a short but intense wood firing in sweltering NY summer heat and humidity! huge thanks to andrew sartorius and okidoki studio, as well as christian mclean for invaluable help. unloading in three days…

hm: making for two upcoming wood firings; trying encaustic on wood-fired forms

After nine days of intense work we step away to contemplate next steps. Sifting through photos from our first collaborative studio session, serendipitous/probing juxtapositions of familiar and experimental begin to hint at bolder mash-ups to come. We return to our more normal routines with homework assignments leading up to our next collaborative studio session…

To a potter it really feels like cheating, but to a lover of wood-fired pots the visuals are compelling. The encaustic process also admits a familiar focus on physicalities of material (wax) and metamorphosis (flaming with a propane torch)…

A sculptor-painter and ceramicist-scientist strive to develop a glaze palette. Never has the rift between materiality and language seemed so great — words about wants are so multivalent, the chemistry can be unpredictable, and the turnaround time of mixing, sieving, applying and firing glaze tests severely limits our iterations. Clay as ground (as on a canvas, apart from being earth); the folly of trialing delicate, translucent color on a brown ground (HM: oops, should have suggested we start with porcelain); glaze as inseparable pigment and varnish; the methodological gulf between coloring a made form and making with colored materials…

The beginnings of a dialogue on clay and form. Some axes of encounter: weightless surfaces/textures versus integral masses and volumes; the wholeness and self-sufficiency of vessels versus the visceral appeal of fragments and agglomeration; loose freshness versus refined poise; intimate versus monumental scale…

HM traveled to spend nine days working with JP in her expansive studios in Tivoli, NY. Much of the first few days was spent gathering supplies and setting up a ceramics work area. Kiln, extruder, slab roller, potter’s wheel and the elements of a mini glaze lab now mingle with welder, angle grinders, torches and rigging that are JP’s more customary apparatus.

visual inspirations: Linda Sormin (detail, gallery view at MA MOCA); Lauren Mabry (NCECA)