Preventing Castings From Warping

The best way to evenly dry tiles (pressed tiles too) and slip castings, I have found, is to let them dry from the moment they drop out of the mold on wire racks such as these. If the clay is the same thickness throughout the piece, they will not warp or crack due to uneven shrinkage, so you can let them dry in the open air. The only problem, however, is that the edges of the castings tend to slip over the wires and fall through, creating at the very least a texture from the wire digging into the soft clay and at the very worst, a serious warping issue.

I fixed this problem by cutting window screening (found at any home improvement store) to fit the shelf and laying that over the top. This way, when the castings fall onto the shelf, the edges are supported by the screen and there is no warping.

Slipcasting Issues

Every time I think I've got things figured out, I get a big wet slap in the face from a bucket of slip.

There is this one piece, the prize of my collection of self-made molds. It was the second mold I created (the first also turned out to be an exceptional piece but was small), the largest and the most ambitious. It creates a form that, fortunately or unfortunately, is worth the immense amount of trouble each casting creates.

I tried to engineer the mold (partly pictured the left) so that I could pour the slip in from the top and have it drain down the bottom, which would both prevent bubbles from forming in the bottom (well, top, since in the mold it is upside down) extremities of the piece, as well as allow a convenient way to drain the mold without having to tip it over. I set up small plastic tubes to control this exit flow and used clay to connect them to the mold openings.

I forgot, however, that the mold sucks water out of the slip, creating a nice thick layer which becomes the casting wall. That is what the mold is supposed to do, after all. So it created that nice thick layer... which blocked my little openings. When I unblocked the tubes, only a trickle came out.

Now I had a dilemma. I attempted to siphon the slip out of the mold, but it was too thick (and I kept sticking the mold wall with the siphon tube). I finally just moved the slip bucket to a likely spot where I hoped it would catch the gush, and carefully tipped the giant mold over.

Yes. It was a mess, even if it did mostly work. In fact, there has not been a single time (out of a grand total of five) I've cast this piece that it did not end with slip all over the floor and me. I have finally figured out how to close up the extremity openings mid-pour (so that I don't get those bubbles, and since the openings are already there), but that was a nice exercise in flood-prevention that I didn't need. However, I can't figure out for the life of me a better way to empty the mold.

Any advice?

Photo Setup

This is my photo "studio", finally set up in an unused bedroom /attic. Ignore the storage shelves! I decided against photo cubes such as the EZ Cube because I have a lot of different sized work. Most are less than 2 feet, but there is the occasional larger sculpture, so I decided I might as well go for the professional setup rather than scraping by with a less expensive stopgap.

So one project is completed, unless you remember that my camera died. Learning how to work the setup and the new camera (currently planning on borrowing until I can afford a decent camera) will happen next week. Callie and I need photos to create a postcard advertising our December show, so I need some good images by the end of next week.

I pit fired today in my large metal trash can, but the results are less than encouraging. This time it did smolder all the way down to the bottom (last time it kept petering out), but I did not get the black-and-white variety on the bottom two-thirds of the work. What I know about pit firing wouldn't fill up a thimble, so if you have any advice please comment or point me towards a good source for trash-can firings!

Back in the Studio

It has been a very busy week and a half since I got home! I am now living in the same house as my studio, and it is wonderful-- I spend 8-10 hours there working every day, while still having time to work out and cook dinner. A lot of work is being accomplished, which is good because I was starting to have little moments of panic when I contemplated all the projects I have to finish by the second week of September. The trip was amazing and I'd never pass up an opportunity like that, but it sure did eat into my show prep time!

My three big projects, not including any clay work, are:

* Building a spray booth and getting it installed in a room off my studio, along with venting the window and getting a fan to suck the glaze out of the air. The booth is built and caulked, awaiting polyurethane, and the other materials are purchased.

* Developing a set of earthenware glazes. I am currently stopped for a day or two because I realized I'd lost my mini-scale and needed to order a new one for oxide tests in the base glazes.

*Setting up a photography studio. I finally got the background and background support, the lighting set, and I put all of those together today. I also rigged a curtain setup to create and control the horizon line.

I am also learning how to pit fire (in a big metal trash can), making plaster molds for a few of my designs, casting and altering the designs I have already molded, testing and learning the commercial glazes I bought, working on a wall mural, and working on some Eastern Coil sculptures.

Today my camera, a Canon Powershot A610, which I love for its flip-out and rotatable screen (no bending down to look at the pictures!), died on me. Not completely-- but there seems to be some disconnect between the lens and the digital part... it refuses to show or take anything but all-black, but otherwise the screen works fine (it will show icons and previously taken pictures). It did this once before, but a shake and a prayer got it working again. This time... we'll see. If it doesn't come back to life, I will need to borrow or buy another camera, which means learning a new system since each camera is different and requires different tweaks. Sigh...

Kanazawa

At the end of our trip, my husband and I did break off from our friends to go visit one of Japan's ceramic areas for a day and night, a town called Kanazawa. Noted for its beautiful landscape garden Kenrokuen (with ancient twisted trees, lakes, and lovely greenery, it was Ray's favorite part of the town), it is also home to two styles of ceramics: Ohi ware and Kutani ware.

In short, Ohi ware is the textured, handmade style prized in the tea ceremonies. Kutani ware is bright 5-color overglaze designs on porcelain. A great website to describe these two styles is here, with specific sections for Ohi ware and Kutani ware.

Neither one of these styles is a favorite of mine, but I appreciated seeing the different styles and methods of creating the forms and glazes. We never made it to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art but we loved the woodwork, textile creations, lacquerware, ceramics, and more in the Museum of Traditional Products and Crafts.

We stayed in a traditional Japanese inn called a ryokan, with tatami mats and a futon mattress and paper-screen sliding doors on the closets to make it peaceful. The next day we went to Tokyo and stayed in a capsule hotel, where $30 will get you a coffin-sized cubby to sleep in and a shared bathroom. To the right is a picture of the row my cubby was in. It wasn't as claustrophobic as it sounds, and I actually got a good night of sleep in it before we flew home the next day!