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slabroller idea

updated tue 30 apr 96

 

FMIRANDA@alpha.CC.OBERLIN.EDU on wed 24 apr 96

To Sue who didnt like the canvas imprint on the clay, I've seen a potter
who lays a very old soft piece of cotton (an old sheet) over the slab
table, and you can lay it over the clay too after you press it once...then
you don't get the canvas imprint, which I also don't like most of the
time..
Sharon

Pelly123@aol.com on fri 26 apr 96

Thanks for all of your ideas...yes, my son (the mad extruder) and I have
pretty much decided that something from the sewing room would be the
answer...pellon and sheets are at the top of the list...though it is
interesting to note that the first pass should be made through the
canvas....he will be stopping at a paint store during his travels to get a
canvas drop cloth..

He is a much more mechanical person than I am and I think he will get
considerably more use out of the new equipment than I will....I love to throw
clay and my visions are mostly of combining these new things with my
throwing....he, on the other hand has been making wall hangings...and
extruding, extruding, extruding...I think the fun for him is just
extruding....he has been leaving the extrusions on the table for me to make
things with and the results, I must say, are very pleasing...round one is in
the kiln today... I will devote a few hours this weekend to making forms on
the new hump molds now that I know how to smooth the slabs...

Now that I see so many of us using this equipment....I thought perhaps a
question to the group in general....how about using this equipment and molds
and ram presses and all instead of the more basic sculpting and throwing? I
took the first week of April off to work in peace for ten days and I
did...Before I got started, I went to a local Rochester craft store, a very
good one...Craft Company #6 because it is near my studio. My intention was
to go and look at the pottery and absorb because it was still full from
NCECA... I am not a person who needs ideas...my mind and my heart are full of
them...but I find that I need to look at the craftmanship of other potters
from time to time to bring home my desired outcome. Some of you might have
seen Mike Carrol's Studio Sales booth at NCECA....I buy from him on occasion
and a visit to his studio strikes me with awe over his incredible
craftsmanship. I told him so and he told me he is exactly like me...that he
comes all the way home from pottery affairs thinking the same "I've got to do
better...I must improve my craft"...so I think all of us do the same.

When I looked at all the pottery in Craft Co, I found very little hand thrown
and I was very disappointed....most had done very nicely with their presses
and molds..and one person had rolled a slab, draped it over a loaf size
rectangle hump..a one inch rim...the outside had the canvas marking on it and
the inside had been smoothed, some flowers painted on it . a highly priced
vessel....I thought the craftsmanship was so poor...how could this be in this
store? I see this new equipment as a way to incorporate some things into my
work....are we moving to doing things as quickly and as easily as we can?
and calling it craft?????..

Sue

..

Jack Phillips on sat 27 apr 96

>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I see this new equipment as a way to incorporate some things into my
>work....are we moving to doing things as quickly and as easily as we can?
> and calling it craft?????..
>
>Sue
>
>.

Sue,

Here again, it's not the equipment, it's the temptation that
some succumb to by slaping something together and calling it art.
"quick and dirty"


Jack Phillips
STONART Ceramic art
Portland, Oregon