Tragedy, figuring it out and come buy my pots!

 

When I searched the google for "Timmy Tabasco" this was the second image that came up.  I assure you this is not Timmy Tabasco.

My senior year of high school one of the last projects we tackled in my speech class was to write and produce a short television program.  The show my group developed was a situational comedy about a guy who gets put in the witness protection program.  I believe it was called "Where's Walter?" or something like that.  The plot went something like this.

One day as Walter is walking down the street some mob thugs drop a guy on his dog.  (I was that guy dropped on a dog.  They actually threw me off the roof of the school...onto padding of course.  It was pretty freaking cool.)  After witnessing this mob murder Walter testifies to put Jimmy the Squid (the mob boss) in jail and is put in the witness protection program.  For some reason he has to share a room with someone else in the witness protection program.  This new room mate is none other than Timmy Tabasco, a ex-GI red neck on the run from the Chinese mafia.  I was also Timmy Tabasco.  Wackiness ensues.  There are candy-grams, slow speed foot chases and probably not that much oh so much more.

Granted this was only a crappy high school project, but it was awesome...or at least we thought so.  You are no doubt exceedingly disappointed after three weeks of build up, and I don't blame you.

There is probably still a tape of that spectacular show pilot floating around somewhere.  If Dan, Aaron or Steve happen to have a copy of it (or, even less likely, if they happen to read this), I will give you a large Fortel's pizza for a copy of it.

And now that that foolishness is out of the way...

Tragedy!

There are few things sadder than a broken coffee mug.

The other day my son knocked my Brandon Phillips coffee mug off the table and broke it.  It was probably the mug I used most often...the perfect size for a cup of coffee or whiskey.  And a freaking fantastic handle that was just about perfect for how I hold a coffee cup.  Oh well, so it goes.

For something a little less tragic, here are the results of the red clay experiment.

Wishy-washy spoon rests

Wishy-washy sheep

Wishy-washy wheat

There are obviously a few problems here, beside the collapsible handles.  I think the slip was a bit too thin to begin with.  Combine that with them being over fired and you get a washy, thin look that is not all together pleasing.  Due to the over firing the lids also stuck on the jars.  Luckily I only mangled one while knocking them loose.  Most of the batch ended up on the shard pile. 

I did have a couple that did not make it into that first round, though, so I tossed them in with the next bisque firing.

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"I pour poorly!"

Neither will be sold due to cracks (not sure why/how those showed up), but they are still structurally sound, so I will  probably hold onto them for a while.  At least the platter.  The lid of the teapot fits a little too snug and traps air when pouring, so it is kind of a pain to use.

I will probably pursue this style again soon, but not until I do a little more research.

Finally, a few shots of the glaze load I just unloaded this morning.

Train!

 

Collaborative piece with my 2 year old son.

This is another piece my wife has been bugging me to make for a while.  One of the custom items I make is a "surprise" mug; personalized on the outside with a figurine on the inside.  Now I will always have an example on hand that I can take to shows.  I would actually like to make a catalog to take instead of just examples, but that is still in the works.

Whiskey cups, lidded jars, bottles...and balloons!

The mark of the werewolf!

It was a pretty small load because I had to get some custom orders done, but I was happy with how everything turned out, especially the reds.  I had been having some trouble with getting the color I wanted, but I think I have the formula figured out now.

And finally (again), if anyone is in the St. Louis region, I will be at a show in St. Charles this weekend.  Mosaics goes from 4pm Friday to 5pm Sunday.  It looks like the weather is going to cooperate, so come up and see me!

Up next...capybara! 

Yogi, doodles and the nefarious air whales...

No, this is not me.  Although I am diggin'  the beard and the orange diaper.

 I have been dabbling with yoga as a means to adding some stretching to my less than regular workouts.  Nothing like this pretzel looking fellow, just simple stuff to loosen up.  I used to be pretty flexible when I was stretching for sports everyday.  Now though...well, I am not.  Perhaps it will help relieve the tension that builds up after sitting at the wheel or scratching pots for hours on end.

The garden got some much needed tending over the weekend.  Not as much as it really should have had, but perhaps enough to keep it going for a little while yet.  Noah helped out, of course.  He was quite proud of the red tomatoes he was picking. most of which he promptly ate.

See this tomato?  This tomato is going in my belly!

Between the meager harvest from my garden and the bumper crop my father-in-law has been pulling in I was able to make up ten or so pints of pasta sauce.

It is just a package of spice mix that you add to the tomatoes, but it comes out pretty good.  And at $1.50 per package I think it is a bit cheaper than store bought stuff.  And then there is always the satisfaction in knowing that (most of) it came out of your own land.

