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Local Potter writes a book.

  Last summer at a family reunion my aunt Marsha was reading Remembering Isaac a book by a local potter Ben Buhunin.  She asked if I knew him.  I know Ben only by his art work which I have seen at the local art festivals and through researching local potters online.  I have never spoken to Ben and he undoubtedly would have no idea who I am.  Sometime in late November or Early December I was @ Costo w/ my mom when I saw the first and second books in Ben's series, Ben was also there to sign the books.  I figured if they were as good as my aunt proclaimed and included pottery I better buy them while I could have them signed, at worst I figured I could donate them to the school.  The books have sat on my night stand ever since collecting dust.  In truth I have been a little dubious, how could these books live up to my expectation as an artist potter and book lover.   I began to read Remembering Isaac thinking it would not last long and I would loose interest.  I was beyond pleasantly surprised.  These books are wonderful, not just for the story line, which I have enjoyed, but for the deeper messages conveyed.  I won't evade the fact that this book has deeply underlined with christian messaging but I will say that there is no push toward any predominant religion, beyond quoting the bible and religious historical figures periodically.  I want to write more about them to per-swayed any readers to take the plunge but I'm not that good at articulating my thoughts so for fear of making this post any longer I will just say Read these books if you get a chance. 

New Bison Tools

Last week I went down to the Utah Art Educators Associations(UAEA) fun in the sun spring conference.  While hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones to discuss teaching techniques and practices a friend of mine said he had to pick up some tools from Las Vegas.  Las Vegas is a little over an hour from St. George so a few of us jumped in our cars and headed down.  We figured we could visit Aardvark Clay  have enough time to run through a couple of gallery's we were hopping to see, and be back before we missed anything important at the conference.  We have Capital Ceramics supply store in Utah but were looking forward to perusing another shop for fun new toy's when our friend gave us a new address to meet him at.  The way to Aardvark was already routed into my Garmin, wondering why were were being taken in the opposite direction we blindly plugged the new address in and diverged from the plan.  We ended up at the home and workshop of Phil Poburka the creator and maker of Bison Tools.  Up to this point I had never heard or Phil Poburka or  Bison tools. . . after coming home and researching him I think I might be the only one.  Phil has been selling bison tools at NCECA for 20 years, his tools are entirely hand made and have a tungsten carbide cutters.  These tools are used by potters to trim the excess clay from the pot in the leather hard stages of development.  Phil pulled out several trays of tools each unique, each made with the pride of a craftsman dedicated to making the best fit for his customers.  My friend Spencer and I were immediately impressed by the quality and craftsmanship, but drawn in by the bold statement that these tools would take years to dull and were made for truly leather-hard ware.  Ignorant of the price tag I decided to purchase 4 tools which Phil Wrapped in colored tissue paper with love and placed in a thick cardboard storage box for transport.  I will not tell you how much these tool cost suffice it to say that when I got the receipt I had a small heart attack.  Again having come home and researched the tools I  know they are worth the price and probably then some as he did give us a substantial discount.  Also in my research I have found it usually takes people years to acquire 4 Bison tools as they are quite coveted tools.  I have to thank my husband for his reaction though. . . his first statement was "did he through in a lock box with them" followed by "your students better never touch those tools" followed by laughter and an "only you" type of statement followed by more laughter finished up with "well there goes that Ipod you wanted".  I think I would have lost it on him if he came home and said "by the way I just bought myself a new set of irons to go with my new golf bag".  I'm surprised continually at how supportive he is with me and my career goals.  I'm so lucky to have a husband who upon seeing these tools commented on how well made they were and then told me I deserved to treat myself to a nice tool now and then, also he is glad I'm not a doctor that could impulse buy a new x-ray machine.   Here are some pics.  By the way we never made it to Aardvark clay.

My version of slip trailing

These bowls are so fun to make. These large bowls 20-27 inches across are like a huge blank canvas, they beg to be decorated.  The bowls below are decorated using slip trailing techniques.  Slip is about 50% clay 50% water.  I add between 1% and 5% mason stain (which come in a variety of colors) to achieve the desired color affect.  The dots on these two bowls were hand piped using a cake decorating bag and various tips.  You can feel the dots, which adds and interesting texture and depth to the finished piece.

 I try to keep a professional portfolio of my work, unfortunately in a professional picture you can't tell the size of the piece.  I try to include the size as often as I can but... I still get people asking how big an object "really" is.  I meditated on this for a while and I realized that I have very few pictures of my pottery in a real life setting.  I am going to try to remedy this in the future.  My brother's an amazing carpenter.  I described the shelving I wanted for Swiss Day's from a partial picture a quick sketch and a verbal description, and two weeks later I had the exact shelves I had seen in my head.  As we are no longer in festival season so I'm going to put the shelves in my living room as display shelving.  My hope is that I will be able to take some pictures of my pieces on display to better explain sizing.

The Harvest

In an effort to create balance in my life I try not to work in the studio on Saturday's.  I'm there the rest of the week teaching and working, so for the benefit of my family I have agreed to be at home both physically and mentally (those of you who are passionate about your work know what I mean). This doesn't always work.  I seem to find myself going to gallery's, art fairs, or friends shops, on the weekends more than not, but my husband helps me know when it's family time.  Hunting is family time, I don't remember my mom ever buying meat from the store growing up.  We harvested our meat in the fall and lived off the protein rich meat throughout the winter.  Bringing home a rated buck is still a thrill but I wouldn't consider myself a "trophy hunter" we hunt so we have enough meat to make it through the winter.  If we don't need the meat we don't put in for the hunt.  If we can't find a healthy mature animal, we don't take the shot.  If we can't make the shot, we won't take it.  We were taught never to leave a wounded animal in the forest.  Most of the time our "hunts" turn into little more than great horse rides as a family, time spent together laughing and reminiscing without interruption is invaluable to my family.   As an adult I value the health benefits of the natural meat, as well as the responsibility we have as hunters and citizens of the earth to protect and maintain a healthy heard.   As a hunter I value the lesson's my Dad instilled in me throughout our family time growing up.  Although Marshall and I have no children of our own we look forward to shairing these lessons with our own children some day. 

