Skullys in Home Furnishing News Mag :)

Skullys in Home Furnishing News Mag :)
Originally uploaded by circaceramics

Really quick: A few months ago, we were contacted by 3 magazines, all industry based - So the circulations are really small. But they were all so excited about our work! All three of them saw us on Etsy, either the front page or because of a blogger.

This editor from HFN mag was really cool and followed up, and then sent us 2 copies :) I have to contact the other 2 (one is right here in IL, in Lincolnshire, and the other is in the UK) and ask for copies sent - We'll even pay :)

Anyway, I just wanted to post this because it's kinda cool!

-nancy

Slowly but surely.

special order for pwhoag
Originally uploaded by circaceramics

We didn't mean to leave anyone hanging! This month has been a, well, back breaker :)

We did 3 art & craft festivals/fairs back to back - And it has definitely not only taken it's toll on us physically, but also in our inventory - We are sorely lacking in tiles, cups and magnets. Good thing to complain about, but our momentum is off a bit at this time with custom orders looming upon us - We'll be lucky if we're ready for our open studio in October :)

And did I mention Renegade was awesomely fantabulous? Met tons of people, got to hang out with Lauren & Julie (truly lovely people from Etsy - here, they wrote about their studio visit with us: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/thisHandmadeLife/article/open-studio-circa-ceramics/234/ ) and get some much needed feedback (all good!) from the spectators.

I digress.
What we have shown here is a group of tiles (already on their way to Michigan) that we finally completed on Monday, no thanks to some weird-ass overglaze flaws. This customer was quite patient, and had initially ordered 3 tiles about a month ago; but after seeing some new images on Flickr from the Bucktown ArtsFest of our newly screened Rolleiflex camera, he added that one in too, the sweetie!

So now we're wondering what we're going to do in preparation for the online entertaining and gift-giving seasons. I 've added a short statement about time allowance at the very top of our profile on Etsy, and our web-guru/friend Patrick also reminded us to get something like that up on our regular website. I guess it's a matter of really plotting out plans of attack! With the making of the pieces, the drying, and all of the firings, we're going to need a rather large calendar :D

Next time we post, I think Andy will write about the new slip mixer due to arrive this Friday; we purchased it to aid in the reclaiming and mixing of casting slip. Making all the ware in porcelain has Andy quite busy, and if we want to have the cylinder, large bowl, and itty bitty cylinder in time for open studio, he had to do all this prep work now!

Oh, and did I mention we're in on the PoppyTalk Handmade?
Oh heck yeah, go here, it's pretty awesome:
http://www.poppytalkhandmade.blogspot.com/

Jan's been fantastic, and I'm more than certain that the artists that are participating in the first one are totally syked! I know we are :)

-nancy

Tools

After college in the mid 90's Nancy and I moved to Albuquerque, settled into a semi-permanent residence and started to build our first little art studio. It was then that it hit me-I have no tools-the college workshop had provided everything. Nancy was lucky, she painted in oils and watercolours and had an extensive collection of brushes, mediums, canvas, stretchers-but doing plaster work-try mixing a 30 pound batch of plaster by hand! So our first purchase was an electric drill or more precisely a 3/8 DeWalt electric drill (double the rpm's of other drills-really makes a nice batch of plaster). I was hooked on tools and we had a long road ahead to building a ceramic studio.

In 2002 (back in Chicago) we moved into a larger dedicated workspace and began to grow our business. As a small "production studio" one of the interesting quandaries we face is how to make more work without sacrificing quality. The pugmill is one tool that not only helped with our production but also improved the quality of our wares.
Today's market has many options for small scale clay preparation, everything from clay mixers that are usually paired with a pugmill for a 2 step process to all in one units that will take raw materials and give you ready to use clay. For our purposes, we are happy with boxed clay-the blend is just what we are looking for and when purchased by the ton the extra cost more than makes up for the labour and dust involved with mixing 2000 pounds of raw materials.

One of the drawbacks of boxed clay, however, is it rarely arrives in that nice soft malleable consistency and the act of forming pugs with hard clay for jigger moulds can really beat up your hands (tough pugs can also lead to problems in the ware during the forming process-but that's another essay). Running boxed clay through a pugmill will improve its immediate workability.
For our studio, the process of jiggering generates excess clay;
a 1.5 pound bowl uses about 2 pounds of clay and
a 4 pound bowl uses about 6. After jiggering, this excess clay
is too soft and wet for immediate re-use so it is recycled with the harder boxed clay creating that nice soft malleable blend.
My hands are happy!

Another great feature of the pugmill is its ability to operate as a somewhat decent extruder. While not a replacement it does an excellent job making slugs for press moulding coffee cup handles.

It does have it's drawbacks. It needs to be used at least once a week or be prepared to spend an hour or 3 cleaning it up (or more if you wait until the clay has dried up inside of it!). If you are tight on space this will make your life even tighter. They are not cheap, that $3000 plus can go along way toward other things but a good pugmill will last a lifetime.


Gratuitous endorsement from a small studio: I recommend the Shimpo PM-071 with the vacuum pump.

anniversary

We are coming up on our one year Etsy anniversary (yay!) and would like to take a little time and write about the item that spurred us into the online foray-the [tab].

(andy) From my point of view, I was dabbling with air-release molds and trying to overcome problems with a simple diy press setup. The tab project was an experiment using steel rings for die cases (previously wooden or plastic) that incorporated guide pins to keep the two halves aligned. I also started using photopolymer plates so our name would be raised in clay instead of stamped in underglaze.

(nancy) I just like to collect things! I love knick-knacky things; re-purposing things (especially tree ornaments & jewelry) for year round usage - I've even been known to buy jewelry for the sole purpose of decorating my art alter. The [tab] seemed like such a self-explanatory decorative object to me - We never gave it the 'purpose' that so many people seemed to want to give it - We just let it be. It's become an enjoyable activity for us to ask patrons what they intend to use them for (especially when they purchase 5 or more), and if they send us pictures that's even better! People are very inventive when they're inspired.

(andy) One of the coolest take over ideas for the tab was presented to us by a photographer (200pockets) that wanted her logo/avatar (a black camera with an orange background) made into a tab. She wears it as a badge while she shoots bands during their gigs-it has become a kind of brand recognition device for her as the online world contacts the outside world. She is now after us to put our van on a tab-we would have never thought of that-Thanks Bridget!

So, for one day only, September 3rd, our Etsy Anniversary Special: We're giving away a [tab] with every purchase - Your choice :) We'll have the details up in our shop.

Thanks to everyone who's been a customer, a supporter, and a hearter :D Here's to another year!!!

xoxo

Nancy + Andy