My First Ceramic Necklace & Earrings !

Just finished my ceramic bead workshop today. Yolanda taught the workshop at Aardvark Clay in Santa Ana. Thanks to Chris at Aarkvark for firing my beads and pendants. Yolanda is a wonderful teacher, patient and willing to explain about making jewelry with beads. If you are interested in learning to make ceramic beads, I highly recommend taking a workshop with Yolanda. Yolanda will be teaching more bead workshops in the future, so please check with Aardvark Clay.

Just arrived home and couldn't wait to share the necklace and earrings I made with my very own ceramic beads. The beads are navy and lime, a snappy little combination of colors I wouldn't ordinarily choose. I combined them with a matching pendant I made with the same colors and then added black agate chip beads and an occasional green glass tube bead to mix it up a bit.

My head is swimming with ideas of how to utilize the other beads I made and thinking of various ways to glaze the beads. Please check back since I have some ideas about combining essential oils from the herbs I grow with some of the beads I'll be making.

Once again I am thoroughly amazed at what can be created with clay. Have a great weekend.

Linda

Ceramic Musical Instruments

A local ceramics studio in my area hosted a hands on workshop today about making ceramic musical instruments. Val and Dave Tyrrell presented the workshop. It was really amazing to hear music coming from the various instruments Val and Dave have made from clay. Some of the instruments demonstrated were ocarina, rattles, several types of flutes, drums, and udu.


Val showed us how to make a ceramic ocarina. My first try at making an ocarina failed, so I tried making a flute. With Val's help perfecting the tone, I was successful. The Tyrrell's said they had admired Barry Hall's new book From Mud to Music for quite a while and finally decided to purchase the book and were so glad they did. In addition to wonderful photography of ceramic musical instruments, the book comes with a CD of music created from various ceramic instruments.

Even though my "flute" above doesn't look like much now in it's greenware state, it makes quite a melodious tone and it isn't even leather hard yet. Val said it is best to let the piece harden first and then smooth out the rough edges. Since I had trouble making mine flute play, I wasn't going to tempt fate and clean it up until it becomes leather hard. The hole on the top at the right is the air inlet and is apparently the key to getting the wind instruments to play music. If it isn't constructed just right, no sound will come from the piece. Val showed us her special tools made from the tines of bamboo rakes. Val said the bamboo slats are key to shaping the mouthpieces and helping to form the air inlet just right to achieve the musical notes.

Dave demonstrated how to soak goat skin and then clamp it over the end of a glazed ceramic drum base to create the drum skin. Dave also showed us various ceramic rattles covered on both ends with goat skin and filled with tiny ceramic unglazed beads about a sixteenth of an inch in diameter. Dave played the udu for us. The udu is an African water jug with an extra hole and is played like a drum. The udu makes a wonderful base sound.

What a great time we had this afternoon. Once again I am amazed at all that is possible in working with clay. Tomorrow I am off to my last day of a ceramic bead workshop and hope to have some beads to share with you here very soon.

Linda

A First for Everything

With a desire to share and have others share with me, I decided to delve into the - new to me - blog world. Here you find my feeble attempt to set up my blog. Feel free to comment with any advice because I am definitely out of my element for layout and design.

Currently I am totally immersed in clay and find I can't learn enough. I have taken three workshops recently and am currently enrolled at the local college again. My goals are to perfect some of my handbuilding techniques, work on the wheel, and hopefully develop some unique glazes this semester.

The first workshop I attended this year was hosted by the Ventura County Potters Guild. Despite a terrible head cold, Malcolm Davis gave a lively and informative workshop about his carbon trap, shino-type glazes in Ojai earlier this month. The photo above from Malcolm's postcard shows two of his shino glazed tea cups. Malcolm has been a fulltime studio potter since the early 1980's and has worked extensively in developing his shino glazes. I learned that shino glazes are achieved in early, heavy reduction firings.

During Malcolm's slide presentation many were shocked to hear about the slithery creatures residing in Malcolm's workshop - black snakes eight feet long! Malcolm lives in West Virginia where lots of snakes are common. We residents of California aren't used to seeing that many snakes, particularly snakes that size. Some attendees at the workshop were mortified at the prospect of an eight foot long snake sliding along the wall of a studio. Having lived in Arkansas for four years, I know black snakes don't pose any harm and are beneficial in keeping rodents under control.

Besides shino glazes, Malcolm shared freely about his life as a potter and his experiences in the world of clay. In his slide show Malcolm showed some of his early work, one example being his first teapot. In the spirit of sharing I have posted my first teapot here, stoneware with celery glaze.

Malcolm said that early in his career, each time he took a workshop, he was given different and often conflicting advice for working in clay from other ceramists. Malcolm said he learned that each ceramic artist must find there own way in working with clay. In other words, there's more than one way to work with clay. I heartily agree and think I will adopt this as my ceramics motto. If you ever get a chance, I highly recommend attending a workshop given by Malcolm Davis.

Next post I hope to have some ceramic beads to show you which I made in my most recent workshop.

Linda