Welcome to my blog

 Welcome to my blog. 

I've never written a blog before - so this will be a new adventure - I'm not sure quite yet what I will write, but mostly about art is what I am thinking! 


So Welcome! 

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I'm Torn....Historical vs Different Skills

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 I'm doing some digging into Maiolica research.  I've read Piccolpasso's three treatises on Maiolica a couple of times, and I'm going to go back and dig into it again as both of the last times I've read it, I've come away with different and more information. Each time I've found things that have lead me towards different research and rabbit holes to fall into as well!  One of the things that Piccolpasso talks about in his treatise is that the ceramics were created on a potter's wheel that would have a wooden mold attached to it in order to make the plates or bowls.  This makes complete sense to me, as Piccolpasso was living in the area of the Castel Durante potteries.  These potteries were making mass quantities of pottery for different households, castles and even for the Pope. That said, the artists needed ways to cut time down on making the pieces, and using a mold in the creation of bowls and plates and other dinnerware, makes it considerably easier ...
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A Lesson (Hopefully) Learned

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 Well, this is a bummer.  This photo was posted a few days ago on Facebook.   I knew going into the firing that the plate on the left had a crack, around the ridge but the other plate was completely ok going into the kiln.   After the initial sting of finding them cracked,  I was off to find a reason why this happened and how to keep it from happening again.   What appears to have happened to the first piece was either there was a bit of water left on the piece that settled into the spot where the lip rises and that moisture created a spot of unevenness in the drying process.   For the other piece, that crack appears to have come from uneven heating in the firing.  I had the plates stacked, which I've done many times stacking pieces: tiles, bowls, smaller pieces inside of others, but I think somehow there was an uneven heating causing this crack.   I completed this firing in the test kiln which is a small kiln that ha...
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Art Materials are Expensive, Yo!

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 So in keeping with the making of plates for the series that I'm planning!  The week ended with 6 plates drying last week, and drying this week all under a flannel backed tablecloth.  On Monday, a little clean-up happened on them and set them back to slowly dry (in case that was the reason of the cracking from the last two pieces).   On Friday, impatience got the better of me, and all 6 went into the kiln! One was probably a little damper than I would ordinarily put it in, but again, impatience! While these pieces were going into the kiln, a thought hit me, and so I grabbed the two cracked plates and added a Clay Mender product by Mayco.     I've used this product before, though I prefer making my own paper clay for mending pieces - I've found that paper clay works better for fixing things in the Greenware state.  Paper clay discussion is for another time! :-)  Mayco makes this product, and Amaco makes Bisque Fix - which is a great produ...
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