The last pieces for Three Star Owl‘s Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival date slid into the kiln thursday, so no more pinching, coiling, stamping, slipping, scoring, or glazing nares, coverts, hooves, beaks, talons, or TOES again, until after the event.  Meanwhile, here’s a peek at a few things lurking informally around the studio now, waiting to be photo’d, priced, and packed:

New for this event are Javelina salt & pepper shakers and owl whistles.  And there’s a Plethora of Owls in all forms this time, even more than usual.

The Festival is in Sierra Vista (Arizona) at the Windemere Hotel, 5 – 9 August — that’s next week.  If you’d like to drop in, the vendor’s hours are: Thursday, August 6, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.; Friday, August 7, 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.; and Saturday, August 8, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.  Admission is FREE to the vending and exposition area in the hotel Lobby and Conference Rooms.  And, there’s still some room in several of the birding and natural history field trips, too.  Come by and say Hello!

Days are getting short until Three Star Owl‘s third appearance at Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival, and I’m in a groove, making pieces for the event.  As posted, I’ve been making mugs, and also owls.  Lots of owls.  Even more owls than usual.

So recently I turned to the hairy side of Sonoran fauna, and have been doing Javelinas.  Javelina items are popular with Three Star Owl clients, both Arizonans and visitors to the desert.  Interestingly, it’s often people who have lived their lives in the less urban areas of AZ who are NOT fans of the rooting, tusk-bearing mammal: they may have grown up thinking of them as pesky neighbors, and are weary of battling them over landscaping, gardens, and garbage, or are tired of sewing up the hound.

But in general, javelinas have lots of fans.  I was thrilled when a herd temporarily moved into our neighborhood a few years ago. They were flooded out of their usual habitat during a rainy year when the Salt River swamped the Goodding’s willow woods growing up in its channelized banks.  They did a bit of damage in yards, including ours, but I also still remember the thrill of hearing clicking sounds coming up the street, and looking up to see a mama with two quite young piglets following her!

Javelinas are not true pigs: they are pig-like mammals in the peccary family, Tayassuidae, and have a New World origin as opposed to pigs and swine, family Suidae, which originated in the Old World.  Our javelinas are also called Collared Peccaries, and live in a wide geographical range and a variety of habitats in the arid Southwestern U.S.  There are three other species of peccary in the Americas, which live throughout Central and South America: White-lipped, Chacoan, and Giant Peccaries.

Three Star Owl will be offering Javelina candle-holders and salt and pepper shakers for your table.  Here’s a colored pencil drawing of a pair of shakers in progress.  It’s not the drawing that’s “unfinished” it’s the clay objects, which are in two stages of completion, still in wet clay.  One is modeled and textured, the other not yet detailed or textured.  The shaker holes are the nostrils at the end of their snouts, and each one is re-fillable through neat rubber plugs in their bellies.

And here is a larger candle-holder, completed. The salt and peppers will have the same coloration, matte slips and oxides, with a little sparkle in the eye.

(Photos: top, javelina dirt-napping at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, E.Shock; javelina in our front garden, munching spring wildflowers, A.Shock; colored pencil sketch on recycled, speckled paper, A.Shock; Three Star Owl javelina candle holder, A.Shock)

I’m now in heavy production mode for the upcoming Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival in southeastern Arizona (see Events for details).  Some of the objects I’m making in small batches are smooth-surfaced mugs for glazing bird portraits on.  Flat-bottomed, hand-built (as opposed to wheel-thrown), and intended for daily use, these mugs have proven popular items at nature festivals and among Three Star Owl‘s birding clientele.  Who wouldn’t want to drink their favorite beverage out of their favorite bird mug?

I recently finished a batch for a client with a home in the Colorado Rockies, and here are a few shots of the process.  One of the reasons I’d like to share these photos is so folks can have an idea of the amount of work that goes into these mugs, which have three images of a species on each cup.

