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Our Pottery And Our Work

6/9/2022

We have a different philosophy of art and artisan production than you would find in a lot of other e-commerce shops.

That's evident when you get on our website – you see the breadth of design and some of the relatable ideas in play that you'd expect from your neighborhood potter!

Let's talk a little bit more about this and how it informs our catalog of neat kiln-fired items that we can ship directly to you.

Process

When you read the blog and other parts of the site, you'll see quite a lot about our artistic process. For example, using horsehair from old violin bows is a unique way to construct pottery that speaks to musicians and others with a penchant for traditional tunes. That’s just one example of the process that we get into when we’re designing unique gifts and household items for the modern buyer.

You'll see a lot more about how we throw pots, and why we create certain kinds of projects when we’re looking to design things like yarn bowls and mugs, and much more.

Methods

In surfing the site, you’ll also find out a lot more about our methods.

One example is where we talk about the process of subtle changes to a range of pots, and evolving a method or system for throwing a set of items on the wheel.

Different potters, simply speaking, have different methods. Some potters like to go more extreme, starting a new design template each time they sit down. Others will create the more consistent sets of pottery that we talk about in the blog and elsewhere.

Philosophy

What can't you figure out about us in browsing the blog and the site?

You'll hear more about what goes on in our lives as we build this e-commerce store, and how local artisan projects work from our end.

That's the human side of a type of artisan merchandising that people don't usually think about that when they think about ordering items online. You don't get this kind of thing on Amazon – it's rare that you really see the details about the seller and their outlook and philosophy on things. You rarely see anything about their lives, or what they do during an average day.

We believe in bringing the human side back to e-commerce, and it's easy to see when you're engaged with our online store. Become one of our treasured regulars and get pottery that speaks to you!

Mining Feldspar

5/11/2022

Feldspar is commonly used to make dinnerware and tiles, but crafters also use Feldspar as a flux for glass production and ceramics. Feldspar works well as a flux material to lower the melting temperature of another material. In 2022, the Feldspar mining market is expected to each up to two billion dollars due to the growing demand for mining, improving technologies, and emerging markets. However, the production of Feldspar does face obstacles such as worker safety and industry regulations.

What Is Feldspar?
Feldspar is actually a group of minerals containing alumina and silica, including aluminum silicates of lime, soda, or potassium. Feldspar is the single most abundant mineral group on Earth, accounting for approximately 60% of soils, clays, and exposed rocks, and makes up principal components in rock classification schemes.

History Of Feldspar Mining
Mining history for Feldspar dates back to 1874, when General George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Dakota Territory. In the Black Hills, General Custer and the 7th Calvary discovered gold as they were camping next to a small stream. Here the mining town of Custer, South Dakota, began, and in 1928 the first Feldspar milling operation opened for business. Now, high-quality Feldspar is still being produced from the rich ore deposits and pegmatite of the Black Hills mines and many states across the country.

How Feldspar Is Mined
Feldspar is mined from massive bodies of granite, sands, and pegmatites. Pegmatites are formed during the final fluid stages of crystallizing granite. The granite becomes concentrated in small vapor-rich pockets and liquid that promote the growth of very large crystals.

Because Feldspar is a significant component of the Earth's crust, its supply is more than adequate to meet demand. Hard-rock mining of Feldspars is primarily done by open-pit methods by contractors and mine owners. Once the Feldspar ore is drilled and blasted, it undergoes a secondary breakage with a conventional drop ball. The ore is then loaded onto trucks using hydraulic shovels and hauled to a crushing plant that is usually located next to the flotation plant.

Substitutes For Feldspar
Even though Feldspar is a primary material used in high-end glass making and ceramics, it can be substituted with alternative sources. Minerals that can be replaced for Feldspar include clays, pyrophyllite, talc, and quartz mixtures. However, the abundance of Feldspar makes substitutions unnecessary for crafters for the foreseeable future. When working with pottery and glass, Feldspar is still one of the best choices of materials.

