metal is clay

“Open Vessel”, 14” long, Southern Ice porcelain. Survived the bisque firing—phew—now ready for a high temp firing to mature the clay. Everything takes time…make, dry, fire, fire again. And there’s a lot of sampling. Some pieces will unfortunately fail, but they all provide information. All this process tries to make next time go better, to feel more informed. But these are raw materials and their character changes, even with refined minerals, making ceramics a pretty harsh teacher. It's a journey, and to quote Tony Nadal, tennis legend Rafa Nadal’s uncle/coach: “Stay humble, stay hungry”. The sample: “Skiff”, un-glazed sculptural porcelain vessel, cone 10 fired, and ready to go out in the world. Skiff—deep in the kiln, in amongst endless glaze tests, on the bottom shelf of the last glaze-firing. That orange sample in the centre is incredible, going to be seeing a lot more of that colour…  

I made this video for the makeanddo virtual film festival at The Ceramic Congress 2021. It's an intro to the cheap and quick ‘jigs’—workshop devices that hold parts for you—that I made to give myself some extra hands while building “Pool”, a porcelain and metal sculpture. The sculpture is still a work in progress, I keep working on other projects and sneaking back to it, good thing that metal-work is so patient! You can watch the whole film festival on Youtube .  The film was edited by the very talented—and insanely productive—Carole Epp at musingaboutmud . Thank you Carole, awesome job! 🙏👏 Follow along with me in the studio @metalisclay on instagram   #ceramicsculpture #porcelain #themakingof #organicceramics #contemporaryporcelain #crunchyporcelain #contemporaryporcelainvessel #ceramiclife #pinchypinch #contemporaryceramicvessel #studioceramics #canadianceramics #benchpeg #benchtips #intheworkshop #wip #inthestudio #metalwork #canadianmetalsmith #vmaamember