The mugs start out as flat rectangular slabs of clay that I make with a rolling pin and hardwood slats from the “home improvement center” as guides for thickness: very high tech.  (Many potters have slab rollers in their studios, which are fabulous items for making clay flat, but they’re big, and I’m not giving the swamp cooler the boot when a rolling pin and some wood molding will do.)  Then I curl the clay rectangles into a cylinder, seal up the side seam, add a slab base, a rim coil and a coil handle, and dry them very slowly over a period of several days.

After they’re bisqued, I draw the outline sketch of the chosen bird with regular no.2 graphite pencil right on to the clay.  This is convenient because I can erase pencil lines or whole drawings if they don’t go as planned (although nothing eats through erasers like rubbing on bisqued clay!), but I don’t have to remove the lines before the final firing: the temperature in the kiln is sufficiently hot to burn off the pencil completely.  The photo above gives a general idea of the tools used for glazing; the one to the right shows the roughed-in pencil sketch for a Green-tailed towhee.  (Remember to click on any image you’d like a closer look at).

The next step is glazing the interior: that happens before glazing the images on the outside, so the glaze doesn’t drip down a finished bird while pouring out the extra from the mug’s interior.

Next, I brush the glazes on.  This is like painting, without the advantage of being able to see what the image will look like with its proper colors.  This is because most raw glazes have very little in common visually with their finished, fired selves.  They go from chalky, pastel flat patches to shiny, brightly hued areas often with brush strokes visible where the thickness of the glaze varies.  These two photos show the difference between a male Western tanager, before and after:

Each mug has an image of the bird on each side, often the male on one side and the female on the other, and a thumbnail sketch, usually a profile portrait of the bird, on the bottom.  The bottom image must be done with matte slips, so they don’t stick to the kiln shelves during firing.

This batch of birds is spoken for, but if you’d like some of your own, contact me and I’d be happy to make you your own, with your own choice of birds (for details click on Shop).  Or, come visit Three Star Owl in Sierra Vista and see what’s in stock at Southwest Wings this August.

(all photos A.Shock)

The past three days I’ve been immersed in clay.  Sounds muddy, but what I mean is, of course, NCECA: demos, tools, galleries, other clay artists, techniques, long-time friends from St. Louis, Metro Light Rail, even a little shopping, and downtown Phoenix: all those things compressed into a fairly short amount of time, in three long but stimulating days.

The Potters as Sculptors, Sculptors as Potters show was fabulous, and folks who made the trip out to Mesa Community College saw a broad yet focused themed show that added a lot to the exhibition experience at NCECA.  The room was light and spacious, and packed full of pairs of pieces showing the range in various artists’ work, and how they deal with the duality of making both vessels and sculpture.  (Here’s a shot looking into the gallery.  My pieces, Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy and Venomosity are the two objects nearest to the camera.)  Saint Louis clay artist James Ibur finessed an adroit and thoughtful piece of curation in organizing this show, as well as doing a lot of hard work.

The bulk of the event was deep in the bowels of the Phoenix Convention Center, and almost all of it was nearly simultaneous.  To make the most of NCECA you have to be good at time management and willing to switch gears mid-stream.  I watched a Korean Onggi potter make really big pots in the traditional style.  He made the coil of beige clay at his foot by stretching 25 pounds of clay all at once on the floor like a giant taffy loop.  He would then rest the coil on his shoulder while feeding it onto the top of the pot.  He said at home each potter made 30 of these in a day!  That’s a lot of kim-che storage — and a lot of clay.

There were also on-site installations constructed during the course of the meeting, like this one of a California gray whale made of clay packed onto slat-armature.  The mini-whale in red clay on the boxes is the artist’s maquette, and you can just see a few slats still un-clayed at the far left edge of the photo.