Important Facts About Raku Pottery You Need To Know

4/13/2022

Finding unique items to collect and put into your home should be one of your top priorities. If you want one-of-a-kind decorative items for your residence, then you need to think about investing in custom-made pottery and coasters. The same process used to make these items is also used to make decorative shawl buttons and pins.

Every year, consumers in the United States spend billions of dollars on ceramic products. As a pottery enthusiast, finding out more about the processes used to create these items is a good idea. Raku pottery is extremely popular around the world. Read below to find out more about this process and how it is used to create breathtakingly beautiful bowls, pins and buttons.

What is Raku Pottery?
Roku pottery is a process that requires a kiln to be heated up much faster than traditional Kiln firings. Once the material reaches these higher temperatures, the potter will remove the piece while it still has its molten orange hue. After the piece is removed from the kiln, it is put into a container with combustible substances like sawdust. By placing the hot pottery piece in these conditions, the potter is able to create unique textures and colors on the surface.

Where Did Raku Pottery Originate?
In the 16th century, the Japanese invented the process of making Raku pottery. The main purpose of the development of this process was to promote the beauty of the pieces being created. Traditionally, potters that used the Raku method would shape them by hand rather than using a wheel. This handcrafted approach gave these pieces more beauty and individuality.

The Raku wares constructed in Japan are still some of the most highly-valued and sought-after items in the ceramics world. Over the years, Raku potter has been considered the embodiment of Zen, which is why it is so desirable to collectors.

What Does Raku Mean?
The rough translation of the Japanese word Raku means “happiness in the accident”. Many Japanese elders believed that Raku was a process of achieving enlightenment. They believed that the tea bowl used during this process represented the Earth. These same elders believed that the heating process used to make Raku pottery was representative of enlightenment.

The Clays Used For Raku Firing
As any pottery enthusiast knows, the quality of clay used during the crafting of a piece is extremely important. In reality, any type of clay can be used during the Raku firing process. However, there are specially designed clays designed specifically for Raku.
Typically, Raku clay has much better thermal shock resistance and a lower shrinkage rate. Using the right glazes is also crucial when trying to create Raku pottery pieces. Usually, low-fire glazes are used during this process. If you are buying Raku pieces from a reputable potter, they will use the materials mentioned here to craft their works of art.

Now that you know more about Raku pottery, it is time to check out the pieces offered by LickinFlames.

The Four Types Of Clay Used In Pottery

3/23/2022

Many people may not realize that pottery can be made from different types of clay, each having unique properties that produce an intended result when used. Each type of clay consists of different colors, flexibilities, and textures that determine uses, color, firing temperature, and yielded results. With the various types of clay available on the market, knowing what you are buying will help ensure your next project is successful. Let's take a closer look at thefour types of clay used in pottery and the intended use of each.

Earthenware Clay
The oldest and most commonly used clay is Earthenware clay. Earthenware clay is very beginner-friendly as it is high in plasticity. This type of clay is primarily found in warm colors such as red, brown, grey, and orange, which show well after being fired. Artists like to work with Earthenware clay as it is easily decorated withpaints and glazes. Sculptors find Earthenware clay precious and versatile, unable to be had sculpted or wheel-thrown. However, if the finished product freezes, it can crack.

Ball Clay
Ball clays are highly plastic and contain minimal impurities and a high percentage of quartz. Because ball clays occur naturally as sediments and have very fine minerals, they tend to lose color on firing. At the greenware stage, ball clays may be grey then obtain a light buff color after firing. When appropriately fired, some may produce a white hue, which makes it a famous clay among potters. Ball clays are also used in floor tiles, vases, and tableware.

