Soaring Voices - Contemporary Japanese Women Ceramic Artists Exhibition

It's great to see contemporary ceramic art coming out of Japan and especially so from a group of Japanese women ceramic artists!

I found out about this show from one of the students from Kaoru Kaplan who teaches Japanese-inspired ceramics at the Irvine Fine Arts Center.

Here is the direct link to the English version of the announcement:

http://www.modern-ceramic-art.com/english/index.html

The official Japanese site is:

http://www.modern-ceramic-art.com

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!

Ink and Clay 36

Here is the Ink and Clay 36 announcement. Below is an earlier post I made about my piece that will be in the show. The direct link is:
http://antjhfoo.blogspot.com/2010/01/ink-and-clay-36-at-kellogg-art-gallery.html

The beauty of Black Mountain

Black Mountain sculpture clay (from Aardvark) is one of my favorite "traditional/regular" clay. I like it for its texture, color and feel of it. Paperclay is my clay of choice and I use this Black Mountain clay when my sculpture calls for it. With paperclay, I can incorporate this "regular" clay using my "sandwich" technique (See earlier post). It gives a very nice contrast to the lighter colored clays (for example, southern ice porcelain paperclay) without the use of additional glazes.

I always let the clay dictate what kind of a rim the piece likes to have. I do not trim the rim at all. The natural way the rim develops in all of my pinch forms gives them their own uniqueness and personality. For me, this gives me a most satisfying feeling. The form becomes what it wants to be. I let it be and enjoy what it has become - naturally.

Size: 4.5" dia x 3.5"H. No glaze. Hi fire Cone 10 reduction. Black Mountain sculpture clay.

Business cards as framed art

I got these as my new business cards. They are called Moo Mini cards and I really like them. They are about 1/2 the size of a regular business card. The nice thing about this company is that you can have a different image on each of your 100-card order if you like.

I figured since I already have images of my sculptures I might as well re-purpose them and use them to make my unique business cards. I got this ready-made black acrylic frame from the same company as an art frame. What you see here is a collection of my cards. The way you arrange the cards are up to you. You can re-configure them to have a totally new look.

Taking a photograph of the framed "art" with a shiny acrylic protective piece over it is tricky, but you get the idea. I've cropped out the 1 1/2" black frame to give a better view of the cards themselves. I have 27 individual designs for my business cards, the frame here holds 20. I have purposely selected a close-up view of my sculptures to make them even more abstract and is interesting to go to my website to "hunt" for the image to see the entire piece.

The company also does regular size business cards, greeting cards, note cards, etc. Here's the link to the company, www.moo.com. The layout of the cards is done online on their site.

If you do make your order by credit card, you will be charged a financial transaction fee as the company is based in the UK. The cards are of a heavy card stock and are printed and packaged in Rhode Island, USA. Sounds like I'm a salesperson for the company but I'm not and am not getting any compensation from them. Check them out if you are interested. The cards have worked out very well for me, and everyone I've given the card to is totally enamored by the uniqueness of the concept.

Cone 5 porcelain paperclay - one firing.

These pinch forms are made from Aardvark Papel porcelain Cone 5 paperclay. It was fired to Cone 5 from greenware without going through the bisque stage. Shrinkage is about 15%. This is just an approximation. I did not make any measurements but they sure came out a lot smaller than when they went it.

A one-fire process saves time and more importantly, energy, either gas or electricity, so it's environmentally friendlier. To me, ceramics has never been a "green" undertaking as so much energy is needed to convert the raw clay to something that is totally different from the starting material.

Depending on your paperclay project, a one-fire process may be applicable to you.

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.