My Roommate, James Ward

This is the work of my roommate, James Ward. I helped him take photos of his work for the ELF Fair at the Carrborro Arts Center. Check out the work there, and buy some! It's beautiful stuff.

New Cups, eHow.com, etc

New cups. Slipcast, Cone 10

I love this faux marble trippy background.

In case you wondered, I use the following recipe for this translucent body:

Grolleg: 41%

G200 feldspar: 41%

SiO2 (200 mesh): 18%

and for a batch of 50 pounds, 75grams Sodium Silicate

Thats it, super easy and really pretty.

credit where credit is due- Tom Spleth came up with recipe, and I'm never kidding when I say that he has taught me everything I know about ceramics.

Also, check out eHow.com's article on identifying slip cast work, in which I am the "expert" consulted. Its good information, and I'm not (too) nitpicky, so I would say it is mostly correct. The author of the article was supercool, and it was really fun to get interviewed.

New Work, July 2011

Slipcast, Cone 10

Fired in my sweet new electric kiln. This is the first batch.

Mushroom Pieces

Not really planned, but a funny thing happens when I combine a bowl and a vase of the new series.

Drawings of Unrealized Forms

Boats

Soda/Salt

Reduction, Celadon Glaze

Some glaze experiments, just funning around.

Atmospherically Fired Cups

Cone 10 Reduction, Salt and Soda added

The slip casting body I use does not interact politely with the atmospheric firings, hence the bizarre results.

End of Winter Studio Usage

Lots and lots of cups. Stay tuned...

Some New Cups

Materials, L-R: High iron cone ten slip in reduction; dirt and clay from outside my window fired to cone 10, and slip with pink mason stain

A new jasperware cloud cup

One morning last spring I was struck by how purple the dirt outside my window was, so I ball milled it for 24 hours intending to use it as a terra sigilatta, but then I cast a cup in it. All of these images are materials/ casting body experiments done over the past year.

Lots of new cups are for sale here: Shop+Buy at Mark Warren Studio

Stone Glaze Experiments

Tom has been grinding and shaping stones recently, and he offered me some of the very fine dust that comes off the rock during the polishing process. I glazed and lined a cup with it for the most recent reduction firing Ian and I did. These results were totally unexpected and really beautiful. I can't wait to play around with it some more in the next firings we plan on doing. Also, as an aside, the last thing I thought I would be doing two years ago would be to get excited about putting rock dust on clay objects. Oh well...

Slip and Pouring Out movies

Slip in the barrel

-and-

Pouring out the mold after it gets filled.

Video- Filling Molds

Pouring Slip into Box Mold from Mark Warren on Vimeo.

Airline Bone China

Czech Airlines - ĆSA Bone China Ware Thun for ĆSA #1L, originally uploaded by Sabenien.

This has been really influential on my most recent ceramic series, check out this Flickr gallery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sabenien/sets/72157622922433721/

Thanks Sabenien. Thanks Flickr.

Tom Spleth and Casting Porcelain Boxes

Last Sunday, I went over to Tom Spleth's house to talk about a project he was working on and needed some help getting done. He had been prototyping porcelain boxes to put a series of prints of skulls into. We had a week to: construct a kiln, fire-proof a room, construct pouring jigs to help pour the 150 pound molds, cast the boxes in porcelain, fire the boxes, and polish the boxes. He needs 20 total, but by the 1st of February we needed 1 complete box.

These are some of Tom's cups.

The cone 6 porcelain slip.

Tom and Ian with pouring jigs.

Ian staring dreamily into the slip. (It's claimed that if you stare deep enough, you can see your future....)

Tom Pouring

We missed the bucket once, but luckily a lot of it fell on me as I tried to catch it.

The pieces in the kiln,

Detail (looks like a parking garage)

We built the kiln up around the cast box lids and bottoms, leaving just a few inches around the pieces and kiln furniture, and then put the top on.

Tom fired it today and everything seems to be fine. I will post an image of the boxes when they are finished.

Check out Tom's website here and cups here.

Plates and/on Platters

Mahogany

Walnut

White Oak

Mahogany

Cherry

You can now buy these guys here: http://markwarrenstudio.com/section/210753_Shop_Buy.html

Hairy Cups (?)

Some new pieces using old fur (and faux fur) for coozies on to-go cups.

Hairy cups? They smell like grandmas and cigarettes.

Stirring in the aether... A transmission...

....What's going on here?

Winter Madness

Daniel's birthday wings...

In a new slip-cast bowl, fresh from the kiln

And then one day this guy just showed up...