Artist Party International

Artist Party International Poster in Choke-Chai Thailand Dec. 3,4,5

Asian Coil Throwing Clay Recipe

I am looking for an "Asian Coil Throwing Clay Recipe". Daniel Johnston calls this big pot clay. What is needed seems to be a sticky clay full of temper.

We have used standard stoneware recipes with added grog. While they work, they do not have enough grog usually and if they do they are not sticky enough. I am considering increasing the ball clay, adding bentonite or maybe even an organic gum.

My experience is in Dankwean Thailand. There the clay comes from under the rice fields. It is tropical, it stays wet or at least damp probably all year as it is down a meter. Like most other clays used in Thailand for big pots if fires to a high temperature and is pretty dark.

Here is what we have been using roughly.
LPC1

100 Fireclay (usually mixed between Hawthorne Bond and Greenstripe)
50 Ball Clay (KT1-4, OM4 or CandC)
15 Custer Feldspar
35-50 mixed Oklahoma #1 sand and grog.

It is more plastic than we need but not sticky enough.

Here is what I am considering testing
1.
50 Sand and grog
50 Ball
50 Hawthorne
10 Feldspar

2. 50 Newman Red
25 Fire Clay
25 Ball Clay
25 Kaolin
50 Sand

The Newman clay seems to be able to replace feldspar.

3. Sand 75
Ball Clay 50
Kaolin 25
Haw Bond 25
bentonite 3

4. Newman Red 25
Hawthorne bond 50
Kaolin 50
Sand 75
Bentonite 5

Some considerations are that my graduate students have already been using LPC1 above. Consequently just as traditional potters, the technique is altered to fit the materials. Now it is time for the materials to alter to fit the technique. These tests above may be too big steps.

In Thailand, as would be expected, the shorter the clay body the less the forms are dependent on stretching. Even where stretching of the initial form is substantive it is more often accomplished with a paddle and anvil.

In Dankwean potters are stretching pots more and more. In potteries where this seems most evident the clay being used is more highly processed and probably blended. Ajahn Pit's pottery is aging their clay significantly. 20 years ago it was used relatively fresh.

Ratchaburi water jars are highly stretched in the belly through paddling. Their clay is pretty plastic, as is the clay of Pakred. Traditionally thrown Pakred pots are also stretched far and the clay is relatively co-operative in this regard. I have not had a long visit to either pottery in quite a long time, I expect the clay has changed some.

I have not been in Baan Phon Bok Thailand in 20 years. This is where Daniel Johnston worked. I do have some big pot clay from there that Daniel gave me. It has a nice wide spread of temper sizes. Daniels clay also has a wide variety of grit sizes (mostly quartz) . As I think about this I am considering making my own grog as they do in Baan Maaw in Mahasarakham by making bowling balls of clay and rice hulls, firing them to around 1200 degrees and crushing them. They can (probably) be made with sawdust instead of rice hulls, but then you must wash all the soluble alkali out of them.

If Y'all have any ideas I would love to hear them.
Louis

utube

Now using two different Youtube Channels:

http://youtube.com/LouisKatzCeramics
http://youtube.com/RoadEasyGentleman

Videos NCECA

I am getting ready to go to NCECA 2008 , Pittsburgh. I have uploaded videos to my Youtube Account:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RoadEasyGentleman

You can also find them at http://louiskatz.pbwiki.com .
I am looking for new venues for my installation, "Not Intended for Functional Use". It must have high ceilings, at least 10 feet although 16 is better.

Gail's Old Website

Put Gail's site back up. You see her at
http://homepage.mac.com/lkatz/gailbusch/busch/index.htm
Sometime soon we will get more content up at http://gailbusch.com

Art Craft Commerce Painting Clayers Ars

First post. All definitions sucked from Wikipedia and cropped for content.

ART: Art refers to a diverse range of human activities and artifacts, and may be used to cover all or any of the arts, including music, literature and other forms. It is most often used to refer specifically to the visual arts, including mediums such as painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy which considers art.
Traditionally the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery, a concept which altered during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".
Generally art is a (product of) human activity, made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind; by transmitting emotions and/or ideas. Beyond this description, there is no general agreed-upon definition of art, since defining the boundaries of "art" is subjective, but the impetus for art is often called human creativity.

Craft:A craft is a skill, especially involving practical arts. It may refer to a trade or particular art.
The term is often used as part of a longer word (and also in the plural). For example, a craft-brother is a fellow worker in a particular trade and a craft-guild is, historically, a guild of workers in the same trade.

This definition from wikipedia needs work, it is thin.

Painting: Painting, meant literally, is the practice of applying color to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer or concrete. A painter and decorator is a tradesman responsible for the painting and decorating of buildings, and is also known as a decorator or house painter.
In England, little is known of the trade and its structures before the late 1200s, at which point guilds began to form, amongst them the Painters Company and the Stainers Company. These two guilds eventually merged with the consent of the Lord Mayor of London in 1502, forming the Painter-Stainers Company. The guild standardised the craft and acted as a protector of the trade secrets, in 1599 asking Parliament for protection, which was eventually granted in a bill of 1606, which granted the trade protection from outside competition such as plasterers.
The Act legislated for a seven year apprenticeship, and also barred plasterers from painting, unless apprenticed to a painter, with the penalty for such painting being a fine of £5. The Act also enshrined a maximum daily fee of 16 old pence for their labour.
Historically, the painter and decorator was responsible for the mixing of the paint; keeping a ready supply of pigments, oils, thinners, driers and sundries. The painter would use his experience to determine a suitable mixture dependent upon the nature of the job. This role has reduced almost to zero as modern paint manufacturing techniques and architect specifications have created a reliance on brand label products.
Larger firms operating within the trade were generally capable of performing many painting or decoration services, from signwriting, to the gilding of objects or even the finishing or re-finishing of furniture.

Clayer: What about itinerant potters? They may not own wheels let alone kilns.
Not potters? Not working? What about potters doing production for a
distribution compnay, not communal and often they don't own nothing.
What about people who find various kilns and their differences part of
their creative process. I am glad you brought up communal kilns, you
give up control. You put someone in charge of firing a part of a wood
kiln, you give up control. I don't believe in this purist stuff. I
don't buy the pure line here. It never exists.
ie.
You are not a potter until you dig your own clay.
It is not your kiln till you form your own bricks.
You better mine and grind your own spar.
Yes these are part of the creative process. Or at least could be.
But if you think a painter should mix his own paint, I will say they
should at least consider it. I pick on painters often.
You aren't an educator unless you own your own school, just a tool of
the administration.

Encaustic on pots by Rick Pope. Used mason stains as pigments, Ever
seen them? Gorgeous.

By the way I try not to call myself a potter, and I hate Ceramist, let
alone Ceramicist, sounds snooty. I use clayer.

Louis

>" You are not a working potter until you own a kiln. Period." (just quoting a purist )

W0IT

I have a new ham radio call W0IT Whisky Zero India Tango no?
If end up as KE5CVK let me know and I can try to turn over my KE5CVK websites to you.

73