Design from the Least Expected Things

This is my recently completed piece. It's bone dry greenware and ready for bisque fire.

The base piece (the honey comb looking thing) started out as an experiment using cardboard packaging and coating it with paper clay slip. I have not done this before and wanted to try it out to see what will happen and how it will hold up in high fire to Cone 10 reduction.

I like the shape of it and where it was going so I decided to make it more complete by adding some of my trademark organic pods.

This piece will be essentially white on white with no colored glazes. The pods have been dipped in a beaded white glaze. At Cone 10, this glaze will "bead up" and crackle, so I hope. By using paper clay, it is possible to do a one-fire from greenware directly to Cone 10 and bypassing the bisque fire. However, since I fire most of my works in a community kiln, they may not allow me to do that.

I'll post the finished piece when I have it all completed.

Van Gilder's Flashing Slip

I had a fellow ceramic artist ask me about the Van Gilder's flashing slip. Here's my understanding of it. The information presented is from my own experiences.

The Van Gilder's flashing slip is a thick slip that's available for use at the Irvine Fine Arts Center. It can be used thick for slip trailing or thinned down for painting application with a brush.

In theory, it is supposed to "flash" (ie have twinges/flashes of yellows, oranges) when you fire to Cone 10 reduction (highly reduced firing).  I've only seen in flash orange once on my pinch bowls and it was rather pretty.

I use it because it cracks predictably at Cone 10. It starts cracking after bisque fire to give you a nice texture. Most of the time, I use a wash of red iron oxide or manganese dioxide to impart color into the cracks. The red iron oxide will be anywhere from reddish brown to warm black. The manganese dioxide is blue black.  I sponge off the excess stain from the cracked surface leaving only the stains in the cracks. The piece is then fired to Cone 10 reduction (in a gas kiln).

When applied correctly, the results are very attractive. This piece has the flashing slip applied to the tentacled pods and the short stubby thorns.  I used manganese dioxide stain. You can see the cracking in those areas.

This is the kind of flashing that can happen in the correct environment. Notice the oranges.

Kellogg Art Gallery - Ink & Clay 37

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Anthony Foo is pleased to present his new ceramic sculpture, CHRYSALIS, at this year’s Ink and Clay 37. This juried exhibition runs from March 17^th thru April 29^th, 2011 at the Kellogg Art Gallery, Cal Poly Pomona, 3801 West Temple Avenue, Pomona, CA 91768. Phone: (909) 869-4301.

Opening reception is on Saturday, April 9^th from 5:00PM to 7:00PM. Admission is FREE.

Anthony Foo is an Orange County ceramic artist who has exhibited at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA), Kellogg Art Gallery – Cal Poly Pomona, California State University Fullerton (CSUF) Grand Central Art Center, The McGroarty Art Center in Tujunga, and the Irvine Fine Arts Center.

“CHRYSALIS (http://anthonyfoo.com/Chrysalis.htm) is a continuation of my pod series of paperclay sculptures,” says Foo.

“This piece explores the genesis of life, as it transforms from one form to another. The outer “cage” protects the inside and creates a safe sanctuary for the inner being to develop.”

“The interior pod is raku fired, the outer is high fired to Cone 10 reduction in two separate halves and then assembled. The work is mounted with a stainless steel rod into a machined and textured solid aluminum block.”

To arrange an interview with the artist, please call (714) 528-9304, or send an email to info@anthonyfoo.com, or visit the website at www.anthonyfoo.com.

Please check out the Kellogg Art Gallery site after the show opens.http://www.csupomona.edu/~kellogg_gallery/

What's going on?

I made several of these hand-pinched rice mixed with paperclay bowls sometime ago. The inside was coated with Southern Ice porcelain paperclay since I wanted to use the Celadon glaze.

After Cone 10 reduction, I found all my bowls had cracks in them. On the bottom of some of them, it looked like the Celadon glaze had pooled and formed a thick layer.

I was puzzled as to what happened as I had successfully used this method before. I decided to break some of them open to see what was going on inside. The bottom picture shows the culprit and the cause for the cracks.

I concluded that the Southern Ice porcelain paperclay was applied too thickly and in the high fire it contracted more than my regular paperclay and separated from the "shell."

This time around, instead of layering the Southern Ice porcelain paperclay layer by layer using the brush (this is the way I normally do it; it is a slow process but you have control over the thickness of the porcelain application), I decided to do something similar to slip casting, ie pouring my Southern Ice paperclay slip into my bone dry rice-and-paperclay bowls, wait for a while and then emptying the excess out. This resulted in too thick of an application of the Southern Ice porcelain paperclay. My experience with this porcelain paperclay is that it shrinks more than the regular paperclay and when this inner layer is too thick, it is has enough cohesion to pull/shrink away from the bottom of the bowl.

There are several ways to get around this:

1. Go back to layering the inner porcelain layer by hand with the brush method.

2. Use a thinner porcelain paperclay slip.

3. Wet down the bone dry bowl a bit so that it is not so "thirsty" and won't "suck up" the porcelain slip too quickly.

4. Do not wait too long to pour out the excess, if you are using the slip cast method.

I'm back using the #1 method as I can control how many layers of the porcelain slip I apply. I have not experimented with the other methods.

Perlite and Paperclay - Part III

This was a small test block I made with perlite and paperclay - 1" square x 4"H.

After the bisque fire, I sanded the sides to expose the voids. No glazes or oxides were used on the surface of the test piece. It was fired to Cone 10 reduction. The warm toasty color is the natural color of this manufacturer's paperclay (IMCO).

In this piece, you can see the melted perlite in the voids better (about 1/2" off the base near the right edge).

For some applications, this may be an interesting texture to have.

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!

From little pinch pots grow wonderful creations!

This sculptural vase set started from 3 very humble pinch pots that I demonstrated for my paperclay class at the Irvine Fine Arts Center.

After the 3 individual pinch forms were bone dry, they were joined using dry to dry techniques. Additional textural elements at the base of the forms were also added, using the same technique.

Outside glaze is Tenmoku. The Tenmoku glaze breaks to a very nice brown color where the glaze is thinner. I opted for this glaze instead of Coleman's Gloss Black to give an aspect of texture and dimensionality to the composite form. Inside was glazed wax white. These glazes are part of the standard set of glazes available at the Irvine Fine Arts Center.

The paperclay is Aardvark IMCO Ivory sculpture paperclay. High Fire Cone 10 reduction.

Size: 11"H x 9"W x 11"D