Check it out - Debuse-on-the-Loose- Chandra Debuse

My graduate school experience was as much defined by my studio mates as it was by the course work . I was fortunate to share a studio with a few amazing artists. (TJ Erdahl, Patrick Coughlin, Beau Raymond, Magda Gluzcek, Chris Pickett-Click on their names for websites) One of these, Chandra Debuse, has just launched a website of her work. http://chandradebuse.com


For surface decoration fans her work is a tutorial on how to use line to define form and space. She says of her work "I use images of squirrel antics as metaphors for goal-driven, yet impulsive human behaviors. The ceramic forms are composed of rhythmic, bouncing lines, referencing the path a squirrel takes as it scampers among trees. As squirrels poke their heads around corners looking for the nut, human fingers seek out their own nourishment by roaming the topography of a plate. "


She also has a virtual sketchbook (blog) Debuse-On-The-Loose that is definitely worth checking out. Chandra is currently an artist in residence at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, FL.

Working with negative space while tweaking my blog layout

I'm on a short studio hiatus as PWS moves to a new studio this week. I unloaded a bisque kiln full of mugs, tumblers, serving bowls, and noodle bowls. They went directly into a cardboard box where they will live for the next few weeks. This last batch of pots has been focused on opening up more space in my decoration. I'm thinking about the power of negative space both as a visual tool and a metaphor for the intangibles that shape life. I tend to error on the side of excess so its been a great challenge to say more with less. Less decoration, less words, less consumption, just less in general.

I'm devoting part of my hiatus to tweaking my blog format. After a few hours of reading I managed to alter the  template HTML of the blog to include a navigation bar in the header. I found a great website that makes editing HTML actually seem possible. Check out http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com if you need help with any blogger edits.

Please excuse the broken links for the next week as I figure out how to make this all work right.
Happy potting/tweaking!

Workshopping a new idea - The pros and cons of color

In my studio I'm often engaged in a creative state that I call "work shopping". This is where I have a solid idea/inspiration but I'm not exactly sure how all the details fit together. Its helpful to isolate the variables and then start rearranging them. I learned this in my 9th grade science class and it still helps me understand my own intuition. I find if I don't isolate the variables I change all things at the same time and have no idea why a particular combination works. I think many potters work completely on intuition. This can be exciting but it tends to yield results slowly.

With these teapots the variables I'm working with fit into two categories - form (handle, spout, body, knob) and surface (decoration, color, texture, sheen). The images I posted have similar forms but the surface changes dramatically as color is added. With monochrome pots I play with a variety of tints, shades, and surface changes (gloss - matte - satin). They educate me on the nuts and bolts of how the decoration schemes fit the form. I then color the pots like a coloring book by placing color on specific sections of the pot. From there I can keep making new versions until I find one that is worth repeating on a regular basis. If I reach a plateau with new decoration ideas I go back to the monochrome and work up new perspectives.

Color is an exciting mystery to me. I only recently (after 14 years of potting) have developed the ability to see color on my pots before I make them. Form comes first in my creative process. So now for an informal poll. Which color scheme do you like better- monochrome or color? Pros and Cons?

Tim Ludwig's beautiful pots

Tim Ludwig is a potter and educator from Deland Florida. I know of Tim through the students he taught at Volusa County High school. Their ceramics program always sent fantastic students to the Univ. of Florida. You can find more about Tim and his work in this months PMI. He has the cover article- Spontaneity and Control. The intro to the article states "Tim Ludwig uses an earthenware clay to make forms influenced by Peter Voulkos’s abstract expressionism, then he decorates them in the botanical illustrative style of the 18th century."

I'm a big fan of the way he frames his decoration with form. He creates two dimensional boundaries and then decorates just outside of their edges. The scale relationship gives the feeling that his flowers are going to jump off the pot. It is a really nice way to enliven scientific drawings that sometimes seem stiff when they are in books.