Stoneware Clay
Stoneware clays have stone-like qualities and are rigid, nonporous, and moderately plastic. These clays vary in grey, white, and brown colors when wet. Firing temperature affects the final color of the product. Containing small amounts of mica and quartz, stoneware clays are easily worked and painted with underglazes, glazes, overglazes, and enamels. Stoneware clays are a popular material for tableware and are suited for both hand-building and wheel throwing.

Porcelain Clay
Porcelain, or China, clays are popular in dinnerware. These clays are the least plastic of the four types of clay; hence they are pretty challenging to work with. Porcelain clays are created with a large amount of mineral kaolin, giving them a very light greyish tone at the greenware stage. After firing, porcelain clays are white to off-white and can be glazed with enamels. Also known as kaolin clays, porcelain clays fire at high temperatures and produce hard water-resistant products.

When choosing the suitable clay for your next project, consider the character of each of these four clays to ensure you select the right materials for your needs.

Pottery is Just Like Hockey...Apparently

1/26/2022

Wayne Gretzky, the undeniably great Canadian hockey player, once said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

When I read that many years ago, I thought he was only referring to sports. I was so wrong. So very very wrong.

As it turns out, every piece of pottery than I never made was destined to be perfect. Magnificent works of art. I just never made them.

Pottery is a maker’s art. You have to show up and play the game. You have to get messy and dirty. You can not make pottery in a sketch book or sitting around thinking about it. You have to do it.

My design process is pretty organic. I throw a pot on the wheel and make judgements to “improve” the piece as I throw the next. Sometimes the changes are subtle and sometimes, not so. But the organic nature of the process can only happen when my hands are in the mud. I really do have to show up to create.

Now, it’s not everyday that I feel very creative. I do have days when the idea of sitting down and throwing a few dozen pots is not all that exciting. As I pug the clay and prep it for the work ahead, I just feel like I’m going through the motions of art and not the E-motions of art. True. There are motions before the emotions.

When the clay is pugged and measured, I cover it with plastic to keep it from drying. I set it next to wheel. I walk over to the workshop and fill my water jug with hot water and after walking back to the mud room, fill my throwing bucket. I then sit down and throw a pot. Throwing that first pot of the day is not always that exciting. I’m still just going through motions.

Sometimes the first pot gets me in the game. Other times takes a dozen pots or so before I start really feeling like I’m playing the game well. But because I show up, things are made and art has a chance of happening.

I’m about to head on over to the mudroom. When I hit the switch that turns on the heater, I’m going to think about Mr. Gretzky’s quote. today. Game on.

An Entire State Was Named For Her

7/28/2021

Not everything I do around the studio is about pottery. I do have a life. Seriously, I do.

It’s just hard being owned by a pet. Unless you have had a friend such as our American Brittany, Montana, you might not “get it.”

Montana doesn’t do a whole lot of tricks. She sits if you have food for her. She’ll come back, if she wants too. She doesn’t do any of that roll over stuff anymore. At one time she would turn around both ways, shake with a designated hand, lie down and sing (more like a pained howl) when I played music (the dog howled…not the music). But she doesn’t do any of that now. She’s good at sleeping. She still loves to get lovin’…but even eating is not like it was.

We’re getting close to crossing a bridge. It’s hard.

She had a seizure a couple weeks back and we thought the decision was made. It happened on a weekend and the Vet was closed. She was back to her normal the next morning and by Monday, the can that holds that decision I so want to avoid was kicked down the road.

She sleeps a lot, a frequently falls down as her back legs are not all that strong. She has trouble getting up. When she does stand up, she wobbles and tries to look around as if she wonders where she is and what she should do. She can’t see too well She’s not blind, but she is confused on doorways sometimes and will stand facing a wall, thinking it’s a door. She can’t hear well. Not that she ever really chose to listen, but now she can’t hear. She doesn’t even hear us when we walk into the house. She’s a bony representation of her younger self.

All this points to having to make a decision sooner than I would like too.

