American Ceramic Society Annual Show 2010

Two of my pieces "Made in America" and "Emergence" are going to be in this year's American Ceramic Society Annual Show at the McGroarty Arts Center in Tujunga, CA.

Opening reception: Saturday, June 12th from 5:00 - 9:00PM.

The exhibition will run June 14th thru 26th.

Gallery hours: Monday - Saturday, 10:00AM - 6:00PM

McGroarty Arts Center is located at 7570 McGroarty Terrace, Tujunga, CA 91042.

Made in America, 2009

Bmix and sand sculpture clay, paperclay, natural bamboo chopsticks, acrylic paint. High fire. Cone 10 reduction.

Oversized take-out boxes, fortune cookies and chopsticks.

Arrangement: 18"H x 21"W x 18"D

For the story behind this piece, click here for earlier post.

Emergence, 2009

Sculpture paperclay, flashing slip. Iron oxide and Manganese dioxide.

No glaze. High fire. Cone 10 reduction.

21”L x 11”H x 12”D

Making Your Own Blender Blade For Under $5.00

I decided to make my own blender tool for pulp and clay slurry preparation. All the parts can be purchased from any hardware or home improvement store.

Here's the breakdown of the parts:

• One Tie plate - 50 cents
• One 24" long threaded rod, 5/16" dia - $1.76. I would have preferred an 18" long rod instead of the 24", but the store did not carry the 18" length.
• One packet of nylon lock nuts, 5/16" dia - 98 cents. You only need one lock nut from the 2 that comes in the packet.
• Two nuts 5/16"dia - 20 cents

With CA sales tax, it comes up to $3.75

I had to enlarge the central hole in the tie plate with a 1/4"drill bit to accommodate the threaded rod.

After that, assembly was very straight forward as seen in the picture.

An electric drill fits into the other end of the blender tool. Make sure the drill chuck is well tightened before use.

Disclaimer: Use caution, wear gloves, and eye protection for your own safety when operating electric tools. Use at your own risk.

Yet Another Kitchen Tool Recruited!

This is the blender I used when I made my Black Mountain paper clay (see earlier post Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 here). It was an old one that kind of worked intermittently. I was able to salvage it for use in my ceramic studio so I was happy to re-purpose it for another life.

As the immersion part of the blender is only so long, I had to blend in small portions. The blade works really good in chopping up the soaked paper packaging.

Since then, I've gotten a brand new one for the kitchen. Great for making strawberry smoothies.

Disclaimer: Use caution, wear gloves, and eye protection for your own safety when operating electric tools. Use at your own risk.

Paper Clay Workshop, June 19, 2010

I will be teaching a one-day hands-on paper clay workshop in June. Here are the details.

Date: Saturday, June 19, 2010.

Venue: My home studio in Placentia. Class size is limited to 8-10 students.

Time: 9 AM to 4PM. One-hour lunch break at noon.

Please contact me for more information at antjhfoo@gmail.com

Students will be able to view my sculptures up close in my home gallery. This will be a great opportunity for Q&A.

Anthony
www.anthonyfoo.com
http://antjhfoo.blogspot.com

Paper clay And Structural Support

Case Study: "Within Us"

This is the completed piece. It is mounted with a stainless steel pin into a solid textured aluminum block.

The issue arises when it comes time to fire the piece, first in the bisque fire and then to Cone 10 reduction. Due to the shape of this piece, I knew I had to create some kind of a support or scaffolding to prop up the piece during the firing process, and one that is strong enough to withstand a high fire at Cone 10.

The scaffolding was made from paper clay with a combination of dry-to-dry and leather hard-to-dry joining techniques.

Creating a piece is one thing, completing it is another. In a piece like this where there is no stable base for the piece to rest on, I had to devise something. Paper clay allows me to easily "engineer" this support to accomplish this end.

For the story behind this piece, click on this link.

This piece is in a private collection in Orange County, CA.