be artistically inclined. All I can think is about my own long trip to get here, where someone half my age with a good education in art and marketing might be, and I wish them well. It's nice to have talent. If you want to make a life in art, I highly recommend that you go to school. It's a long and grinding road doing it all on one's own.