Diana Fayt Workshop

Diana Fayt and workshop participant

What a fun and whirlwind trip I had to San Francisco this past weekend to attend a Diana Fayt workshop at her studio. Light traffic and warm sunny weather made for a picture perfect weekend. As I drove over the Bay Bridge it brought back so many memories from the late 1970's when I lived in San Francisco. I bought my first 35 mm camera from Brooks Camera where I worked for a while, which led me to photography as an artistic medium. I worked with black and white photos for a time, and later did free lance photography and portraits, but my true penchant is for color and landscape photography.

Green ware Tiles by Diana Fayt

In the morning Diana presented us with an overview of print maker surface treatments she has developed which she applies to leather hard clay. The photo above shows some of the techniques Diana demonstrated on her own tiles. The surfaces have a lot of depth and the colors are rich. Diana recommended using a clay with some warm tones in the fired color which ultimately affects the glaze colors. I've experimented with various clays in a reduction atmosphere, but not with oxidation. This summer I'll be firing in oxidation using several different clay bodies. Looks like I have a lot of testing and experimenting ahead of me.

Tiles by Diane Fayt

After Diana's demonstration, we broke for a brown bag lunch and shared our experiences in working with clay. Diana prepared tiles in advance for us all to work on. In the afternoon we practiced the techniques she showed us on the already prepared leather hard tiles. We couldn't wait to start working on our tiles and concentrating on what we learned. Since I got back, my mind has been going a mile a minute on all the different ways I can use these new surface techniques on my own clay pieces. I just can't wait to try some of them. We were all having so much fun the workshop ran over more than an hour.

Display Shelves, Diane Fayt Studio

I was meeting my brother for dinner so I was the first to leave the workshop. When I left the rest of the participants were still working on their tiles. Unfortunately, I neglected to take a photo of the tiles I worked on, which I left for Diana to fire and mail to me. So you'll to wait to see the results of my handiwork, which I will post in a few weeks. A big thank you to Diana Fayt for a great workshop and for expanding my knowledge of clay surface treatments.

If it hadn't of been for a broken irrigation pipe, and lavender farming duties, I would have stayed in the bay area longer. Next time I need to do more planning so I CAN stay longer in San Francisco. As I was leaving I drove by the opera house, and I was reflecting about all the culture I am missing not living in or near a big city. I used to go the ballet, the museums, concerts, the park, the ocean and so many other places. San Francisco really is a great place to visit, with so much to see and do. Well one thing I do have now are many pleasant memories of the 'City by the Bay'.

Sourdough Bread and White Wine with lavender sprig
Ceramic Woven Platter by Linda Starr

I picked up my brother and we went to Fisherman's Wharf for a seafood dinner. While I was there I picked up a loaf of sourdough bread and I couldn't help but think of Ron Slagle and June Perry who recently shared their sourdough bread recipes. When I got home I served Gary some buttered slices of the Fisherman's Wharf sourdough bread I purchased (served on my very own woven platter), along with a glass of white wine.

But wait, what's in the glass of wine?
Hey, it's a sprig of lavender!

A sprig of lavender in white wine is actually quite good. Yes, lavender is edible and it doesn't taste like it's fragrance. When a sprig of lavender is placed in a glass of wine, you can smell the lavender when you raise the glass to drink a sip and it imparts a subtle yet pleasant flavor to the wine. Try it, you might like it. As the weather gets warmer, I'll be making some lavender lemonade and I'll let you know how I make it.

English Lavender

I'm really thankful to all the ceramic artists willing to share their knowledge, tips, and techniques on their blogs. Lots of the posts I read are like little mini workshops. A while ago Ron posted his paper template hand building methods on his blog (there are three parts to his post, the link is for the first in the series). Since I do a lot of hand building, I've used paper templates several times over the last few months. June has a whole repertoire of recipes for stains and glazes on her website. June's recipes were the springboard for the slip and stain experimenting I've done over the last four months.

The bouquet of English lavender above is from my garden. The lavender is blooming a week early this year. Up next are the results of the last cone 10 firing, so stay tuned.