KenSwinson.com

Category: Pottery

  • 9 July 2020 – new pottery

    Yesterday, I had a pretty good kiln firing. A couple of losses, and some lessons learned, but also some beautiful pots! This was my first time firing translucent porcelain with the sgraffito technique. It is beautiful. Something you have to see in person to appreciate.

    you can visit the gallery and see better photos of each piece by clicking here or the image below

    gallery of handmade porcelain pottery

    Like all my pottery, it is for sale, but not online. you have to visit my home in old washington, KY; where you can hold them in your hands; to decide which is the right one for you. They are dishwasher/microwave food safe. The design technique is labor intensive and carved by hand. Plates are $80, sugar bowls $55, bowls and the mug $40 each. First come, first serve. They are sitting on my porch and first come, first serve. If you are going to travel a long distance for something in particular, contact me first to make sure it is still available. I wear a mask and have hand sanitizer for safety, and ask one household to visit the porch at a time. Hope you can make it! It’s a nice day for a drive in the country!

  • back in the print shop 3 July 2020

    After a pottery intensive month (june) i found my way back into the print shop.

    linocuts hanging in a rack with 'love one another' design
    Love One Another – ink on paper

    I printed some of my “Love One Another” prints. Most were on paper. A few of the artists at the Log Cabin Print Shop are textile artists. Watching them over the past year has inspired me to think outside ink on paper, and to print my design on fabric.

    printing on fabric with linocut
    using the press to print a design on fabric
    animation of artist holding hand printed fabric
    Print on fabric is fun!

    Ok, i’ll tell the truth. I did not have a pottery free day. I DID also make these cream pitchers. What can i say? I might be a pottery addict!

    greenware hand thrown pitchers

  • A day of carving in clay 2 July 2020

    My favorite part of working with pottery is surface design! It’s a good thing I love it, because it also takes the most time. Each piece takes at least an hour to carve.

    porcelain mug, ready to carve
    Using a design from my sketchbook…penciled onto the pot and ready to carve

    All of today’s designs were hand carved, using a technique, called sgraffito.

    mug with sgraffito lines carved
    Carving the design

    Since we are in the middle of the summer season, I have been inspired by one of my favorite summer flowers: the sunflower!

    yellow sunflower sgraffito mug
    it’s sunflower season in Kentucky!

    I have started carving a new porcelain clay, and it feels a little bit different from other clays. I found myself carving it a little bit different too. Because porcelain needs a little bet of extra care, I dry these REALLY slow. They might be ready to fire in a week or two. Stay tuned to see how they turn out!

    shelf with sgraffito pottery
    Today’s work

  • Pottery intensive June – recap

    At the beginning of June, I decided to make June a ‘pottery intensive’ month in the studio. Looking back at the month, it was a lot of fun, and I made some really nice pots. I fired the kiln twice. After each firing, i put the pots on the porch, where they sold out in a matter of days.

    Pottery Intensive June was a success! You can see a gallery of each kiln load by clicking the thumbnails below:

    gallery of pottery
    June 9, 2020
    gallery of pottery
    june 20,2020

    July is going to be a little bit different. I am going to keep making pottery. But i’ll also take brakes to do some more printmaking and painting too. The big thing for July is that I am participating in the facebook boycot #stopHateForProfit by not logging into facebook or instagram for the month of July.

    I am a frequent facebook user, so this is going to be a challenging month for me. One of the bright sides of this boycott is that I plan to give my personal website and email newsletter some TLC, so stay tuned for more art and updates!

  • 30 June 2020 – printing ink and playing in mud

    I spent the last day of June split between the clay studio and the printshop.

    US Route 62 Linocut - with map in background
    The finished block. Ready for ink!

    I have been working on a special print for one of my US Route 62 neighbors who lives all the way over in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

    Us Route 62 linocut notecards in drying rack
    The finished print. Hanging to dry

    Today I got to put first ink on the block and then print an edition at the log cabin print shop.

    pottery being underglazed
    Pots in progress

    After printing, I had some time to put some handles on mugs, put some glaze on bowls, and then throw a few cream pitchers and bowls

    pottery forms on the wheel
    Bowls and creamers just thrown from the wheel.