And then there are those moments when, if her eyes weren’t cloudy, they would sparkle. She’s still got sparkle and puppy in her and every so often, it shows. About once a week she will walk to the edge of the property to sniff all her favorite places and when she comes back she runs (well bunny hops with her hips) and you can see she’s enjoying it. But where she used to leap over logs in her way, she now runs around them. And where she was jumping onto the porch a year ago, she now stops and prepares herself for what she thinks is a massive feat (it’s two steps).

On a day with a seizure, the decision could be easier. When she collapses walking down from porch, the decision flashes in the mind. But when she looks up at you with her ears up, the head cocked to one side and her eyes so wanting to sparkle, just insisting on a carrot for a treat, the decision is much more difficult.

Fifteen and a half years we’ve been together.

Now we’re together day by day.

Whole Lotta Crazy Goin' On

4/25/2021

The Columbine are particularly pretty this year...and there are lots of native lilies and irises popping up all over the property. Many more than I remember from the past. The lily is a curious plant...two long leaves and the flower and soon there will be nothing to look at

The electrician came by and wired up the new-to-me kiln. It can take me 1 ½ days to sponge and load pots into the smaller kiln and this bigger unit is about 3 times the size…so I suppose that "dishpan hands" will be in my future. I do know that after firing three bisque loads in the larger kiln that there is a small delay between loading and unloading. The smaller kiln fires and cools in a single day. Firing in the larger kiln is a bit longer but the cooling is a heck of a lot longer. It's pleasantly warm to unload the second morning. Pretty sure the glaze firings will be a bit longer than that. We'll find out this week with the first load going in Wednesday
maybe
perhaps
that's the plan.
The kiln is large enough and my studio small enough that glazing will take up all available space in the studio. That creates a small logistical challenge for paragraph one.

Knowing that the larger kiln would be wired up eventually, I made pieces that can not fit into the smaller kiln…either they’re too big or the kiln is too small. But I made the pots and they are fired and now I will be able to work them through the glaze process. Now this may sound like a rather small detail, but the effect that the new pieces will have on the booth are rather profound. So…

The new “soft walls” for the tent were delivered last week. I put up two of the walls to give Brenda and I the opportunity to start the conversation on the new window dressing that will be taking place in the booth structure. The conversation led to ordering the new shelving and pedestal for the booth.

Pots are starting to get decorated...a few more to be made and all of this has to be finished by the end of May for photography.

Just a whole lot of crazy going on around here. It’s all good…but all a bit crazy at the same time.

Dogwoods...YES!...Mud Daubers...NO!

4/22/2021

It is getting interesting in the mudroom. Just enough pots trying to dry in the room that they all have to take turns grasping at dry air to dampen. I know that’s not the way it works, but I’ve reached a standstill. This happens every Spring...like the trees in bloom.

But of course, drying pots is not the most interesting happening in the room.

I have a resident snake in the mudroom. It’s a juvenile Sharp-tailed snake (Contia tenuis). It is the most lovely red hue. Reminds me of madder. It is a bit smaller than the one I came across in the yard two years ago. This also tells me that we have at least a breeding pair on the property. It’s about 6 inches long not and will likely just about double in size. Literature tells me that the species prefers moist environments…certainly found that in the mudroom. Both times I’ve come across them here, I first thought I was looking at a big worm. They’re that slender.

So the snake can stay, but the Mud Daubers cannot. No no no no no! Period. No! Oh…and that stupid spider that bit me a couple weeks back. I’m still recovering from the bite and can still see the fang marks. I’d like to stomp the hell out of that one.

…and another critter that needs to move along are the woodpeckers. Henry and Maude (yes we have a pair) have decided that the house can be turned into a nursery and have put two nesting holes through the siding…replete with removal of insulation. The house looks like a carnival with all the dangling shiny bits of foils. I don’t care if they’re a pair of Downy, Acorn or Hairy woodpeckers…I need them to find love in a different spot. They fall under the Migratory Bird Treaty Protection Act (of 1918) but don’t tell the idiot receptionist answering the phone at the USFW in Sac…she was adamant that the Feds have nothing to do with migratory birds…good grief.

