clay: anatomy of plates

Here's an online pic of some somewhat mass manufactured plates from Crate and Barrel called Kiln, designed by Leanne Ford and which I really really admire because they look and are handmade. In Portugal. For only $20. Seriously, that's so cheap for artisanal pottery. 

I wonder if really no machine or plaster slip casting was not involved in its making. Especially because they stack so well despite their wonky wabi-sabi loveliness. It's gotta be pretend.

clay: heath lamp

I recently went to Heath with a ceramics class for a factory tour and photographed tableware I want to re-create with my own hands. But last year on another Heath factory tour, I took pictures of the lamps. Their lighting is gorgeous.  

And really that's what I want to make first, my first ever hand built ceramic table lamp. I took closer pictures of the details. Okay first up, it's a lamp socket without a harp because the top cylinder is the lamp shade with holes punched at its bottom to allow light to illuminate surfaces below it and completely open at the top like any regular lampshade. Note, however, this is not task lighting, but rather ambient lighting.

   

When Leslie Aftosa Ceramics closed, I bought a couple of make-a-lamp kits that came with harps for a separate lamp shade, and that's not how I can make my wee ceramic table lamps. I'll use those kits that have a harp later because I also bought a large Capiz shell lampshade at another store. I need just the socket and cord and the threaded rod, but no washer with harp for my first lamp. To be continued.

All I'm seeing online at one particular site that sells light sets with no harp are hanging light sockets.

And the hanging pendant lamp is another build for another day.

clay: heath assignment

The advanced ceramics students had an assignment: to take pictures and then sketch dinnerware. I followed suit. I've made one or two cylinders with spouts, which I already given away or sold, and so I think of spouts still for my own pitchers. The lip of the spout on the left is pointy while the lip of the spout of the pitcher on the right is like a gutter downspout. I've a couple ceramic pitchers in my cupboard that had been made by my friend Patsy, and it's time to make more pitchers of my own.  I admit that I prefer the look of the gutter downspout.

 

Pitchers are so useful. I use the little ones I have to squeeze citrus juices or mix cooking sauces for mise en place, and they're darling individual sauce and gravy boats for the dinner table. 

However, I'm gonna need to watch videos on how to refine my spouts so that they pour without dribbling messily.

I still love, love, love the Echo Etched dinner plate from the Alabama Chanin collection. Just as I had hand built my own version of Heath's coupe with an exposed raw edge, I'd likewise love to make my own version of the echoing circular lines.

Whereas my coupe plate is a solid slab with no foot and a very narrow perpendicular rim with a raw exposed clay, Heath's coupe is even more minimalist at the edge with no rim, where the entire plate is a very slight bowl and which lends itself to the "serendipitous" concentric semi-hatched lines. I am wondering how to use the plate forms at Clay Life to make that same shape and then use a pencil and compass to trace those concentric circles on the bisque and use wax resist with a very fine brush before dipping the plate into a bucket of glaze. And I still don't want even a slight foot on such a plate, but want them to stack compactly in a cupboard? Yeah I'm thinking of a more graceful profile in my plates.

 

The matte Indigo glaze is so very lovely, but the only matte glazes we have at Clay Life are white and black. I suppose I could use the Nights in Black Satin on a porcelain clay body and the Satin White on a black clay body like Laguna W3.

I likewise love the Alabama Chanin plates, inspired by hand stitch work. My plan is to use my tracing wheel sewing tool for putting stitch lines on my leather clay plates. However, I think I'll use another sashiko stitch pattern rather than the flower of the Camellia Etched dishware. I'll need to return to the public library and check out sashiko books for a different pattern. I'm more in love with the seed stitch salad plates. I imagine I'd pencil randomly the seed stiches and then go in later with a fine brush and wax resist. I imagine too all the labor to re-create with my own hands. There's a reason why the Camellia Etched dinner plate is $182 and why the Seed Stitch salad plate is $127 at Heath--they're so labor intensive and such an intentional design.

  

With mugs, I always fear I would drop this kind of mug with hole-less handle, but surprisingly, Heath's handle is a comfortable grip. But since handles are not my forte, I don't think I'll attempt this handle though I have in the past created handles that are a completely round cylinder. Maybe my re-design be a "hole-less" round handle with an indentation for fingers for a petite coffee cup and saucer.

 

Lastly I took a pic of the mug with the low handle. It's funky, and I like it. I just don't know if I could make a comfortable-to-hold handle like the one below.

 

I perused plates of second and third quality at the back of the showroom. My dessert plate was only $8.50 minus a discount though I did pay $31 for the so very cute and wee plaza bowl, but with our class tour discount, I didn't mind.

Right away I used both plate and bowl that night and the next.

