A little work in progress...

Hi All! This time it's Sara and I am adding some photos today showing some finished pots throughout the summer as well as some green ware to show where things begin. One very fortunate thing for us this summer here is that the studio has full access to all the clays at Highwater Clays, which is right down the road, as well as a full range of glazes for every temperature that are in the glazing area! So it gave us a jump start to testing things without having to do all the mixing that goes along with it. The hard part was deciding where to start!

We stayed at Cone 6 most of the summer, since that is what we are firing to here at Odyssey, and began with a Speckled Brownstone clay Naomi had picked out. Here are some cups in it, but it was NOT my favorite.

Here is a butter dish Naomi made with it that I feel is MUCH more successful!

From there we went to Buncombe White, which when fired is a cool grey tone. I enjoyed this much more and felt that the colors looked much better both with the slips we are using underneath the glaze, as well as the glazes on the pieces themselves. These cups I threw, Naomi altered, and then I decorated. So they are collaborative.

These are the green ware shots of some slabbed and slump molded serving dishes. These knob forms are Naomi's specialty. She throws them, then cuts and alters them like paper to make these voluminous forms and attaches them to the pieces. She gave a demonstration on how to do this here at one of the workshops, as well as on a critique night to the other full year residents!

And here are some finished products that Naomi glazed.

And here are some that we did together! She made the forms, and then I decorated and glazed them!

Unfortunately this last platter I threw, Naomi trimmed and altered, and then I decorated. It was almost 20 inches across. And then we lost it in the glaze firing to the kiln gods! Sometimes you just gotta lose a few!

This last one I threw, and Naomi trimmed and altered and then glazed and turned out beautifully. It measures about 20 inches across.

So... we are down to our second to last Thursday here at Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts! This week we are trying our best to finish wet work by tomorrow! (Yeah, right!) And hoping that all of a sudden there will magically be extra hours in our days! I will try my best to upload the table full of green ware we are altering and decorating now, as well as the tables this weekend with our glaze-a-thon! It's a rush to the finish to get all the kids' work fired and our own stuff done before we take off next week back to the real world and out of the beautiful Western North Carolina Mountains!

Before I am done today I just want to wish my DAD a happy 60th Birthday today! He is going on an Air Boat ride to celebrate in central Florida where he lives and I wish I could be there with him! So HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Here is a pic of us at my undergraduate graduation a few years back!

-Sara

Summer FUN

Hi all,

Here's a collection of photos that journeys through what Sara and I have being doing outside the studio this summer. Enjoy.

Hiking on the Roan our first weekend here.

Post hike with our friend Marisa.

The Asheville Redbirds

Look how crowded it was...

Hiking at Craggy Gardens on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We stopped here on our way to the top.

Happy to have reached our goal :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I turned 23 on June 28th.

Unwrapping presents from friends.

My parents came to visit and we did A LOT of hiking.

Sara taking a breather.

My mom flying a kite on the Blue Ridge.

Visiting Judith Duff's studio in Brevard, NC

My dad got Sara a cheeseburger and she was elated.

Hanging out with the Roller Derby Girls at Bele Chere.

Asheville is HOT in the summer. Here we are relaxing

in the shade after walking around Bele Chere.

Coming soon: Photos of what we've been making--both individual and collaborative work!

Welcome to Our Blog!

We are Sara (on the left) and Naomi. Sara is currently in between her first and second year of graduate school in Ceramics at the University of Mississippi and Naomi is heading to the University of Nebraska Lincoln to do a post-bacc study in Ceramics.

We have created this blog to share the wealth of knowledge and experience we are absorbing in clay while working this summer here in Asheville. We have taken the time to visit several galleries and local artists as well as travel out to places in the area such as Penland School of Crafts and the EnergyXchange. We hope this can be used to both educate other people about the area and clay in general, as well as to make other students aware of the opportunities available to them as artists. We also want to show everyone what we have been up to all the weeks we have been here!

This picture is from our first weekend here in Western North Carolina! We went out to the Roan Mountain area to visit some friends and did some hiking so we could immediately immerse ourselves in our surroundings!

We applied as summer residents at Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts to work both collaboratively and individually in the studio while taking time to visit studios in the area and other working artists. With such a massive collection of artists that Western North Carolina offers we really couldn't have picked a better place to spend the summer making work. Our summer residency at Odyssey provides us with space to work, a discount on materials, free firings, and a weekly stipend in exchange for assisting each day with the children's classes and firing kilns. We are enjoying working with the other full time residents as well as meeting other artists in the River Arts District where we are located.

We will be adding things quickly at first to detail what we have done for the first month so please come back frequently to see what we have been up to! Feel free to drop us a line at anytime when you see something you like we have posted!

Thanks! And enjoy!

Sara and Naomi