Lao Chang Decorators

I stopped to watch this man decorate for quite a while. His traditional blue and white porcelain represents the continuation of a tradition that started in Jingdezhen in the fourteenth century. He is one of many decorators working in this style at the Lao Chang ceramics factory. By the speed he was going I would say he spends 1 1/2 to 2 days decorating the larger pots. The decoration was composed of hundreds of delicate brush strokes.

A quick blurb from Wikipedia on the subject:
"In the early fourteenth century mass-production of fine, translucent, blue and white porcelain started at Jingdezhen, sometimes called the porcelain capital of China. Chinese blue and white porcelain was once-fired: after the porcelain body was dried, decorated with refined cobalt-blue pigment mixed with water and applied using a brush, coated with a clear glaze and fired at high temperature. Blue and white porcelain made at Jingdezhen probably reached the height of its technical excellence during the reign of the Kangxi emperor of the Qing Dynasty (reigned 1661 to 1722)."


As you can see from the second picture, his shop had no advertisements, no signs, nothing to draw notice to his fine brush working skills. The quality of his work was the only thing that separated him from the studio next door. Most studios that I saw were dimly lit 10 x10 ft spaces, with no AC, and concrete floors.The "showrooms" in this area consisted of pots loosely arranged around the studio.

The decorators have the pots delivered to their studios on carts that are pulled through the alleys by hand. The picture above demonstrates the precarious nature of this form of transportation. This specific picture is of a pot that has been decorated with over glaze. They are taking it to one of the numerous public kilns to be fired.

Each step in the ceramic process provides room for a micro-economic climate to develop. Every pot is touched many times by people who are trying to compete to do the same jobs faster than their competitors. An interesting PHD dissertation could be the study of capitalism and competition in these small workshops.

Sat May 16

I decorated six mugs today. It took most of the day, which in hind site seems ridiculously slow. I have taken the challenge to design my surfaces on paper first so that each piece has a definite composition. This premeditated design is new for me. Until now I have been what you call an intuitive decorator. I always tried to do what I thought other potters meant when they said, "Look at each pot and see what that pot needs." This on the spot method of decoration has created some nice looking pots but it left me unaware of why I was making some of the design decisions I made. I would literally get done decorating at the end of the day and not be able to explain what I was trying to do with the decoration. When asked, what does this decoration do on this form, I have been known to answer "ah...um...decorate it?"

I spent three days this week in my studio only sketching. By sketching I mean designing my 2d spaces on paper, not designing the pots by drawing contour sketches. I already had 3d forms that I was designing for so all I had to do was plot out space. It was surprisingly hard, but not because the process was complicated. There is nothing complicated about crayons, color pencils and newsprint. It was hard because I love clay. Anytime I spend in my studio not touching clays feels like I'm cheating on my high school sweat heart. I have to get over this because I know sketching can be a great tool. Kind of like suicide sprints minus the sweat.
So after three days I have many, many, 2 x 3 ft pieces of newsprint filled with full scale sketches. Im posting pics to show what Ive been up to. If you look at the group mug shot you can see the same honeysuckle pattern that I developed in the sketches. The honeysuckle pattern has a lot of promise. I had to do honeysuckle because its blooming right now around Gainesville and it smells great!


This is one of my favorite new patterns. Its developed from a french roller print pattern that appears on page one of Susan Meller and Joost Elffer's seminal pattern book "Textile Designs:Two hundred years of European and American Patterns...yada yada yada.." Any body that is interested in pattern should definately check this book out. Its about $15 used on Amazon.

Square Dinner Plate

This plate has many of the same qualities that I appreciate in quilts. I try to build in multiple layers of detail and pattern. Floral and geometric patterns are placed on the square plate in a similar way as stitching is applied to a quilt square.

Center Diamond Amish Quilt 1915

This Center Diamond Pattern is from Lancaster Pa around 1915-25. I appreciate the contrast between the simplicity of the over all geometric pattern and the complexity of the stitches and colors. The color scheme is a triad of a purple, green, and blue contrasted with a brilliant red. Each color has a seperate stitched pattern with in its square. From a distance you see the color but up close you see the individual stitches. I try to create this relationship of distance/detail in my own work.