My main focus for the past two weeks was preparing and firing off a soda with my stool and some testers of the dark clay I mixed up early on in the semester. I threw and carved six little cups/bowls, which I ended up lining with various shinos and leaving the outsides raw. I also sculpted a plate prototype, which I didn't throw in this soda, thankfully. I’m excited to make some more plate and bowl forms after NCECA!

The stool was heavy and annoying to load, but GH and Jooby kindly helped me get it safely in the kiln. We ended up only stacking up the front part of the kiln, which made for an unavoidably uneven firing. We also did a ~2 hour downfire (throwing wood into the firebox after the kiln’s shut off to keep the flames rolling as the kiln slowly drops in temp). The top hit cone 11, while the bottom cone 10 only bent halfway, meaning that the bottom of the kiln was only fired to cone 9. All but two of my dark clay tests taco-d and/or slumped, so this is definitely a cone 9 clay-body, contrary to its claims of being a cone 6-12 clay. It is very fluxxy due to ~40% redart content, but the tests that stayed cooler got some really cool flashing and soda interaction. I love its rich brown color and will still continue to play around with it.

But these are pretty! ^

I think my goblet and stein turned out awesome. I absolutely love the speckling effects brought out from the downfire and how the soda hit these surfaces and created more dimensionality in the forms. I put a bit of Patsy’s Green that I mixed up last fall in holes/dips that water would naturally gather and I like that extra little bit of detail the pops of watery blue add to the vessels.

At long last, I’m done with this stupid stool. I think it is silly, and I’m glad I made it, but it’s a wonder to me that it made it through the bisque and a lot of abuse in its greenware stage without revealing a single crack. Some cracks finally revealed themselves at the high temperatures, and she’s a little wobbly, but she stands and I did sit on her for a few minutes and enjoyed my time. A fine experiment. She’ll live outside the kiln yard for the foreseeable future. Onto bigger and better stools.

My two propriocepta turned out even better than I’d have hoped! They were just raw fired with a soda solution soak and some soda ash sprinkled in their interiors.

Doing my part! Threw 10 simple bowls for Empty Bowls next month.

I also worked on sculpting a super thick base to cradle the bottom of my tall two-parter sculpture. I plan to run a steel rod through it for extra support and stability. I don’t have a photo of it to share yet, but it’s done and will be slowly drying out over the next couple weeks.

Also, one of my cups made it into SIP: A Ceramic Cup Show in Savannah, GA :)

Tomorrow, my cohorts and I depart for NCECA at 5am. I can’t wait!

artists on my mind

Nicole Seisler

Week 9 & 10 - Spring Break Soda!

artists on my mind

Week 11 - My First NCECA!!!

Week 8 - I Sculpted. That’s It.