The NCECA exhibitors’ hall is also a great place to shop for the latest tool, equipment, or silly clay tee-shirt (“Throwing my life away” “Tee-shirt for my clay body”, etc).  But the best tool ideas I picked up were being used by the demonstrators, like this one used by the Korean potter above: it’s a wooden hand-held anvil used on the inside of the pot while the outside is beaten with a wooden paddle.  This thins the clay and compresses it, making the walls of the pot stronger and reinforcing the joins between the coils.  Wood tends to stick to wet clay, so the face of the tool has been textured so it releases more easily.  It also leaves a great texture behind.  But, it wasn’t available for sale in the exhibition hall, so if you want one, you’ll have to make it yourself (I’ve always used a river-cobble as an anvil).

I mentioned shopping, and that’s because much of the art on display was for sale.  Probably the most notorious selling frenzy at the conference is the Cup Benefit sale, where artists donate cups for a sale, the proceeds of which go to art scholarships.  The cups are displayed for two days, then, on the third day, they throw open the doors and let people in a few at a time to shop. The cups are donated by lots of artists, from plain folk to rock-star potters — the most famous names in the business — so the line to get in is long, and people arrive early.  By early I mean 4.30am!  Although I had my eye on a specacular piece with burrowing owls stencilled on it, it was long gone by the time I got in.  So I contented myself with two appealling cups by potters unknown to me — oddly, both named Reilly/Riley.

As I mentioned previously, there are two pieces of mine in the NCECA “Potters as Sculptors; Sculptors as Potters” show currently up at Mesa Community College (see the Three Star Owl Events page for details).  One of them is the long-evolving “Toadstack” (the other is Venomosity which can currently be viewed on the Home page.) As promised, here is the entire Toadstack story in pictures, culminating in the final state of the piece.  They go from L to R and Top to Bottom; don’t forget you can click on an image to enlarge it:

and the finished piece, Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy (Toadlier than Teapotly):

This show is associated with the annual NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) Convention, which opens in town tomorrow (Wed 8 April).  From now until Saturday, Phoenix will be popping with potters, sculptors, and ceramic arts educators.  The downtown Phoenix Convention Center is the main venue, where the discussions, demos, lectures, and exhibitors will be located.  There’s a fee to attend that part of the conference, but there are many many galleries, museums and other display venues which have shows up featuring the work of both nationally known and local clay artists, and these shows are FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

So if you like looking at the broad range of contemporary ceramic artwork and what’s being made in America today in clay, check out the NCECA website for lists of and maps to the concurrent shows and outlying venues which are all over the metro area.  Principal show clusters are located in Tempe, in and around the ASU Campus; Mesa, at both the Community College and the Arts Center; downtown Phoenix in the hotels around the Convention Center; and Scottsdale, in the Old Town Arts District, a fun and stimulating place to visit anyway.  It’s a great time in Phoenix to Get Out and See Art.

The final increments of the imperturbable Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy (or Toadstack for short) have been completed, and after months of being alternately obsessed on and ignored, left alone and detailed, the piece is finished and ready for its destination.  Here are its last two phases: a final coat of white terra sigillata (super-fine suspension of clay in water), and smoke-firing.

The Toadstack looks bleached because it’s had a second layer of terra sigillata brushed onto it, and lightly buffed back, so it remains mostly in the low points of the textures.  Terra sigillata is slip — clay and water and sometimes a mineral colorant — but the clay particles in it are finer than regular slip mixtures, so the surface can be buffed with a cloth or even the fingers to a satiny sheen.  The second photo is for later comparison: it’s a close-up of the skin of the red-spotted toad: if all goes as planned, what’s white will turn smokey brown-black, and what’s red will be a mix of red and black randomly.

