This Year's Offerings

 

Many of you who have been following my blog for a while (did I really start this in 2008?!) will remember that I started studying ceramics not long after. Through the years, I've developed a Hallowe'en style, one definitely influenced by my Japanese-American teacher, Yoshio Taylor. 

I've tried to maintain a mix of whimsy and creepiness, probably a leftover of my memories of those Hallowe'ens of the 1970's, largely thought to be the "golden age" of Hallowe'en. We had had the Universal Monsters for years and years, we had those horrors of the 1950's and the Addams Family and the Munsters from the 1960's. In the 1970's and 1980's, we got our horror hosts, and waited eagerly for Zacherle or Elvira to stalk (or slink, in Elvira's case!) across the screen and show us our movie of the week.

Mixed in there was the artistic aesthetic of the 1920's and 30's Hallowe'en retailers who released The Bogie Book and other catalogues like it. Beistle was releasing wonderful die-cuts, which some people were smart enough to keep so future collectors could enjoy them.

I've been doing this for a while now, and while my intent was never to get rich, I've enjoyed a small measure of success. More so now that I'm officially back from an unwanted and forced five-year hiatus from the Hallowe'en folk art circuit.

While the location of what's come to be known as, "The Annual Mugshot" has changed, my love for making these critters has not! Someone suggested I'd get tired of carving jack-o'-lanterns at some point and move on to other things, but that hasn't happened, yet. I still love them, and the joy people have in the jacks they purchase from me keeps me making them. 

After all, jack-o'-lanterns are meant to ward off evil spirits, and we definitely want that protection when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest!

Meanwhile, I've added functional ceramics into the mix, changing up the style a little here and there as new glazes get added to my palette and new ideas surface.

Some are pop-culture inspired, some are things I'd imagine in some witch's apothecary, holding spell components.

This jar is a little Zen. Curses on one side, Blessings on the other. They're always a mixed bag, aren't they?

And then there are those other parts of the spell's recipe...

Some things are just a fun way to get that all-important spell component - caffeine - into your system with a little style...

My annual Artist Open House is this Sunday, and the remainder of this year's Hallowe'en offerings will be available towards the end of next week in the ShellHawk's Creations Etsy store. (No, I haven't gotten my other shop up, yet. I have yet to find someone to do the work of figuring out the platform!) I'll do an announcement as to when the shop update will be so you all will have a crack at getting a piece of handmade, Hallowe'en bliss before it's too late!

Short Update - Jars and More!

After Midsummer Scream, I was exhausted! Three days of long hours and lots of people was more draining than I had remembered, and I imagine at least some of that is having been isolated for so long due to the Covid-19 lockdowns. I got too used to being alone or just with my folks and suddenly - 50,000 people! Eeek!

I gave myself a week off and then got back to work, this time on some apothecary jars, big enough to be cookie jars!

Sadly, yours truly pulled a total rookie move and picked up one of the greenware (almost bone dry) jars wrong and cracked it. I did my best to repair it, but even as I put it in the kiln for the first firing, I was fairly sure it wouldn't survive. I was right.

The upside is, I know a potter who can make another one! Yay, me!

So the ones which came out of the kiln are in the process of being glazed. Three of them are a commission for my friend Emma, over at Soap Cauldron. She and her crew recently moved into a new, larger space and she wants to put them in her store! I'm very excited for her expansion, because that means I get to keep using her wonderful, handmade soap fo a long time to come!

This weekend, I was fortunate enough to be helping out at Digital Day at the DGA! Every year, the Directors Guild holds an invitation-only event to feature the latest in digital technology for film and TV. I was working with some folks who are doing some truly incredible things with AI, DGene (soon to be Artemi), and got to once again see the results of a shoot I produced just before Covid shut everything down.

It was fantastic to see the advances they've made since then, and also to check out a couple of the VFX sequences which their subsidiary, Makuta VFX, did for Netflix's RRR. (Check out the sequence at 2:19 of the trailer!)

Life has been so much fun, lately! I'm so eager to see what comes next!

News from the Nest!

It's been a little bit, hasn't it? Have you been missing my gripping and enticing prose? No? I'm crushed, but I will sally forth with the latest updates.

First, I was lucky with my latest firing, as you can see above. I went off the reservation and did a bisque firing and a low-fire glaze firing, in the same firing! All mixed together, willy-nilly! 

