Adam Field's Workshop

Yesterday I attended a workshop organised by Hannah McAndrew at the Solway Ceramics Centre near Carlisle.  I haven't been to the Solway Ceramics centre before but it was really interesting and the facilities were amazing with three wood fired kilns.

The morning was taken up with Adam Field talking about his work before, during, and after Korea.  His videos of both himself and Korean Potters throwing Onggi on his website are well worth the watch.

In the afternoon he demonstrated the work he does with porcelain, he explained throwing from a technical perspective and how it works.  His explanation of how throwing works is one of the best for explaining how throwing works.  He took us through throwing his cups, and a storage jar, talking about his designs.

Adam Field Carving a Cup

Working with fifths he divided his cup before carving in the pattern, which is based on triangles forming the structure.

Adam Field's Carved Cup

"no surface is left unconsidered" - Adam Field

Adam Field's work that he made with Doug Fitch

It was a really good day but I have lots of ideas so have been recording them in a sketchbook, that I just started specifically with ideas of different project and tools I want to make etc.

Lots to do this week I have more prototyping to do and hopefully earthenware sgraffito to do too.

Throwing Large Platters

Today I uploaded some pictures to Twitter as I threw some large platters.  I was feeling out of practice, I tried to throw the first one with throwing the whole lump at once.  I noticed I just don't have the strength after not throwing bigger pots over the winter, so to get round it I flattened the clay by pounding it with my fists as it slowly rotates, then as it forms a disc slap it and then use a rib to smooth it off.

I trimmed the base so then it was a completely round disc.  I coiled the sides on and then threw them up, trimmed the wonky top and then used a large piece of chamois leather to give it a nice strong edge.  I trimmed round the base to remove the excess then wired it off.

Rough Disc Formed

disc scratched and coil prepared.

We ended up with a spring shower just as I needed to roll out the slab so did it very roughly in the air and then just a quick roll on my paving slab so it didn't pick up too much water.

Sides thrown on and swirl added across the base.

I made two in total and both are now drying, I must find the rest of my amazing Doug Fitch bats for when I finally get shelves sorted.

Working on the New Website

Thanks to the amazing guys at Awesome Horse Studios I have been inspired to rework my website redfoxpottery.com and they gave me plenty of advice along the way of how to fix it.

Top of the image how the website was till recently.  Lower Part how it was last week

It started last summer when Noah Bradley made a post on his own website "I Hate Your Portfolio" it is a very good read and I recommend it.  It took a while to get together with my friend that actually does web programming, though once I did we got the bare bones done in a day and then it got left not even uploaded till March.

Then Saturday evening two weeks ago Marc Scheff was giving a lecture on improving your portfolio, a few days later I emailed him for advice and he game me some pointers, removing all the waffling text from the front page and just leaving a three beat description.  He also advised me to  create sections for "workshops" and "private instruction".

I didn't really understand html and css when I started moving things around on this website, but know I feel a lot more confident about altering things myself.

Top How the Gallery was last week, Lower how it is now, much tidier using all images the same size.

My images are only temporary whilst I work on the new range and the updated Sea and Sand range.  Feel free to look at the website, there will continue to be updates on the website with little changes to sections of text.

Thanks to Noah, Marc and Jordan for making the whole redesign possible.