Next the Toadstack is loaded into the galvanized trash can “kiln”.  Surrounded by shredded paper and sawdust of two chunkinesses, and some pine twigs and needles from the Hen’s tree, it will be completely covered before lighting.  Here in Phoenix you’ve got to remember to call Maricopa County Air Quality hotline before ignition to make sure there are no wood-burning bans in place, which this night, there weren’t.  The weather was perfect: cool, and with only a light breeze and no burn-bans, so I torched the can.  The dry combustibles burn fairly fast and sweet-smelling because I use both cedar chips and mesquite twigs from our trees, so within a couple of hours the smoke has dwindled to nearly nothing.  But even after the fire burns down, the heat is still fierce.  If the pieces were to be removed into the cool air they could crack, so I clamp the can’s lid on and let them cool overnight.  The next morning I opened the “kiln”, and unpacked the pieces.  The kiln fates were kind, and no cracks or other problems found, so the Toadstack was taken inside and cleaned up a bit for photographing.  Here is the comparison close-up of the Red-spotted toad’s skin — all is well, and the smoke has made its dramatic and unpredictable changes:

The Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy is destined to be shown at the “Potters as Sculptors, Sculptors as Potters” show organized by St. Louis artist James Ibur at NCECA this year, so it’s hardly fair to unveil it before the opening.  The exhibition will be at:

Mesa Community College, 1833 W. Southern Avenue, 480-461-7524.  Navajo Room, Kirk Student Center  Apr 6-11, 2009.  Mon-Fri 9:00a.m.- 5:00p.m., Sat 9:00a.m.- 2:00p.m.

Potters as Sculptors; Sculptors as Potters: artists included are Dan Anderson, Jeri Au, Dan Barnett, Chris Berti, Victor Bassman, Peter Beasecker, Gina Bobrowski, Susan Bostwick, Joe Bova, Andy Brayman, Wayne Branum, Bill Broulliard, Richard Burkett, Doug Casebeer, Joe Chesla, Linda Christiansen, Eddie Dominguez, Renee Deall, Josh DeWeese, Paul Dresang, Rick Dunn, Tim Eberhardt, Shanna Fliegel, Debra Fritts, Gloria Fuchs, Julia Galloway, Pete Halladay, Sam Harvey, Rick Hensley, Jason Hess, Eric Hoefer, James Ibur, Nick Joerling, Steve Lee, Jimmy Liu, Beth Lo, Allegheny Meadows, Ron Meyers, Boomer Moore, Eric Nichols, Brooke Noble, Lisa Orr, Donna Polseno, Liz Quackenbush, Ruth Reese, Dave Regan, Don Reitz, Allison Shock, Chris Staley, Richard Swanson, Kurt Weiser, Matt Wilt, Betty Woodman, Russell Wrankle, and Luo Xioping.  Utility is the core concept of the show: How does a person working in clay approach it if that is the primary focus of their work?  If it is not, how do they perceive function when it is juxtaposed against their non-functional art?  Many ceramic artists explore and/or exist equally in both the world of function and sculpture.  In this exhibition, the artists will be exhibiting work that explores both of these ideas by presenting two pieces of their work.  Organized by James Ibur.

I’m exhibiting two pieces, the Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy (Toadlier than Teapotly), and Venomosity, a Gila-monster inspired Beastie vessel.

There will be a free reception, open to the public, on the evening of Friday April 10, in the Navajo Room (location, above). Everyone’s invited!

If you can’t make the reception at the Mesa Community College, you’ll have to wait for one Final Increment on this website…  Until then, here is a sneak preview of Venomosity ➤➤

Late post (Sunday 8 March 2009):

Hello from San Diego, where today is the last day of the San Diego Audubon Bird Festival.  Things have been busy here, and I haven’t had a chance to post until now.  The Festival is at the Marina Conference Center right on Mission Bay — here’s a shot of the Three Star Owl booth.  It’s nice to be in a room with windows and a view.  So many facilities are completely interior and have things like accordion walls with scotch tape holding up a leftover honeycomb wedding bell that was too high for the cleanup crew to reach.  This room is wood-panelled and bright, and looks out onto a marina.  Nice!