As far as the studio goes, the glaze firing last week turned out pretty good with a couple minor-ish guffaws.  I was especially happy with how the underglaze pencil experiments turned out.

They fired slightly lighter than when they were first drawn on, but not too much.  The drawings retained the vast majority of their detail, which I was not sure they would do.  I'm not super keen on the drawings on the plain white clay, but they look pretty tasty over the colored slips that I normally use.

The layering thing is pretty cool, and I can get more information on each piece to tell more of a story and such.  I plan on utilizing this a lot more in the next few loads.  Eventually I would like to add even more layers of information with decals and perhaps lusters.

The only real let down in the kiln also happened to be a special order that is over due.

This is not the piece in question, however it was decorated with the same slip.  What was supposed to be a deep red/maroon turned out as a very pale pink.  Not exactly what I had in mind.

The new blue slip I used this time around turned out much better than the red.  It is a bit brighter than the old one, but it works well.

This is a skunk...because I like skunks.

A cartoon owl on a starry night...

Here is another piece that I have been working on for a while now that will hopefully work out better.

Air whales...

...the scourge of the seven skies.

I started with the carvings of the clouds and zeppelins, but then got stuck.  I knew it needed something else and I wanted to use whales, but I wasn't real sure how to get them on there.  When I got the underglaze pencil I took another crack at it.  I like the direction it is going, but I am not sure it is completely there yet.

I guess that is all for now.  Up next...how not to burn yourself while putting a pizza in the oven.  Wait, scratch that.  I was unsuccessful in that endeavor.

Up next...the planet Clarion.

At home with the Bub

 It looks like Noah might have pink eye, so he had to stay home from the babysitters today.  Not really a big deal, but it means that I will not be able to get into the studio much; maybe during nap time.  I will be able to get some more business type work done, though.
So I guess on the agenda for today is: finish Christmas presents, get contact info for potential retail outlets, call photographers about getting pictures taken for show application and take pictures for posting stuff on Etsy.

Speaking of Etsy (and Chritmas presents, wink wink, nod nod) I finally have a few things in my shop.  Just posted a couple last night, actually.  As I have said before, it is a laborious process (for me at least) but I suppose it has to be done.  Any way, here are a couple shots from the shop.  Click on the pictures to check it out.

Blue and brown whiskey cup

Green and brown mug

Back to child care.  Until later.

-Rob

Halloween (That's when she gets so mean)

So earlier I said I would regale you with the Halloween exploits of my family and I.  Here are those exploits.  They really are not that exciting.  Saturday we were going to take Noah to some festival thing at the mall, but then Alicia decided she didn't want to go.  Thus we puttered about the house all day until it was time to go the festival thing at the school.  Alicia said it would be loads of fun.  There was to be a cake walk.  So we got Noah into his costume (hand made by his grandma).  He and the neighbor boy were going as monkeys in a barrel. 
The festival was decidedly less than exciting.  When it came time for the costume parade Noah was aces, riding in the barrel like a pro.  The neighbor boy cried whenever he was put in the barrel with Noah.

 I guess it is pretty easy to understand why.  That is one ferocious looking monkey.  They won a prize for the costume, despite the crying lad. 

After wasting a couple bucks on little games that Noah was less than interested in we went home.  We didn't bother sticking around for the cake walk.

After Noah had his Halloween fun it was time for Alicia and I to go out on the town; kick up our heels if you will.  Funny thing, though.  Due to some rather rowdy partiers back in the days of yore all of the bars on the Carbondale strip are closed the entire Halloween weekend.  Even stranger thing, you can go one short block off the strip and the bars are open.  If I owned one of the bars on the strip I would be pitching ten kinds of fits about that.
But I digress.  We did not dress up, but we went to check out a bluegrass band at a bar just off the strip.  They were ok; the opener was outstanding.  It was just one guy by the name of Alex Kirt.  He played dirty delta blues with a wicked distorted slide guitar and a little kick drum.  Great stuff.

It is now Halloween proper.  We, again, did not dress up.  We are currently sitting on the couch messing around on the computer; I blogging, my lovely wife working on my new web site (more on that in the future).  We live at the end of a road in a pretty small neighborhood, so we have only had a few trick-or-treaters.  Which is cool as it means a relatively quiet night now and more candy for me later.  And as soon as I am done posting this I am going to finish watching Nosferatu while I finish my whiskey.  Oh, and I unloaded the kiln earlier too.  All in all a good day.

Beware the school kiln...and school in general for that matter.