My new bluejay bowl and aqua plate are in frequent use in my dessert ritual of either citrus panettone or fruit and French whole milk yogurt this winter.

cook: is ribollita with pork and swiss chard then tuscan pork and bean and vegetable stew?

Not too long ago, I had cooked a pork loin and cannellini bean stew with mainly celery and carrots as the vegetables. The stew was delicious, but needed more green vegetables. And so when I watched a Martha Stewart cooking video of a vegetarian white bean and green vegetables, it drew me at the start because of bread grilled in sage and olive oil and then rubbed with a raw garlic clove to sit in the bottom of the bowl before the soup/stew was spooned on top. This ribollita recipe would also integrate a huge bunch of Swiss chard Patrick had harvested that had also been the vegetable side to our steak and baked potatoes dinner. Serious Eats likewise outlined the history and cooking steps to ribollita, and their recipe looked even more scrumptious. Don't forget to grate Parmesan cheese at the finish. 

Serious Eats also recommends riffing on the hearty Tuscan stew to your own tastes and seasonal ingredients, and I did. I also had Italian sausage left from my lasagna making as well as fennel and leek in my fridge as well as rosemary and sage and thyme from the herb garden. So I opine that this is not traditionally Italian, but maybe a bit French too with that leek in the stew.     

I had soaked the dried Borlotti beans the day before and wowie did they double in size. I got them boiling right away in their soaking water and a jar of bone broth because I knew this soup would need a couple hours of cooking time.

I added leftover cooked Italian sausage which was not enough, more raw Italian sausage outside of the casing and crumbled, Better than Bouillon chicken stock just in case for more flavor, and leftover bacon bits to my mise en place. I started sautéing the onions and leeks and then garlic in olive oil and chile oil.

 

After at least 5 minutes, I could then add the raw Italian sausage and then the chopped Swiss chard stems and carrots.

 

Next the boiled beans, broth and all. I added more water too. Once beans were no longer al dente, I could add the chopped Swiss chard.

 

I just love all the colors in this soup so far.

I could have added the greens at the last 2 minutes rather than 5 minutes of cooking, but I was also getting the garlic toast in the oven.

Patrick declared dinner delicious, and I had remembered to sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. If I'd had a rind of Parmesan, that would have sent the soup over the top, but luckily the bone broth added a lot of depth of flavor.

clay: heath factory tour

I was very fortunate to chaperone our advanced ceramics class’s tour of Heath yesterday. But first to the trunk of Zan's car to look at her mishima vase. It's a beaut. I asked where the image came from, and she said she has a bunch of vintage magazines from the 50s and 60s from which she got the image.                                    

And then Zan told me to choose a mug...with Valentine's Day happening next month and just because I love hearts and slip trail of porcelain, of course I chose this Bmix Cone 10 mug.

 

And then onward into the ceramics factory, where I was already familiar with their process of using the jigger-jolly with their mold.

 

And re-acquainted with the glazing processes of both spraying and dipping. I learned that it's 8 months of training for a glazer to learn how to spray glaze, where each glazer has their own maker's mark and that they weigh each pot before and after glazing to make sure coverage is right. I was more interested in watching the dipping. I wondered if glaze had already been poured into the interior of the mug before dipping to glaze the exterior of the mug.

 

Onward to the top hat kiln, first installed by Brian Heath, who was as technically proficient as Edith in the ceramics chemistry and process. The gas kiln is for the glaze firing, where the Lincoln, California clay is fired only to cone 02 or 2000 degrees. That's pretty low compared to an electric kiln where we normally fire glazed ware to cone 5 or 6, which is about 500 degrees more.

 

Lastly, I marveled at the palette of ceramic flux, nepheline syenite because hey I've mixed chemicals for glaze before.

I wished I had discovered ceramics much sooner and maybe minored in studio art. Never too late though. If I retire, I may return to university for a bachelor of fine arts.

And following the ceramics factory tour, we let the kids out of the bus to sketch at the Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center at the Lincoln way of San Francisco or as you exit the bridge coming from Marin.    

 

The views were stunning, even from the coffee shop, where I bought myself my favorite flavor of latte--yeah that yummy! Where could I even buy orange blossom syrup? I wonder.

 

Despite the gorgeous views, the kids seemed more interested in the gift shop and the coffeehouse than in walking the bridge or studying the beautiful vistas. See the couple behind Zan? That man either had just or was about to propose to his fiance.

The woman showed us her blingtastic diamond engagement ring and asked if we would snap photos on their cameras. Kim obliged while I took a pic of Alcatraz Island...

 

And here's a view of Fort Baker in Sausalito, where I told Kim we had started out on our outrigger race toward Angel Island.

And of course, a partial view of the San Francisco cityscape.

Yep, there across is the cove from which we paddled.

I never tire of these views and don't take them for granted.