And it turned out so well!

You may reasonably ask why it might be such a big deal to mix glaze and bisque. Honestly? I never looked it up! I just never saw it done when I was in school and thought that maybe it had to do with the chemicals released by the heat of the firing. But then I saw someone mix glaze and bisque when glaze and bisque firing were at the same temperature without major issues, so I thought, why not?

Some clays and glaze don't reach maturity until they're fired at higher temperatures. Low fire clays mature between 1945°F and 1971°F. When you fire low fire glazes, they flux at about the same temps, give or take. If you get into super-duper low fire like lusters or china paints, you're looking at around 1283°F, give or take. But this firing had both clays and glazes at the same temp, so no biggie! I love how the glaze pieces turned out, especially the Day of the Dead jacks!

In other news, I had a successful stoneware firing, which results will be in my shop shortly tonight at 6:00 PM PST! I got some more of those Supernatural-inspired cups, mugs, and tankards put together, because:

1. I am obsessed, still
2. I love the peace that carving clay gives me
3. I love making things for fans of SPN, because I know they appreciate my handmade work
4. Did I mention I'm obsessed with Supernatural?
5. I love carving "Hey, Assbutt!" because it makes me giggle like a thirteen-year-old kid

But there's other, not so happy, news. Etsy is being a collective, corporate, dickbag, with imminent changes to come on April 11th and how it will affect my shop.

Despite soaring revenues Etsy has made lately -transaction fees are going UP 30%. That makes this April 11 fee hike an increase of 85% within five years. (I literally got $8 for a $50 cup, recently. I'm sure you can see why this isn't a sustainable business model.)

On top of the transaction fees I must pay a flat listing fee, payment processing fees, and other service fees, including a 12 percent advertising commission each time a customer comes to my shop and makes a purchase from an ad placed by Etsy — a program anyone making more than $10,000 a year is required to join.
This means after April 11th I'll be adjusting my prices accordingly. I'll also be searching for a different online outlet for my work, one which is more sustainable for me and makes my work more affordable for my customers.

If you have something in your cart- or was thinking of buying, from my shop or anyone else's...I would do it now. Thank you, as always, for your support.

Progress? Yes!

It's been a busy month, and it's only day 3? Holy goodnight!

Well, to be honest, I'd been working to get a new bunch of Supernatural cups and mugs finished before my annual Thanksgiving trip to Sacramento to get together with friends.

It was getting a little hard to get up and get things done before work. It's cold in the mornings, and it's been either foggy or damp, which adds to my discomfort and to the drying time for the work!

But you know me, if you've followed the blog for any amount of time. I don't let discomfort slow me down a whole lot! (Though I do admit to taking all the glazing inside that I can, so I can be comfy.)

I've been getting ideas for some more Castiel-themed, bee-related cups and mugs. So far, I just have the one, but the response has been so great, I plan on more like it! The first picture is the unfired cup, with the underglaze painted in. The others are after the first firing.

I always love how they look out of that first firing! The colors are so vibrant! But they need to have their clear glaze and a second firing if they're going to be food-safe, so there's another round of work to do for them: glazing!

I've been considering the last glaze failures and think I might have the issue solved with a new clay body. It's a nice, soft white, cone 5 clay. Although it's white like porcelain (without being as white or translucent as porcelain can be), it's a stoneware clay and a bit tougher. I managed to get a layer or two of glaze on some of them before I left for my trip. You can see I take my studio assistant with me everywhere, nowadays!

I saw my ceramics teacher while I was there and got a mini-lecture for some troubleshooting questions which, as always, was super helpful. I really miss the clay gang of folks I had available to me there. Maybe after this Covid-Omicron nonsense settles down, I'll get some classes here in LA.

 

I decided to do these cups a couple of different ways, to see what ends up working best. Some, I covered in black underglaze with the colored pattern and words and did the bisque firing. When I got them out of the bisque, I covered the words and patterns in wax resist, so that when they're dipped in glaze, the glaze will flow off the wax and keep the pattern and words clean. You can see the process on this video, at around 5:15, if you're interested.

Others, I just covered in a celadon glaze I kept from my old studio and just painted it on in layers. Because a good celadon glaze has a translucent quality to it, the deeper carving will show up in a darker pool of green and the higher points will be lighter in color. I think they're going to turn out really pretty, and the celadon gives it a bit of an Asian feel. The celadon, by the way, looks almost white before it's fired.

