Bowls for Great Bowls of Fire!

My current project, the first of the fall season, is the creation of bowls for Great Bowls of Fire.

My objective is to produce at least 25 bowls that I can donate to the Guild sponsored fundraiser for the Ottawa Food Bank.

As always, when extruding the first portion of a clay block through the extruder template I was presented with a raw edged shape. Since I was thinking about the basic concept of the exercise and in particular the idea that Colette Beardall espoused about not loosing sight of the fact that the entire exercise is to provide some physical support for people who do not have enough to eat, I saw in the rough form a bowl shape that one might see if they used half a harvested coconut shell.

And so I began to form these imagined nature-given bowls by following the lead of the clay as expressed the energy that compressed it and forced it through the semi-circular opening in the template. Not only the overall shape of the vessel that was produced, but the lines on its inner and outer surfaces created by the rough edges of the semi-circular template hole.

After producing the first batch I mixed some dark and light clay together for the second batch in order to help the viewer more see the current of clay that made the walls of the bowl and the bold patterns that were created in the process.

If you have thirty seconds please watch the video to see a sample bowl and how I incorporated the Ottawa Food Bank logo to remind people what it is all about.

Nourishing My Soul

On Saturday Joan and I went to the Merrickville Artists Guild Studio Tour Sale. We first visited Robin Baker's studio... and what a studio and what a story it has... complete with a wonderful creative energy. We hadn't seen Robin for about 23 years when we moved away from our home on Bolton Road.

Robin is a multiple media artist whose greatest love is the human figure: http://www.robinbakerartist.com/

We then visited Holley Dean's studio The Studio at Greyweathers and while Joan renewed contact with Holley I poked around and soaked in the warm creative energy of her studio which she shares with her partner Larry Thompson. I felt stimulated creatively but also felt a strong emotion build in me that was strongly tinged with a melancholy which I didn't understand.

Afterwards Joan and I decided to go for a walk to the canal and avoid overloading ourselves with more exposure to other artists' creative energies.

While walking we talked about our studio visits and I told Joan of my emotional response at Greyweathers. We explored it for a while and I told her of my current worries about expending energy and time writing another OttawaPottery.com newsletter and how I found that after going to my studio every morning for the past few weeks I simply didn't want to make time for the newsletter.

After following the line of thought for a while she suggested that my issue was that I wanted to be feeding my soul and not my ego.

I found such comfort in these words and I am so glad to have found the words that express my current state that I decided to return to my blog share this revelation.

So, tomorrow I go back to the studio and my clay and my current Great Bowls of Fire! project and continue the nourishment of my soul.

The year 2009 is the year I get back to pottery.

It has started with a candle inspired by the organ pipes at St. Luke's Church on Somerset Street in Ottawa.

The allure of the pipes is partly because of the church environment and my growing appreciation of the history of church architecture, especially medieval cathedrals. Also, pipes sure speak of extruded clay and that is exactly what I would like to start with, more extruded ceramic projects!

I just raced out to my studio to take a photo of the candle holder I made and put in the freezer (not plugged in) that I am using to store my clay in. Tim Thibeault suggested that a freezer or refrigerator would be a great place to keep pieces moist while jumping between projects so I am testing out the idea.

Despite having covered it with a loose fitting plastic bag I 'm not sure that the top of the candle holder was very wet but the bottom felt quite damp but not exactly plastic. At least it allow for a very slow drying out process.