  • The Potter – by Tania Horne

    You never know where it will take you when you put your creativity out there:
    Late friday night, i made a live stream while throwing pots…no words, or instruction, just an hour of making pots.
    I don’t know who all watched, but poet, Tania Anderson Horne , saw it, and it inspired a poem! I liked the poem so much, we made this short video together. Thank you Tania! I’m honored!!!

    Tania is participating in Lexington Poetry Month. A project, where every June, poets are challenged to write a poem every day. You can learn more at https://lexpomo.com
    #lexpomo

  • June 10 new pottery

    I’m excited to share some of my latest pottery after last weeks firing. I’m as proud of the photography as the pottery. There has been a learning curve to photographing pottery, and I think I am finally getting a good representation of what the pots look like.

    NOTE: I have already sold all the pots from this firing, but plan to have more soon.

  • Transferring woodcuts onto pottery – via screenprint

    I work in a lot of different media, and am always looking for ways to cross the different mediums. One dream I have is printing woodcuts onto ceramic. After some research, I learned that the woodcut process does not work well with ceramic materials, but screenprinting does.

    screens for screenprinting

    Using a technique that i learned while studying in Oaxaca, Mexico, I copied a few of my favorite woodcut designs onto a screen

    silkscreen loaded with blue ceramic underglaze

    then printed the designs onto rice paper using ceramic underglaze as the ‘ink’

    screen printed design using ceramic underglaze on rice paper

    then, i transferred the underglaze onto unfired clay…in a technique similar to old fashioned temporary tattoos

    rice paper decal of squirrel playing fiddle and banjo
    animation of rice paper being removed from clay surface.
    an underglaze plate covered with blue pig and acorn decals
    a plate, decorated with my woodcut designs!
    holding a greenware mug with decal of squirrel playing guitar
    a mug, decorated and ready to fire!
    holding a small greenware pitcher decorated with blue pig with acorns and oak leaves
    …and a pig on a mug…keep watching to see how they look ofter the firing!

  • Pottery Intensive Update – 6.4.2020

    My big, exciting event for this summer was going to be a week long pottery workshop at the Arrowmont School of arts and crafts. It was a gift from a friend, and was going to be a really special treat. To be safe during the coronavirus, the workshop was cancelled. I was really looking forward to visiting Arrowmont, and having a pottery intensive experience. My hope was to get better at throwing, and to learn a few new surface decoration techniques.

    a view of the potters studio focused on 2 shelves holding newly thrown mugs

    just because I can’t go to a famous arts and craft school, and learn from a popular potter, doesent mean I can’t still have a pottery intensive experience. I decided to give myself a summer of pottery making!!! So far, I’ve thrown about 20 mugs.

    a shelf with unfired pottery, including pots decorated with a house, a dog, a goat and other animals

    Most of them are being decorated in a style, called sgraffito.
    If you haven’t already seen it, here is a short video explaining the process:

    an unfired pottery plate, with a decoration saying, we will get through this together

    I learned a new technique to throw plates. Thanks @Dennis Allen ! So now I’ve been working on a few sgraffito plates.

    an unfired pottery plate with two decorative squirrels

    This squirrel design is based on one of my linocuts.

    unfired pottery plate with blue decorations of 2 birds on a tree branch

    Another plate…with BLUE underglaze.

    These are works in progress…they still need to be glazed and fired, but I’m really excited about making plates…and hope to the have enough to fire the kiln soon.

  • Pig Mug – Sgraffito video

    I’m back in the clay studio, working with a decoration technique, called sgraffito. The word comes from Italian and means; to scratch away.

    The way the technique works, a pot is covered with colored clay, then I scratch the top layer, reavealing the design.

    Since i have a printmaking background, this technique feels familiar. It’s the same way I would make a woodcut.

    The idea for the mug i’m working on is tow pigs enjoying a field of clover, and they both found a four leaf clover at the same time. What a lucky pair of pigs!

    If you are interested in seeing how these pots turn out, stay tuned, i’ll show them off once they are fired in the kiln.

    UPDATE: i forgot to mention…i don’t sell pots online. I believe a pot has to be experienced in person, so the owner can hold it before deciding to take it to it’s ‘forever home’. Hopefully a drive in the country to Old Washington, ky isn’t impossible for you. Thanks again everyone for the great response!