Sally McLeod on tue 10 may 05
I am resending this post, because I didn't see it on clayart (I could have missed it) along with another post regarding manganese.
Date:Wed, 20 Apr 2005 15:30:00 -0700 (PDT)From:"Sally McLeod" Subject:Burnishing -- Long!To:clayart@lsv.ceramics.org [input] [input] [input] [input] Sorry to be so late in contributing to the discussion on burnishing.
When Darrell and I started burnishing pots, we used the technique of putting a light coating of salad oil on the piece while it was considered greenware (firm enough to handle without distorting the piece, but not bone dry.) We would put towels on our laps and sit burnishing the pots with our favorite stones (my favorite is a piece of mahogany obsidian) . We both like to burnish. The going is slow, but meditative for me. I like to sit out on the deck looking at the oaks, eucalyptus and the squirrels jumping from branch to branch. Darrell also enjoys burnishing; however, he prefers to be doing it while watching sports on TV. He does a terrific job of burnishing and has done lots of it.
We got away from using the oil after a couple of smoke producing bisque firings. Now we just use water to dampen the area of the pot that we're going to work on. In fact, we have found that the extruded pieces we use for my sculptures can be bone dry. We just take a bucket of water and dip the tubes in it and remove them quickly. When you start this process with the tubes, they just feel like an excluded tubes of clay. However, after wetting them and spending time with the rock burnishing the tubes, they have the feel of the bone. It's like the burnishing process breathes life into them.
The tubes are furnished only once, but pots may be burnish to couple of times. All of the pieces are bisque fired to cone O18. The tubes are used to make sculpture pieces. When we first began the pit firing process. I was trying to string pieces of pottery on an aircraft cable and find other ways of using pieces in a sculptural fashion.
At this point I should stop until you that I use a bamboo walking stick for stability, and especially when I'm in a new environment. I love a bamboo. I love its feel, its strength and in it's beauty! I have purchased bamboo and also received it as a gift. I wash it with soap and water, clean it up with very fine steel wool, give it a couple coatings of shoe polish and then I add a rubber tip at the base. A metal washer is put in the tip to prevent the bamboo from cutting through the tip. Sometimes, I've put two quarters in instead of the washer. I figured that way a person would always have $.50 for a phone call, but in this day in age of cell phones, you don't see as many phone booths. I share the walking sticks with my neurologist, and also with members in my Parkinson support group
It wasn't until I read Barrel, Pit, and Sager Firing, a ceramics monthly handbook, that I had the idea of of using dowels to create bamboo sculptures with pit fired pieces. Actually I've just spent some time paging through the handbook and can't find the reference wanted. I was looking for the article that was written by David Kuraoka (SFSU) and mentions that he had a graduate student that did sculptures using dowels. I saw no photos of the student's work, but in a flash I connected dowels and bamboo. By the way the above-mentioned handbook is an excellent source of information on pit firing and other techniques.
Once when I went into Orchard Supply Hardware looking for some sort of material to put between pieces of my clay "bamboo", the clerk asked me to what I was carrying. . .. bamboo? It pleased me no end that I had somewhat captured the essence of bamboo. We are continuing to work on bamboo sculptures.
To view some of our pieces, check out the following web site:
http://share-dell.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAOGLhu2cOW7jA
Happy burnishing!
Sally
P.S. I know my ramblings won't stand the test of grammer etc., but this post has taken as much energy as I've have to give.
Vicki Hardin on tue 10 may 05
Sally McLeod wrote "To view some of our pieces, check out the following web site:
http://share-dell.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAOGLhu2cOW7jA
Sally, this is beautiful work. Would you tell us more about the process you used to finish the lamp 13490010.jpg?
Best Regards,
Vicki Hardin
http://vickihardin.com
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