To finish the series of posts from Austria, I’ll log the last one from home in Vermont. These images are of the finished pieces from Hotel Pupik. They were taken at the Hotel Pupik Presentation on July 18 & 19. The room where they are shown is the upstairs of what was once a barn and the floor is supported by cross vault arches built in the 17th century.

I have to send thanks to Angelika Fritz of Murau, Austria for firing these for me on very short notice. She started the kiln on Thursday evening and hand delivered them onf Friday just before the presentation began. As fire is the 4th and arguably the most important element in the process, it wouldn’t have been possible without you, Angelika.  Thank you so much.

For more images of the presentation  and a list of the other artists, check out David Murobi’s photography site.

Also, read the musings of Tiffany Rhynard, my wife, on  her Austrian choreograghy experience at www.bigapensemble.com.

Now that I’m home, I look forward to seeing what happens with these ideas that were planted six time zones from home.  I picked up a supply of clay today and tomorrow starts a new cycle of work in my own studio.

Auf Wiedersehen.

Our stay here at Schrattenberg is coming to a close and its time to clean up my work space and wait on the pots to be fired. If all goes well I will show 4 or 5 pieces in the Hotel Pupik presentation this weekend.

The process has evolved since my last post. I started by trying to be very representational of the cross vault and morphed into a reinterpretation of the architectural form. In the end I returned to replicating and finally felt like I understood the intersecting arch. I’ll show the last piece first as it dried in the sun this morning before going into the kiln.

As I worked through a series of these forms, I began adding coils to the carved foundations and eventually making them entirely with coils. This gave more options to make them deeper, wider, and more open.

My host, Heimo Wallner, was able to procure some natronwasserglas (sodium silicate) and I made a terra sigillata from the dried scraps of the clay I’ve been using. The sodium silicate deflocculates the slip and causes the clay particles to repel each other.  The coarse particles settle to the bottom leaving the finest particles to be decanted and applied to the surface of the pots. This gives a satiny sheen even without glaze.

The pieces I’ve made here will be fired unglazed, but covered in terra sigillata. Here are images of a few more pieces, freshly coated with terra sig last night.