Now if all these critter’s would just learn to throw pots it would be helpful…at least learn to throw the ball for Madison, the seven month old Black Lab puppy.

Chewed Up and Spit Out

4/19/2021

Last week we were vendors with VOGUE Knitting. They run a great virtual show. Well run. Well supported by tech help and volunteers. We enjoy working with them.

BUT…for all VOGUE does for us. They just can’t seem to stop our local power grid to do hiccups and kick our computer’s connections to ZOOM right off the platform. Seriously 30 seconds to the end of one of programs the power burped and killed our connection through ZOOM. It didn’t even go off long enough for the automatic generator to kick in. Not sure that a battery backup would have initiated fast enough…just a burp...a flutter…a hiccup…At least we know it wasn’t us this time.

We were happy to have the opportunity to share our work with folks. Even with all the new projects that have been going out the door, we just don’t get the kind of feedback we could use. We like platforms such as VOGUE (even in a virtual situation) to help us fine-tune our work. It’s not the same as face to face, you and we know that, but it does help.

This is a pivotal week on several projects. We need to get the pieces compete and photos taken buy June 1. Now that may sound like a long way away, but the timeline tells a completely different story. Luckily the weather is mostly dry which helps to dry the pots. Oh wait, ”mostly dry” only works for the next five days and then we will get moist and cold(ish). Fortunately, I have a dehumidifier in the shop to help dry the bits. But this week it is important to focus. I have a list of tasks in the mudroom awaiting my arrival each morning. Lots of mud slinging going on in the mudroom.

…and then there is the yard. It’s pretty hard to call four acres a “yard” but whatever you choose to call it, it is exploding with growth. That growth needs to be trimmed up, cut down, and there is always something calling for re-this or re-that. The yard takes any extra time I thought I might have had and sucks it up, chews it a while and spits it out.

But first...Color!

4/13/2021

Getting ready for my demonstration tomorrow with VOGUE Knitting…it’s a virtual conversation about color from a potter’s point of view. Some of the color makers are the photos in the BLOG. Trust me…what you see is not always what you get. Apparently 2000 degrees Fahrenheit can have a profound effect on stuff…ya think?! The demo is tomorrow at 2:30 Pacific through VOGUE. Info on their website.

Well the rib is still painful…maybe a 6 on the 10 scale…12 when the 50+ pound puppy decides to jump up to see what’s happening up close.

But what could be worse than the crack in the rib from my fall of two weeks ago? How about a spider bite on the kneecap…swollen up, red and warm and itch…ITCH…three days of that and I’m thinking that the rib is the lesser of the problems. Two little fang marks even.

If its not one thing its another right?!

Rib, knee…how about the trench the electricians want to dig from the house to the workshop. Seriously…I thought we had two conduits running to the workshop…nope…just one and it’s got the electrical running in it. Ethernet doesn’t work well (if at all really) in the same conduit as high voltage wires. So I’m having two quotes submitted. I asked the second guy if I could expect a comma to be involved in the dollar amount and he said, “Yes.” Here I thought we could be friends.

Trench or no trench, both quotes will be for the kiln wiring also…so that is going to happen within a couple weeks. That is a good thing. The diameter of the kiln is significantly bigger and that will allow for bigger pots…sort of like the dozen or so that are sitting in the shop waiting for the kiln to be hooked up. I got a little ahead of myself and made pots I can not fire. Sadly, I could use the shelf space they are taking up.

But first...color!

Lickinflames is known for making special yarn bowls, shawl pins and closures along with a line of mugs, plates and wall decor. Lickinflames is proud of it's 45 year history of making pottery using raku, obvara and feather decorations. The beautiful patterns created by saggar firing, especially tin foil saggar simply fascinating. All the work is handmade using stoneware clay.