gary navarre on mon 11 aug 08
Hay Crew,
So best I recall where we left off the last progress report was with a ClayArter reply from some guy asking his buddy in California about his new crop of Bonsai stock. I started a Bonsai once in 1964, left it in a 7" pot in Mom's garden. Fifteen years or so later it stunted and had 1/8" cones, Red Pine I think... a few years later it got attacked by ants and died. I just saved two White Pines on clearance from work to try a medium large potted tree... or I might clear a spot out in the logging slash to plant them in the ground so they can fight for survival with the new growth Poplar. Man those loggers sure left me a lot of bio-fuel for the kiln, mostly long Maple and Poplar sticks and limbs an inch to 5-10" round. I'm cutting it to 3 or 4 stoke-able lengths in the woods and dragging it to the kiln for cutting to 36"/32" for the hobs and a foot less for the pig-nose...
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/ca/kpap/uphbgama08dargf/lss.html
... just a bit of the slash prep and the JVC shooting from another angle.
That second real JVC video camera sure comes in handy because I can leave it running for 3 1/2 hours and set up the Pentax W30 to interval setting and a different angle. (Pentax has a 10MP W60 coming soon that will shoot below freezing) It will take a while to edit the video (some 147GB so far) so for now here are a couple hundred newer still shots of some real nitty gritty givin'er on kiln building some set on a couple minute intervals...
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/ca/kpap/uphbgama08dargf/
... and there will be more.
Oh ya here is a bit of some early tests with the JVC while mushroom hunting this spring...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rTKZJJ_9sk
... lost some detail in translation to web format but I bet a DVD on a wide screen TV will be awesome.
The Hobagama chamber is just about zipped up which is cool since I'm almost out of high heat duty firebrick. I think I'll look into some of that ceramic fiber board on my next trip through Grand Rapids cause I gotta go down to see Mom in assisted living in Kalamazoo week after next. Guess I'm gonna do some travel down anyway because there is that upcoming pottery show at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts I want to see and maybe take part in. Seems the Michigan Ceramic Arts Association is having it's 50th. anniversary "Michigan Ceramics '08" exhibition with the first opening in Kalamazoo and a second in Detroit. I had a student membership in the original group known as the Michigan Potters Association 52 years ago but lost touch. I think Dart was chairperson for a while. I decided to get a new membership and have a go at entering the exhibition with the only project I have on hand... the prototype art pieces of sublimation printed cups... it is Ceramic and
it is Art... and I think it will be a bit funny if one of them gets accepted. There is a point I am making with this series and I plan on developing the process to make more Art pieces and a few bucks to cover the equipment. Already got a commission from a guy at work for gifts for his family in New Hampshire. Had a gal who works the service counter tell me "You make cool cups Gary!" That comment is not from someone of my peer group of clay/art/collector/critiques/semi-pro intellectual potters, just a common person who works at Wal*Mart. I wonder if the juror will get the it? I hope my check didn't bounce. Since the judging should be over by now here are the pieces...
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/cea/michceram08/
The trick for me was just learning to crop to a square picture without screwing up the look and my editor seems to have done the trick.
Then on the other hand I had to have my work pal Bob Stanton remind me we still had time to enter the Dickinson Conservation District calender photo contest and I found some prints for that too...
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/cea/nofdsonty8-9/
Well with four days off again I ought to be able to zip up the chamber and get some heat in to dry out the clay on the inside so I can clean it off and tuck point any leaky spots. Maybe I'll hose it down and let the slop fill in the floor spaces between the bricks. Gotta do something so I don't breathe the dust, the doctors think I got talc in my lungs from shooting dope but it is from clay and dry-walling.
Oh ya, thanks Kim Overall for the shout out on Mom's paintings in Fotki but I don't think she is gonna make any more... dementia and now a bi-polar diagnosis don't make for a happy old camper. I really miss my old Mom, she changed a lot and gets mean... guess I gotta go give her a hug and let her see Olof. They let animals visit at the Friendship Village in Kalamazoo. I think I saw someone from the KIA that got older in their web site as a resident too. It's been almost impossible to get Mom to answer the phone right anymore, and I was use to calling her about every week for the last 20 years and almost every days off after getting hired at Wal*Mart. I could tell something wasn't gonna change for the better when Ellen stopped getting some/most of my jokes. That really sucks ya know cause I love cracking people up donchakno!
So that's it for a while unless of course you wanna compare Bonsai stocks instead of kiln designs, maybe this is what that ClayArter was talking about... http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/mup/up_flowers/ganjabonsai.html
... doesn't need to get any better than this but it probably will...
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/mup/up_flowers/bg.html
Michigan is next on the ballot so stay in there eh!
Gary Navarre
Navarre Pottery
Navarre Enterprises
Norway, Michigan, USA
http://www.youtube.com/GindaUP
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/
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