Sometimes I Do Make Functional Stuff ...

A tall, slab built triangular Ikebana vase. High fire Cone 10 reduction. With green to black flashing slip on greenware. Carbon trap shino on the bisque.

18"H x 7"W x 7"D. I made the piece hefty and heavy to be able to take some large sized branches for an Ikebana arrangement.

I like the sculptural element of the piece. It can stand alone as a sculpture and it also works beautifully as a functional vessel. I think it would look great with some cherry blossoms branches.

Lighting Effects

The left image was my original concept for this piece. I wanted a beam of light shining down into the central aperture and illuminating the contents of the pod.

I took this picture with intentionally low light to illustrate the concept. In a well lit gallery, a much stronger light will be needed.

I think it's really nice to have the edges of the internal pods catch the light.

		Past Lives Revisited, 2010 Paperclay, Black Mountain sculpture clay, Grogzilla high grog sculpture clay, Flashing slip on inside pods. Iron oxide on outside. No glaze. Cone 10 reduction. Central sphere is pit fired. 20”H x 13”W x 8”D

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.

Tea Bowls and Hot Water Pot, 2010

For the past two years, the Irvine Fine Arts Center has sponsored their annual Spring tea set exhibition. It is a quiet event for ceramic artists and potters working at the IFAC to showcase their work and enjoy each other's company over a nice buffet dinner.

Unfortunately, this year the center has been so booked with shows and exhibitions that we won't be able to have this rather unique event. I was so looking forward to it.

This would have been my entry for this year's show, "Tea Bowls and Hot Water Pot." All the pieces are hand-made (no wheel here) from my sculpture paperclay. The outside texture is my distinctive "rice" texture. Iron oxide and manganese dioxide is used to give the deep brown to black color. This time I opt to use the Tomato Red glaze for the inside of the pieces, instead of Celadon. (I have too many pieces with Celadon and wanted to try another color variation). I think with freshly whisked powdered tea ("matcha"), the green frothy texture will play nicely against the rust red of the Tomato Red glaze. The bamboo tea whisk (called "chasen") and scoop ("chashaku") is store bought. I have been using them for over a year so they are getting nicely aged. Eventually the tea whisk will have to be replaced from normal wear and tear. The wooden stand of high quality birch plywood was specially made to display and complement this set.

Size: 14"W x 10"D (size of tray) x 10"H.

Here are the direct links for my previous entries.

2009:

http://anthonyfoo.com/TakeOutTea.htm

http://anthonyfoo.com/RiceTeaSet.htm

2008:

http://anthonyfoo.com/AnemoTea.htm

http://anthonyfoo.com/EmptyCalories.htm

Enjoy the tea sets!

Paperclay & Shrinkage

One of the things I get asked with paperclay is "How much does it shrink?" That is a valid question and after all, it's good to know all the technical details of the clay when one is working with it.

The paperclay and subsequent technical infomation provided here is manufactured by IMCO in Sacramento. It's a proprietary blend and is carried locally here in So. Calif by Aardvark Clay Company in Santa Ana, in 25lbs bag.

The information provided here is from my own experience.

From green to bone dry - 5 %

After bisque - not measured

After high fire (Cone 10 reduction) - 10%

Total shrinkage is around 15%

Considering other traditional clay bodies (total shrinkage ) is anywhere from 8% (low end) to 12-13%(high end), this paperclay shrinkage is quite a bit. It's good to know so you can compensate by making your pieces a bit larger than you normally would.

Perlite and Paperclay - Part I

I've used several type of inclusions with my paperclay. They range from sawdust, wood chips, straw, rice hulls, and cooked rice. Recently I had a chance to try perlite mixed with my paperclay. Perlite is an inorganic material that is used as a conditioner to improve the aeration and water retention properties of soil. I got my bag of Perlite from Home Depot in the garden department. In this test, I was curious to see what the voids look like after the bisque fire.

The picture on the left shows a simple pinch form made from paperclay mixed with perlite. The amount of perlite used is just an estimate; enough to give some kind of texture. It survives the bisque fire without any problems. The form is extremely light. After sanding the outside surface of the form with a metal rasp, the random voids can be seen.

Compare this with the sphere on the right side (it's part of a sculpture I'm currently working on). It this piece, I used paperclay mixed with cooked rice. The mixture was applied as a thin coat (about 3/8" thick) over a bone dry paperclay sphere using paperclay slip as "glue." Many more regular shaped voids can been seen all over the bisqued surface of the sphere after sanding.