 

Magic is the favorite of all the grand kids.  His tail touches the ground and his bangs are.... well you can see for yourself.  I wonder sometimes how he finds his way back down the mountain.  He's surprisingly sure footed.  

Huge Leaf Motif

I've received many questions about my leaf platters, so let me tell you a little ditty about them.  They are platters approximately 24-30 inches across.  They are thrown from one piece of clay on the potters wheel and have an impression from one large leaf; yes, only one.
They were quite the adventure to make.  I do not love leafs in pottery most of the time. I think it looks unoriginal and many times like the potter didn't know what else to do, so they threw a leaf on it.  That  being said, I have had several requests for pottery with a leaf motif.  I'm not against this conceptually in fact quite the opposite.  I've been waiting for the right inspiration to come to me so that I could create something of this nature and still show my expression as an artist.
Here's how it began. . .  This last July I was on a horse ride with my dad and sister up south-fork canyon when I saw these HUGE leafs due to the moisture we have had in Utah this year.  The giant leaves were everywhere,  I began to wonder if I could throw a platter big enough that I could get the whole leaf's impression into it (these leaves really were that big).  So I jumped off my horse in a thicket of stinging nettle up to my armpit and started gathering leaves.  I'm pretty sure it looked like I was out of my mind.  The stock of these plants was about 3/4 to 1/2 inch thick and by the time we got back to the trailer literally 15 minutes later they had wilted completely and were no good. I was so bummed.  I had finally found a way in which I could incorporated the leafs and still maintain my integral artistry.  But, never one to accept defeat, we planned to go on another horse ride within the week.  Sure enough, we found a field of the same huge leafs just below Provo peak. Utah has had a big water and spring run off the last couple of years, combine that with the lack of wildfires and it was like being in another world, there was so much undergrowth and greenery.  After seeking out and gathering the largest leafs we could find, my family and I flew down the mountain in an attempt to get to water before the leafs wilted again.  I held the leafs in a bottle of water on my lap all the way home and immediately stored them in a refrigerator.  (Thanks mom, for allowing these giant leafs to monopolize your fridge.)
What a roller coster ride! In the end there were three successful attempts, but only two made it out of the kiln.   I can only make them once a year for a two week time period and at a 50% success rate, but they are absolutely worth the work.
I am a summer girl, but this makes the winter wait impossible.  I am excited to try this technique again next year.

Still warm in the kiln!

Remember that clay shrinks approximately 20% throughout the working process. In other words these were 20% bigger.  Think about how awesome that is.

I love the ZOO!!

I don't know how many people know this about me but, I love the Zoo, and I mean any and all Zoo's.  Hogle Zoo is the official zoo in utah.  I am a home grown Utahan I've lived within 300 miles of where I was born my hole life, but the first time I went to our local zoo was with my husband 2 years ago.  Hogle zoo isn't a very big zoo, you can speed walk the entire zoo in about 15 min. but for me this is at least a half day event, sometimes more.  Like this weekend for example.  On August 10 there was a baby elephant born at the zoo, it went on exhibition friday Sept 11.  It has been on my calendar since they announced the day the baby would go on exhibit.  My husband and I weren't able to go up on opening day, but we made it up to see Zuri this weekend.  When in your life do you get to see a month old baby elephant?  I was worse than all the little kids.  I worked my way around to the front of the exhibit where the stadium seating is, and parked it.  The baby elephant is soooo cute.  It must be baby season at the zoo because there was also a baby giraffe and three baby tigers.  I had so much fun spending the day with my hubby.

Favorite Mugs

O my goodness, I love these mugs.  I should have waited for the professional pictures to post, but I just couldn't stand it.  I had to show you.  I took these out of a hot kiln last saturday at 6:00 in the morning.  I couldn't wait! I was supposed to be at my mom's house where we were all going to car pool up to Swiss Days.  Instead, I was picking through a hot kiln shaking with excitement at the new arrivals.  This is why I do this folks . . . it's all about Christmas for me.  I grabbed as many mugs as I could carry, and was off to my mom's house where they were ready to send out a search party.  I've been staring at them for a week now and still love them.  (sidebar) I met the nicest folks from Idaho during Swiss Days.  After perusing the booth for about 15 min the gentleman said to me that he was looking for something he could critique about my work, and said he could find nothing.   Well, this is it!  I can never wait for the kiln to completely cool.  This impatience can cause several problems such as; breakage from heat shock, glaze crackling or crazing within the glaze.  In general a kiln should be left to cool for about twice as long as it was fired or until the pots can be touched and unloaded will bare hands. The best you'll get from me is waiting until paper won't burn in the peeps, which is at 451 degrees. These mugs are a perfect example of my impatience, they were still hot when I arrived at my mom's house to show everyone my prize.  I hope you love them as much as I do.  I'll have professional pictures up soon.

Midway Swiss Days

I had so much fun this Labor day weekend as the Midway Swiss Days.  I had so much fun meeting new friends and visiting with old ones.  Thanks to all of you who took the time to come out and support me and the Swiss Day's organization for having us there.  Thanks to all those who helped me this year at in the booth.  Mom for sitting with me for two days in the heat, Jillian for making us laugh when we wanted to sleep, and Curtis my mom's newly adopted son.  This was a great experience for me.  Here are some fun pictures of me and my booth.