The Day of the Donut returns April 23!

The Day of the Donut returns April 23!
Originally uploaded by jakerome

I just had to post this because this is kinda important. It's about donuts.

Friend Natalie aka Bake and Destroy started The Donut Database with her listing of places worthy of your dough. Then there's this group on Flickr called We Demand Donuts.

Please, go to the We Demand Donuts Flickr pool, and admire all that is within. Perhaps partake in some of the activities listed.

Then take a moment, go the database, and visit one of these places on April 23rd. Seriously. And if you know of a place where kick ass donuts are being created, please let Natalie know.

Because knowing is half the battle.

-Nancy

April is the cruelest month...

This time of year when the Midwestern air is constantly fluctuating between dry and damp, warm and cold producing work in the studio always presents a challenge. Tiles that only a month ago would dry nice and flat now curl and crack in only a few hours or they can sit for days without losing any moisture.

Back when we were making our ware out of earthenware clay drying wasn't so much of a problem, occasionally a plate would get that ugly hump rising up in the middle but for the most part it was make it and forget it. Even when we made the switch to a tighter cone 6 porcelaneous stoneware clay the pieces would pretty much dry well on their own. It wasn't until we started working with the really tight (under a percent absorbtion) porcelain clays that we had to start paying attention to our drying processes. What was once a nice round bowl would suddenly come out of the kiln transformed into a disheartening, unwelcome ovoid shape.

Finding a working solution to this problem was no easy undertaking and it took a painful amount of time. We would make a batch of work, analyze the drying process, and then wait until after 2 kiln firings to study the results.


To complicate matters, researching the problem revealed an amazing amount of misinformation that lead to many dead ends - the tried and true bag it and let it dry slowly for weeks and weeks just doesn't work in a production setting. Luckily there are easy to understand methods that have been developed by the ceramic industry. I was reminded of this by a recent article published over at the Ceramics Industry Website. The great thing about an article like this is that it provides enough information to help you find your own solution on a much smaller (and monetarily attainable) scale. Here are some links to other similar articles that helped us gain insight into the mechanisms of drying clay.

http://digitalfire.com/4sight/education/the_black_art_of_drying_ceramics_without_cracks_196.html

http://www.kilnman.com/tech/tech.html


-Andy

The Last Gocco Screen.

3.19.09 - The Last Gocco Screen
Originally uploaded by circaceramics

We flashed our last Gocco screen on March 19, and that marked for us the end of a 5 year era. We'll be going back to a more usual screenprinting method using the ol' Diazo kit available at Utrecht (or Pearl, or Dick Blick - Whoever has it in stock, really).

For those of you asking, "But why quit the Gocco?", it's all about the finances here, and the fact Gocco supplies have, ahem, gone up *quite* a lot since the announcement that the bulbs were no longer going to be manufactured, and then that supplies were going to cease being shipped to the US. Another reason is the hit or miss nature of flashing screens - For the past year we've been purchasing an extra box of bulbs just to cover all the dud bulbs we were getting! When you invest in a piece of equipment you expect a certain level of performance and sadly this kept going down.

Old screens? Maybe. Old bulbs? Maybe. The operator? Maybe. But after trying all tips-n-tricks (and coming up with a few of our own), you start to acknowledge that fact that you are ok, the tools are not.

So, we're getting our screenprinting setup ready (again), trying meshes out (it really IS like riding a bike) and getting ready to start up screening (again).

Nothing like switching methods right at the start of our production period, in preparation for fair & festival season - Keeps things lively!

And speaking of which, we have an idea of what part of our year is looking like:


Itinerary, part II (Updated 4.28.09)

may
nope - no open studio! we don't have the inventory, plus our super-secret new shape won't be ready - so we softly canceled it.

june
6+7 = 57th street art fair (we just heard on Sunday about this one so we're off the waitlist - Yippee!)
13+14 = wells street
27+28 = fountain square

july
TBD:
11+12 = art fair on the square
We're waitlisted for this one (WAH!) so we'll see.

august
1+2 = market days
29+30 = bucktown artsfest

september
12+13 = renegade craft fair (TBA - The apps don't go up till June for this one)
13 = starving artists' show (we just heard - Hooray!)


So there :)

-Nancy