Happy Sunday y’all! This one is out a little later than intended, but it’s ok, I think I’ll just start putting these out on the weekends.
This week I started working for Beau and Kristen Davidson of Laird Woodland Farm. This past week’s tasks included harvesting some eastern red cedar logs to use as posts for a lean-to on the side of the Davidson’s house. Beau informed me that Eastern Red Cedar is unique in that it will not twist or shrink as they dry, so you can build with them as soon as you chop them down.
The three Eastern Red Cedar logs, harvested from the homestead. Beau is in the yellow shirt, measuring for the overhang of the roof.
In the studio, I’ve been working with a lot of leather-hard clay. I’m doing a lot more coloring with underglaze (a type of paint that fires with a matte finish) and I’ve also added some carving to the current batch of mugs I’m working on.
Last night I experimented with a technique called inlay. First, I painted wax resist on the mug bodies. After that dried overnight, the mugs were ready to be carved. After the carving was finished, I used underglaze to fill in the carved areas.
In the internship realm, Isaac and Karina have been keeping me real busy from 8-12 every day. Tasks include, you guessed it, PUMPKINS. Still waxing, still painting stems, still glazing the good ole gourds. Something new this week: I added the mini pumpkins to my task list adding the same details to them as their larger siblings.
The Shues and I also took a trip to Witchia to visit the ceramic supplier. While we were there, we picked up some glazes, tools, and a KILN! Yuppers, according to the owner of the store, the Shues got the deal of the year with this kiln. It was fired very few times and all of the components are in great shape. It was previously at a school, where the top of the kiln had caved in and replaced with a sheet of plywood to make a table! Evidence of previous art classes can be seen on the side of the kiln: a variable rainbow of acrylic paint streaks.
Me and Isaac, loading the Skutt Kiln into the bed of his truck.
More ceramic compound updates, an entire hill was removed from the side of the studio to make way for a kiln pad, staircase and patio! Seen below is the Shue’s son, Xavi in the middle of the big ole cater.
I’ve almost been in Harper for almost three weeks, which is quite wild to me. I’m getting settled into a rhythm and I’m thankful for all the new people I’m getting to meet. That being said, there are definitely times when I feel the loneliness creeping in and I miss my friends and family back home in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Oregon, California… the list goes on!
But in all of this I’m glad to have the great friends and family I do. If you are reading this, you are included in that net and I’m grateful for you! Thank you for your support in my pottery journey and my life in general.
Well, time to wrap this up. If there is anything I forgot, there will be another email for another week :).
Peace,
Nathan
P.S. I’m currently working on my new website and I hope to have that up and running this week. There I will have a backlog of all of these updates in one cohesive blog, so if you missed any weeks, you can find those at potterpauls.com.
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