I was hoping to see more irregular voids from the perlite. I do see that some of the perlite still remains trapped in the bisque ware. I find the perlite from the bag is more varied in size, some ranging from size of coarse sands to around 1/4" in diameter.

I want to take both of these to high fire (cone 10 reduction) and am curious to see how the perlite behaves. I know how the paperclay mixed with cooked rice will behave as I have been using this technique for several years. I'll post another entry in the blog once I have completed this test.

Another success with Paperclay

I made this planter for an upcoming planter show at the Irvine Fine Arts Center out of salvaged ordinary clay. A big hairline crack (from the rim to almost the center of the bowl) developed in the bowl section of the planter when I used too much force to try to reshape the bowl. Paperclay slurry and slip was used for the patch.

It went through bisque fire and the Cone 10 reduction firing without any problems. The repair held up nicely. Another piece rescued with the help of paperclay slip.

The glaze is carbon trap shino. The piece was too large to be dipped so the glazed was brushed on. More glaze was hand drizzled on the bottom part of the piece.

The picture shows the completed planter with the succulents in place, ready for the show!

Paperclay and Cracking

© 2009 Anthony Foo.

The bane of all ceramic artists - CRACKING! There are many reasons why and when a piece cracks.

1. Crack during the drying stage - greenware

2. Crack after the bisque stage

3. Crack after the high fire (in this case, Cone 10) stage

What to do and how to mitigate the problem. The discussion here pertains only to paperclay, and is based on my personal experiences with the sculpture paperclay from Aardvark Clay Company, Santa Ana. IMCO (from Sacramento) is the manufacturer. I've been using this paperclay since 2004.

1. Crack during drying stage - from leather hard to bone dry greenware.

This is usually due to improper/weak joining, especially when you are doing dry to dry joints. Another reason is unbalanced/uneven drying once the joints are formed. There are 2 kinds of cracks here.

One is a surface crack formed primarily from not using enough moisture in your paperclay slips/slurry. The solution here is to use a thinner paperclay slip (ie more watery slip)  and cover/re-coat the cracks. It may take several applications to completely cover the cracks.

The other more serious one is the deep structural crack due to improper technique. I find that the only way to find out if this is a structural crack is to take a knife or similar tool and dig out the crack and see how deep it goes into your piece. If it is not too deep, the good news is that it can be fixed with paperclay. Remove enough of the dry paperclay until you do not see the crack. Make the hole/opening large enough to do a decent repair/patch job. If during this digging out of the crack, your piece/seam falls apart, then you really know you've not done a good joint. Don't worry. Don't panic. Just start over and this time make sure you spend the time making a good, strong joint with good technique. That's one of the advantage of paperclay. You just can't go wrong with it, and even if you did, it's fixable. This advantage alone gives me peace of mind.

Do not be stingy in your "excavation." Spritz the area well or soak the area with a wet paper towel and let stand for some time for the surrounding dry paperclay to soak up this moisture to create a better moisture balance. Use very "mushy" paperclay to fill in the hole you made. Keep the area moist as the surrounding dry paperclay will want to "suck" the moisture from this spot, so keep the water sprayer handy.

2. Crack after the bisque stage.

Sometimes, even with our best care and technique, we still get cracks in our pieces. Sometimes everything looks good in the green stage, but after the bisque fire, you notice the cracks. If it is a hairline crack, it's really tough to do anything about it. If the crack is large/wide enough to patch with paperclay slip, you may try that. I ususally use a very runny paperclay slip as filler. The bisque piece will absorb the water from the paperclay slip very quickly. Several coats may be necessary to fill the crack. It also depends on how bad/serious the crack is. To be sure my patch holds, I usually re-bisque the piece to test my mending. If it survives, it stands a good chance in the high fire; if not, it's better to remake your piece.

3. Crack after high fire.

This happens sometimes as high fire (Cone 10) puts a lot of strain/stress on a piece, especially tall, vertical pieces.  As sculptural pieces, there is no reason to take it to Cone 10. A Cone 6 firing will do fine. When you find a crack in your piece after a high fire, it's pretty much "putty/epoxy time." Unless your piece is meant to hold water (for example, an ikebana vase or something similar) I usually don't do much about it. Sometimes the crack adds character to the piece, sometimes it does not. At this point, you can't do much fixing it.

A very appropriate quote from my instructor, Julia Klemek, "Don't fall in love with your piece until it comes out of the kiln (this is Cone 10 fire)."