Ceramic Studio Tour '12, First stop

Our first stop of the tour was at the studio of Patricia Sannit here in Phoenix. I wanted to see her demonstration of hand building and incising scheduled for 11 am. on Sunday.

Patricia creates her ceramic forms by reconstituting varieties of reclaimed clay from high schools & community college art classrooms as well as the studios of fellow ceramic artists.

The clay is poured into forms

or layered into slabs and left to dry in our hot desert sun. When leather-hard, she applies a white slip to the exposed edge(s) and removes the layer of slip to expose the clay beneath. She has no formal plan, just lets her creativity take her wherever it may lead...

I could see my students creating some of these small bowls or cylinders in my classroom...

The lovely hand in my pix belongs to my cohort in crime that day - stop by her blog to see more pix and read more about her take on the artist...

This idea of a functional planter could be accomplished by older students with ease...

Lovely, lovely work...

Thank you so much for the inspiration, Patricia!

Ceramic Studio Tour '12

Today I attended the 11th Annual self-guided Ceramic Studio Tour here in the greater Phoenix area with my buddy, the Artologist. Although we were out and about for 4+ hours, we only made it to 3 studios but saw the work of 2 - 3 artists at each stop.

The 2nd stop was at Hjalmarson Pottery Studio located in the beautiful historic Willow district of downtown.

Halldor Hajalmarson specializes in press molds, sprigging and decorated vessels.

There were stacks of his many labeled molds,

an example of his sprigging set out to dry,

shelves full of potential glazes,

a bisqueware platter set out to dry,

hand made clay stamps,

and a finished platter tucked into plants at the base of his backyard tree.

While there, I purchased a copy of his book, Old Dog, New Tricks that details his processes. It's available for purchase through his website.

In future posts, I'll share some of the other work seen today...