Sunday, October 12, 2008

Martina's latest...











Hello Everyone
so above, you see an excerpt from my summer and the start of the new semester. Here you can see how the slab plates have progressed - furthering the layering of surface and working on them as whole image - then cut to individual plates. I am eager for feedback on the new work- for expediency i opted for studio shots this time. i hope they read okay.
Below is my latest technical difficulty. Crazing can be a perennial problem in earthenware - however i've never had it to this degree - where you can actually watch the water be absorbed into the clay. I haven't changed anything that i'm aware of, and it's not happening with every firing. Ideas?

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Satoko's Pottery


Hello everyone! I’m Satoko Barash and this is my first posting on this blog.
I worked for Hoyman-Browe studio in 2005 for a few months and got to know Megan Mitchel there.
I received a BA in Studio Art from Sonoma State University in 2005 and continue working with clay at home while taking classes at Mendocino Junior College in Ukiah. I started Wood-firing with Doug Browe, Jan Hoyman and Megan in 2004 and participated in building a two-chambered wood firing kiln with them in 2006. Currently, I work in my small home studio with three outside kilns. The third kiln is a soda-kiln and I have not quite finished with its construction. I’ve been renting a soda or a salt kiln at Mendocino Art Center and firing my pieces there since 2006. Megan taught me how to fire these kilns. I took a workshop with Chris Staley this summer at the art center, also. Recently, I was accepted as an exhibiting member for ACGA: Association of Ceramic and Glass Artists in California and plan on taking part in the ACGA Palo Alto Show in July 2009. I alternate between sculpture and functional craft, feeling pulled back and forth between the two poles. I still take classes at Mendocino JC, but since I graduated Sonoma State, I don’t get much critique opportunities. I’d appreciate any feedback.

Here is a little story behind the two leg teapots: I grew up in Japan and when I was older, studied for two years in England. In both counties, tea drinking is very much a part of one’s life. When happy, tired, sad or upset, tea provides us with warmth and comfort. A teapot holds something hot, warm or cold. It is, for me, a symbol of human relationship such as family, friends and lovers, thus, “Tea party Inside a Teapot.”


stacking bowls
(soda fired)
leaf serving boat
(wood fired)

round serving dish
(salt fired)

mugs
(soda fired)

bowl
(wood fired)

tamari dispenser set
(soda fired)