 

Finally, we have those medallion mugs! In playing with the design, I thought having a combination of colors would be fun to have on the cup and partially around the medallion. The picture below shows only one layer of glaze, which is actually going to be blue! You'd think it would be red, but that's not how the chemistry of the glaze works.

 

After all of that, and cleaning up the bottoms so they don't stick to the kiln shelves and get destroyed, and checking for overflow into the patterns, they were ready to get loaded into the kiln. When I left for work yesterday, the kiln temp had gone from 45°F to 97°F. When it's done, it will have gone up to around 2167°F with a twenty minute hold.

Now I get to spend some time getting all the other work into the shop that I haven't gotten to, yet!

Progress!

Stamped bowl, painted with iron oxide and then wiped so it
only sits in the deep parts.

I love making. I detest glazing. I really, really do.

It's absolutely agonizing,  how long glazing actually takes, particularly when you have stamped and carved pieces which tend to giggle at you if you get the idea that you can just dip them in glaze and have it all turn out without little glaze-less patches where air bubbles develop!

So you have to go in first with a small brush and whatever glaze or oxide or whatever you want to use, and painstakingly paint into those deep spots so that when you do finally dip your piece, you don't end up with ugly bare areas.

And people wonder why handmade is so expensive!

The folks over at the ceramics studio have been so accommodating, scheduling so that I can get things rolling forward. We're two, three-hour sessions in (the last session, a kind friend helped me!) and I have at least one more. I actually brought a couple of jars with their glaze home so I can paint the low spots before I get back into the studio this Sunday. I am really hoping I can get it all done this next session!

My open house date is nearly here: October 3! 

Don't panic, don't panic, DON'T PANIC!

What's Taking So Long?!

Glazing and testing. That's what's taking so long!

I got my mugs fired, as you know, but then the problem of the right clear glaze came up. I called up Amaco, which manufactures my underglazes, and got the skinny on what they used for the clear they use on their high fire test tiles. It can't just be a regular clear because of the underglazes; the zinc in the glaze can react poorly with the colors and you end up with a milky or foggy layer. I found out they offer a dipping glaze and ordered it. And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally I call them back. It turns out the raw materials are hard to get (thanks, Covid-19 and Delta) and they didn't know when they'd have the dry glaze mix available. I ordered from one of their distributors, but almost immediately got a call that they didn't have it. I found myself wondering why they didn't have it marked, "out-of-stock," but whatever, right? I finally found a gallon jug of the brush-able stuff and had it shipped. So now, of course, the quick dip has turned into painting several coats onto each piece, which is harder than it sounds. A second coat can start pulling up the first coat and the ceramist starts to strongly consider a nervous breakdown!

Meanwhile, I started the touch-up process on the things I'd already fired. When the clear finally arrived, I was good to go, but for one thing.

Underglazed ware, waiting for clear glaze. 

 

 

The glaze test.

Normally, I'd dive right in and take all my glazed stuff over to the nearby ceramics center for firing and damn the torpedoes, but I needed to test it first. The Supernatural-inspired mugs were a ton of work, and the thought of having all of them ruined makes me sick to my stomach. As much as I'd like to just forge ahead and hope the Kiln Gods are feeling happy today, I had to cave in to good sense and start a glaze test.  

 The original plan was to put one cup into their firing for testing, but since the ceramics center isn't doing an oxidation firing for another three weeks, I went ahead and decided to take a chance in my own kiln. I have too many people asking for these to keep them waiting! I started it this morning. You'll note the screen says it's eight hours and twenty minutes to complete the firing. It's likely to be the day after tomorrow before I can safely open the kiln at around 100°.

Non-ceramics folks won't know that having all of the pieces of your glaze firing working together is paramount to a successful firing. What that means is the clay body and the glaze body have to "fit" together; the technical term is "glaze fit." The glaze can't shrink in the cooling process faster than the clay it's being fired on, or you can get shivering or crazing in your glaze, which makes it unsafe. The clay body is my favorite 8-11 buff, which means it can be fired to vitrification (leak-proof) at cones 8 to 11. I decided to try this test at Cone 8, which is roughly 2320°. I figured since the glaze is primarily for cone 6, the closer I kept to that temperature, the better my results would be.

I'll let you know in a couple of days.

All hail the Kiln Gods!