Studio-A-Go-Go

When I took the job teaching in Silverton, Sylvia and I found a little house to rent there for the weekdays. This made sense for lots of reasons.

 

One major shift was that I pretty much closed up shop in the basement studio.  Certainly my plan — in terms of making and showing ceramics — was to retrench for a year or so until I was settled into the new schedule and had my curriculum (for what are very different classes than I had been teaching) sorted. But of course in reality I still wanted to make things, like tons of tiny spotted vessels and now a book.

 

Since the beginning of the school year, then, I’ve been carrying around whatever in-progress work I have going, plus my favorite tools, in the back of my car.  Unfired clay is very resilient when it comes to the elements.

 

Occasionally I drag everything into the Silverton house, or back into the Portland house, but mostly, it turns out, I am productive on my Saturday mornings at Sara‘s.

Having a studio away from home, one that belongs to someone else, means that I plan in advance (at least in my head) what I will do with my time.  It means I am totally focused and efficient when I’m there, and that I clean everything up and store it properly in between.

I’ve always considered myself very sensitive to personal space (all those apartments painted and be-curtained…) so this is a surprise to me, but not at all an unwelcome one.

Choreo is making progress!  All of the slabs are rolled, cut, smoothed, trimmed, smoothed again, three coats of porcelain slip on each side, smoothed again, sides re-trimmed… and I have new things listed here.

Next weekend we are going to do some experimentation with latex, doesn’t that sound exciting?