E was able to come along and help, which is a treat because then each of us had an opportunity to go on a field trip.  He’s doing a San Diego River outing as I write this, and yesterday I joined a pelagic trip out to the Islas Coronadas, a small grouping of islands in Mexican water within sight of San Diego.  The room is still swaying a bit this morning, although by Pacific standards the seas weren’t rough. My little camera doesn’t do distant birds well, so I don’t have a picture of what was for me the highlight of the trip, several pairs of small alcids (a type of sea bird) called Xantus’s murrelets, which, although we had great looks, would never be more than little black and white blobs bobbing on the waves in my photos.  There were many excellent sea birds to be seen, but also mammals, including close looks at Gray Whales migrating north, and four species of dolphins: Risso’s, Common, Pacific white-sided and Bottlenosed, who larked under the bows, close enough so that we could hear them exhale when they surfaced. Above is a photo of something my camera can handle — a California sea lion beach-master with his harem.

In case you’re a non-birder, and don’t know what birders do at bird festivals, the main events are organized field trips to local hot-spots, led by experts, to look at birds.  The exhibit room has exhibitors like state Fish & Game people or the American Birding Association giving out info, and vendors with bird and nature related supplies, photos, and art for sale (like Three Star Owl).  Optics manufacturers have reps there, so that attendees can check out scopes and binox.  Occasionally impromptu viewings break out, such as when a Merlin was spotted atop a mast in the Marina, and the line of demo scopes was commandeered for viewing.  Pretty heady times!

Stay tuned: on the way home E and I stopped at the Mud Volcano site on the Salton Sea for a spot of sampling and marvelling at gloopy mud-blorping “gryphons”.

This is the week of the San Diego Birding Festival at the Marina Conference Center right on Mission Bay.  The keynote speaker will be David Allen Sibley, the artist and author of the Sibley field guides to the birds of North America, which are considered some of the top field guides available.  Many of the field trips are full, but there are spaces left and last-mintue cancellations, plus there’s lots to do at the Festival besides field trips: lectures, workshops, local self-guided birding, and shopping — come by Three Star Owl and say Hi!

I’ve got the usual assortment of owls, non-owl birds (!), and reptiles, plus I’ve included some coastal and California species for the occasion, like the Eared Grebe hanging tile pictured here.  Also, this show marks the West Coast debut of “rat-dogs” — generic mammal-form pieces that look like they might bite, or communicate a disease.  Take one home if you dare.

For more details, see here and here.

I’ve been working hard on pieces for the San Diego Audubon Birding Festival, which is coming right up.  While glazing a wall tile with the portrait of a male Surf scoter and looking at photo resources of scoters, I realized I was being treated to another pervious nostril!

It doesn’t show so much in this photo, but scoters, like cathartid vultures, have pervious, or “see-through” nostrils.  In Audubon’s professionally terse words:

Nostrils sub-medial, elliptical, large, pervious, near the ridge.

–John James Audubon, Birds of America, Family XXXIX. ANATINAE. DUCKS. GENUS V. FULIGULA. SEA-DUCK.

If you don’t know scoters, they’re sturdy North American sea ducks who breed in Alaska and northern Canada and winter along both coasts of the U.S.  They dive for a living.  The picture above, by photographer Alan D. Wilson, is a male Surf scoter (Melanitta perspicillata) at Bolsa Chica reserve, in California.  It shows the handsome bird with what is too frequently described as a “clownish bill”, gliding in the blue backwater of Bolsa Chica Wetlands.  If you’re wondering why the “clownish bill” is so big, scoters eat hard food, some of which — like blue mussels — needs to be pried off of rocks underwater.  In summer, they favor marine invertebrates, in winter, mostly molluscs.

As for the pervious nostril in scoters, I haven’t turned up a definitive discussion yet, but most sea birds need to rid their systems of salt, often by sneezing or dribbling it out through the nostrils, and have evolved various nostrillar adaptions (again, a technical term) to do so: pervious nostrils would not easily become clogged with expelled salt crystals.

To the left is Audubon’s plate of Surf scoters — at the time called Surf Ducks — from Birds of America

Three Star Owl will be at the San Diego Birding Festival in Mission Bay San Diego, 5-8 March 2009.