Penland Spring Concentration 2010: Weeks 4, 5 & 6 in Review

Forgive me for the brief leave of absence. I managed to crash my site a few of weeks ago after I bought a new domain. You may have noticed that timayerspottery.com is now timayersstudio.com. Big ups to David Millsaps for straightening everything out and getting me back online. Big ups to Chad Evans too for the new trademark for Tim Ayers Studio.

A few weeks ago I began working on the body for a flask design. I carved the models from solid blocks of plaster.

I’ve experimented with different plasters in addition to Pottery 1. Below is my setup for mixing UltraCal, a really dense plaster that requires 20 minutes of agitation for my purposes.

I cast a lot of UltraCal models before transferring and carving my new trademark into the body.

After fussing with a several methods of transferring the image, I settled on newsprint rubbed with iron oxide. Tracing your image with a ball point pen gives a really clean transfer. The image below shows one of  the carved models, which looks really clean in the mold.

The top pieces of my flask molds were pretty tricky, in part due to the cork holder that will be inset into the body. Also, the neck was carved separately and wanted to float and create undercuts, but I worked out the kinks after a couple of failures. I have two flask molds finished and drying now, one with the carved image on the front and the other with the image on the back.

Tom demonstrated his method of painting with slip inside the mold pieces. He does this immediately before pouring, building layers up like print. The slip motifs become really flat, physically a part of the body. I had hoped to transfer images in a similar manner, by screening slip onto newsprint and draping the image into the mold, but I am not sure that I will have time during concentration.

I was lucky enough to witness a fleeting rainbow during dinner a few weeks ago, but life has not been all rainbows. Between an incident with a yellow jack up my shirt and a recent injury, I’ve really been suffering for my art. I’ve also had more than my share of failures.

I managed to hurt myself pretty badly about 10 days ago. I overestimated my strength and had a pallet full of materials get away from me on a steep hill. I was forced to steer the pallet into a low stone wall and flung myself down the hill in the process. You can get an idea of the injury from the picture below, but if you want to follow the full array of color, you’ll have to watch my facebook album. Lesson learned.

Despite my injury I managed to execute a 240 lb plaster pour with the assistance of Phil Sanders. My inner seams were lined with clay and blew out. My negative space filled with plaster. This is my biggest failure, especially in combination with my injury. After consulting with Rick Beck, I have a much clearer idea of where to start with this project. I also realized that I do not have time to complete this kiln cast due to its large mass, but I have a great head start for taking this on in the future. Most importantly, this project really caused me to examine my desire to work with glass. I’ve entertained that possibility since watching hot ladle pours here at Penland in 2007 and I am ready to act on that desire. My summer scholarship for first session with Paul Wandless and Kathy King has now been changed to sixth session with Mark Mitsuda. Instead of image transfer on clay I will be taking an introduction to glass blowing. Hopefully I can  prepare some blow molds ahead of time for that class and work towards that objective. For now I am going to make more time to watch and learn what is going on in Scott Benefield’s class.

While I have been really buckled down in studio I have found some time for relaxation. A couple of weekends ago I met a crew of Raleigh folk in Linville Gorge. I spent one night in a hammock under the stars and managed to drag my battered body from the ridge down to the river and back up.

Dance parties have been rare since my last post but the two we’ve had in the past few weeks really stand out: Cristina Cordova’s birthday party and POLY PROM!

This week marks the end of plaster. I have two large sculptural molds I will begin casting as well as two flask molds. We also have a field trip to the Mint Museum in Charlotte. Hopefully my next entry won’t be put off three weeks Thanks for reading.