A lot has happened since my last post. Aside from farming long days at the formidable Fertile Crescent Farm, my residency at Cub Creek Foundation culminated in July with the firing of the new anagama affectionately dubbed the Johnagama by the residents in honor of Cub Creek’s executive director/ permanent resident artist/ master of culinary arts, John Jessiman.
The old proverb that many hands make light work leaves you doubting that John Heywood ever built a kiln. Notwithstanding the brutally humid summer heat, residents and workshop guests labored to construct the new kiln in one week’s time. This was the fourth and the largest kiln building project of my six months at Cub Creek. In addition to the Johnagama, I lent a hand with an adjunct wood-fired soda kiln, as well as the with the demolition and reconstruction of a gas kiln and a wood-fired salt kiln.
Unfortunately I will not have a chance in the immediate future to fire these kilns, but I did have some successful pieces from the inaugural Johnagama firing despite uneven temperatures and light fly ash. The amorphous form below is one of my familiar shapes that originated during my time assisting Tom Spleth at a Penland concentration last year. The addition of paper fibers finally solved most of my issues with cracking and green strength. This piece reached cone 12 high in the front chamber.
Another familiar form, the amorphous sculpture below was revisited as a starting point for my experimentation with press molding the indigenous red stoneware. I am delighted to say that there is no discernible loss of detail between it and my slip cast editions of this sculpture, which opens up innumerable options in clay bodies. After such a hiatus, I am very happy to welcome plastic clay back into my life.
The sculpture below is the start of a fractal-based series. By joining two of the press molded forms pictured above, I am able to create forms that appear organic but possess a quality of control. The pipes that intersect the form were hand built and work in combination with the indigenous clay, molding technique, and atmospheric firing to reference the relationship between the industrial and natural worlds.
Finally, here is a stripped down form I experimented with to convey a similar theme. This piece was press molded and hand built. I may continue to develop this idea and the fractal series once in Mendocino. Otherwise I will be prototyping new molds because I put most of my molds out with the trash at Cub Creek. Cheers to a fresh body of work in the near future.
I am at Penland now preparing for their annual auction and then hitting the road for a few weeks as I traverse America to Mendocino. I’ll try to update with pictures of my journey sooner than later. A final word of thanks to John Jessiman, the other Cub Creek resident artists, all of the workshop participants and to all of my farm friends for shaping my experience in the (un)Commonwealth of Virginia. And thanks to you for reading!
