Yarn Baskets and Bowls Part 2

I'm very happy with the way the yarn bowls and baskets turned out. You can find them for sale in my Etsy store.

Yarn Bowls...

Everyone seems to love yarn bowls!

I make mine in two varieties: bowls and baskets. Both the bowls and the baskets have a relatively wide foot and thick bottom to make sure that they are very stable. The baskets evolved at the suggestion of some of the grandmas in Etsy's WWWG Team. The carved handle makes them easy to carry from room to room and provides a place to put the needles.

I like to the look of carved pieces and I enjoy carving through leather-hard clay, so I generally carve a more intricate design on the bowls and baskets than what is strictly necessary to serve the function of a yarn bowl.  I think that this design element opens the bowls and baskets up to many more uses, making them an item of decoration for the home if used, for example, with pebbles or sea glass on the bottom to hold a candle. They can also be used as candy dishes or to hold jewelry or keys.

Love and Sweetness

This past weekend was my brother's wedding. The ceremony was held at Overlook Farms in Clarksville, Missouri, overlooking the Mississippi River. The site--with its view of Old Man River, hills, pecan and walnut trees--was a romantic's dreamscape. The ceremony included readings of several poems, including e.e. cumming's I Carry Your Heart. But the most inspiring poem (which elicited a loud laugh from my 8-year old grandson) was Li-Young Lee's From Blossoms.

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy, to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

My contribution to this lovely day was a "wishing pot." It was a humble pot that was filled with everyone's best wishes for my brother and his bride. What a wonderful idea!

Support Your Local Artisan

In mid-August, The Washington Post ran an article about decorating for the fall that highlighted "artisan wares" and the fact that "major retailers are offering alternatives" to handmade artisan products found on Etsy. This really bothered me because, in addition to mentioning alternatives to Etsy sellers, the article showcased clay vases from Indonesia selling from $12 to $24. Well, I wrote a letter to the Post's editor, which got printed on September 2. Here's a link to my letter.

As I talked about this with several artisans, someone commented that in these difficult times you can't blame people for going for lower priced items. I think that it's up to us to educate our customers about our work and why they should purchase local artisan wares, even if they have to pay a bit more. Lisa LaPella has pointed out that she would rather save her money to purchase a more expensive handmade item that can become a treasured heirloom. But I think that one of my repeat customers put it best when she sent her own feedback in response to my letter to the editor . She said:

"I'm not an artist but I support local artists by buying at local sales and on Etsy. The benefits of buying locally applies to art, not just vegetables purchased at local Farmer's Markets.  Buying locally produced products cuts down on energy consumption, because there's less transportation; it provides income to a local resident,  it supports locally purchased materials, and it supports the local arts community overall."

Where Did That Idea Come From?

It's not easy to come up with original ideas in a medium as ancient and everyday as pottery. Most often, new ideas carry with them echoes of all the other pots we've seen and admired. It reminds me of the sci-fi writer who refused to read other writers' work in order to avoid being influenced by their ideas. I've found that potters are probably the only artists who generously share their techniques, ideas, glazes, and so on.

I learned to make carved luminaries very early in my pottery journey and for a long time I made open and closed carved forms to be used with candles. A few years ago, my mentor, Virginia potter and teacher Jane Cullum showed me how to adapt the luminaries to accommodate a snap-in socket. One of my first sales in Etsy was one of those lamps! Later, I was putting my grandson to bed one night and had just turned off the lights when I saw the glow-in-the-dark planets and moons and stars that his Dad had pasted on the ceiling of his room. That's where the idea of making a lamp with a moon and stars came from. But how about having it project on the ceiling?

I had been making lots of items using closed forms, including boxes, so it was easy to adapt a closed form into a starry nights lamp with a snap-in socket. I've now started making them with other designs as well. Here's one of my favorite lamp forms, which takes two snap-in sockets and light bulbs.

Making Lamps 2

Here's part 2 of "Making Starry Nights Lamps."

After you've made the round form, trimmed it, made the hole for the snap-in socket, and put feet on it, it's time to carve the design.

I use templates, stencils, hole punchers, and cookie cutters, but you can also use your own design or cut out a free-hand design. Two things are important at this stage: (1) how wet your pot is and (2) the type of design.

I talked yesterday about (1). This is really important. If you start carving when the clay is too wet you can expect 3 types of problems: clumping of the crumbs, a deformed pot and trouble removing the carved out pieces because the clay will tend to stick together even after you've cut it. Ideally, your clay should be a good leather hard.

I start by sketching the design onto the form. You could start carving from the beginning, but I like to sketch in the design first so that I can better visualize it finished. At this point I am taking care not to leave too little space between cut-outs because those narrow pieces of clay are the most likely to crack, deform or break off. Spirals and curlicues are particularly prone to these problems. However, it doesn't mean that I won't use such a design, just that I might not carve some sections all the way through. I also think about the size of the cut-outs and how it will look with a light bulb in it. I try to have a combination of large and small cut outs so that the light won't glare out of the lamp or the light bulb is too visible.

Once I'm happy with the design, I start carving with a scalpel, x-acto knife or other such sharp knife. I generally stick one finger through the socket hole and stab the scalpel down to my finger and use it as a guide while cutting. This minimizes cut "overruns" (but really hurts!). Pay attention to what the clay is doing, sometimes it's fine to slide the scalpel all the way around a design, other times it's best to move in an up-and-down motion all the way around the design. I find that this usually depends on how wet/dry the clay is and how intricate the design is. So, I'm likely to go carefully up and down around a spiral (because they break off so easily!), and just slide around the edges of a leaf.

Don't fuss with the crumbs and with refining the cut out areas. Once the piece is bone dry the crumbs can easily be removed by running a needle tool all around the cut-outs. Then shake the piece to get all the crumbs to fall out of the socket hole. I also sand the pieces when they are bone dry.

You can make these lamps as open cylinders as well and I'm experimenting now with covered oval, triangle, and square shapes... we'll see how those come out.

Have fun!

Making Lamps 1

The Starry Nights Lamps have been my best sellers. I recently sold my last 3 in one week and had to put aside other projects to make some more lamps. So I thought I'd show you how I make
them.

I start out with about 1.5 lbs of clay and throw a closed form. Before taking it off the wheel, I use a metal rib to smooth the surface and an edger to remove some of the excess clay at the bottom. I run the wire under them but don't take them off the bat until they can be handled without distorting. At this point, it's a good idea to poke a small hole somewhere with a needle tool.



Once it is dry enough to trim, I refine the form and make a hole in the bottom for the snap-in socket. I have a small cookie cutter that is the right size and I've marked it "Lamp Socket" so I know which one to use every time. The hole is about an inch in diameter.



Unless you are going to trim and then move immediately to cutting out the design, it's best to trim the forms a bit wetter than usual. The reason is that it takes a while to cut out the design (the starry nights lamps take the best part of an hour) and the pot is drying as you're doing this (more or less rapidly depending on ambient humidity). You don't want the pot to be too wet when cutting because the clay crumbs will clump and also the form can collapse. But you don't want to do it too dry because you run the risk of cracking. So, ideally, you should be cutting the design at the pliable leather hard stage.

The next step is to add the feet. Feet are necessary because you need a space for the cord. The height of the feet is a matter of your own aesthetics. Sometimes I throw a ring and add it to the bottom, cutting out a notch for the cord. Other times I add small lumps.

Tomorrow: Cutting out the design!