A while back I was asked to make a couple mugs and a canister for someone who was retiring. Good deal; I can do it. Only problem is I don't have time to get a full load put together by the time they need to be done. Solution? Find another firing to jump in on before the deadline. As luck would have it the ceramics teacher at school was generous enough to let me put a few pieces in with her classes stuff. Good deal; I can still get it done. Throw throw throw, decorate decorate, and here we go.

Two mugs ("Retirement coffee is the best kind of coffee."), one and one extra, just in case. The designs are pretty similar, but not exactly the same. I like the movement in the first one better (I don't know that it comes through in the picture too well). The second one just has straight sides; too static. I do like the design on the second one better, though.

The client (my mother in law) took the second one. I hope the recipient was happy with it.

She also requested a canister to store well wishes & such in. I was not very happy with the results, but she thought it looked good. Unfortunately, due to the condition of the shelves in the school's kiln (unwashed, glaze puddles all over), this piece was glazed to the shelf and took some pretty good sized chunks out of the bottom edge when it came off. Thus it was unfit for sale. My mother in law still liked it though, and after I ground the bottom pretty good she decided to keep it for herself.


And for the random child update, we started Noah on cereal the other day. He wasn't too sure what to make of it at first, but after a few minutes he got the hang of things. I guess I have a new commission for some baby dishes coming up.

I should have plenty of time to get that done, though. School just went on semester break for two full weeks. That gives me quite a bit of time to get the banks, ornaments, bowls, serving dishes, oil lamps, etc done that I need to finish. And now I guess baby dishes too.

On a completely different note, someone stole my sketch book the other day! (My wife is laughing about me writing this because she has already been hearing about it since it happened.) It was in my desk at school when I left on a Friday; there was some sort of school function over the weekend, and when I came back Monday my sketchbook was gone. Who the f--- steals a sketchbook?! I can understand why people steal cars or jewelry or whatever; they have something to gain from it. What does someone gain from stealing a sketchbook? It is not like there is some big black market for sketchbooks, is there? GARGH!

Ok, I am done ranting...for now. Until later.

-Rob

Starting summer with the sound of crying

It has been a while since I posted anything on here, so a quick recap of what has been going on in the merry old land of Rob.

From June 7th to July 2nd I was teaching summer enrichment classes at the high school I work for. These were not really a big deal, just something to keep the kiddies busy and out of trouble for a while. There were three classes a day, each class lasting 2 hours. Personally I thought 2 hours was a bit long for each class considering most of the participants were incoming freshmen and had the attention span of...well, freshmen. I was teaching three classes: a drawing class, an illustration class and a ceramics class. While they were not terrible and the extra money was nice; these classes mainly served as a reminder as to why I do not want to teach anymore.

During that time I did manage to get some stuff done in the studio. My wife wanted a piggy bank for a friend of hers. Not having much time to sculpt a traditional piggy bank I went with this type of bank instead. This is not, however, what she had in mind, so I guess they will be finished and put up for sale some time. I did enjoy making them, though, and if I can get rid of these I will probably make more. Along that line, what are everyone's thoughts on putting a hole in the bottom of the bank to retrieve the money? I have a hole in the bottom of these, but it seems that I could save myself the trouble of finding stoppers and making sure they fit right by making the hole on top a little bigger. Not huge, mind you, but big enough to get the money out relatively easily. Thoughts?

I have also been playing around with bowl forms, trying to find one that I like. I think I finally got one; now I just need to work on throwing it consistently.


A short time ago I also purchased another motorcycle. I have a Honda 450 (Oscar), which runs decent and such; but I quickly outgrew it and was looking for something bigger. Lo and behold, I stumble across a Yamaha XS850 Special. It is an 850, so it is a good step up from the 450. It has a nice big 6 gallon gas tank, good for long hauls. And it has an interesting 3 cylinder set up (as opposed to most bikes with 2 or 4), which I thought was cool.

Sure, it needs a little work, but for $400 it was hard to pass up. So slowly over this summer (and probably into the winter) I am going to be giving it a good working over to get everything in proper running order. I do not have a name for it yet, so any suggestions there would be welcome.

And finally, what has been eating up most of my time lately is this.

A week and a half ago my wife quite unexpectedly went into labor 4 weeks early. Thus on June 27 at just past noon our first child (Noah) was born. Pretty cool stuff. Even though he was a month early, he was fine. No stay in the NICU or anything. They watched him for a few hours in the nursery to make sure he was breathing ok, but then he stayed with us in the room until we went home. Noah has been getting a good deal of my attention as of late, so I have not been in the studio in a while. I am going to try to get in there later today, though, to get some teapots started. Now, however, I think Noah needs his diaper changed. Ah the joys of fatherhood.

Tschus.
-Rob