How to make a wedging table?

As much as I would love to buy this sturdy, simple wedging table from Bailey Ceramic Supply, I don't have $770 to shell out. I don't even have $50, but I would at least be willing to put $50 on my credit card to make something right now. I'm always afraid I'll piss off the neighbors or even my roommates when I'm making a racket slamming clay onto the unsturdy, loud table I have, and the wire wedging process would go so much smoother if I had a wire attached to the table.

I'm thinking of building one from 100% wood, thinking that will be the cheapest and easiest, but honestly I haven't a clue. I would prefer to not have one made with plaster because I would hate to have small bits of plaster come off into the clay over time. Any advice is welcome. What do you use for a wedging table?

Searching for a title

I have an exhibition coming up in August coupled with a documentary photographer. Stephanie Burchett's body of work is titled "Scavengers," and documents Nicaraguan citizens digging through trash dumps to find "valuable" items - recyclables for which they can get money. My work is based around things I want in my life - comfort, stability, beauty, sustenance, and peace. Our work is quite different, but our common link is a grant which we both earned last year. One of the requirements of the grant is a public exhibition, so we decided to exhibit together in one of the few galleries in Greeley. Anyway, we need a title for our show and perhaps one of you could help me. Do you have any ideas? I was thinking "Searching for ..." something. Searching for what though?

NCECA 2009

It's been awhile since I got back from the NCECA conference... about time I blog about it, right? I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit longer because it's already 2 in the afternoon and I haven't been in the studio yet today. I've been busy uploading photos though, so if you'd like to see what I saw on day 1 in Phoenix, check out my flickr set. Since I was volunteering, I arrived two days before the conference started, and I was able to leisurely wander around the city to check out a few galleries and the Arizona Art Museum while nothing else was happening that Monday.

Leaving on a jet plane

Does anyone else get that song stuck in their head when they're flying somewhere? I always do...

Tomorrow at 5 am I'll be heading to the airport, off to Phoenix for the NCECA conference. I've been looking forward to this all month! Anytime I've been in a low mood I would just think of NCECA and get all giddy. It's been windy, snowing, and cold for the past couple weeks in Colorado, so I'm looking to a "spring break" in warm Arizona. I've never been there. Have you?

Here's my shopping list / things to look into:

1. Shorter wire cut-off tool

2. Throwing stool... thank you Emily for your recommendation!

3. Wedging table... I don't know if this is actually something I would buy, but I'm curious to look into it.

4. Posters to cover the ugly cement walls in my new studio (best part about these is they're free!)

5. A new favorite mug (I hope to find one I like under $30... that could be a stretch)

6. Trimming tools

7. Graduate schools, residencies, opportunites to further my education possibly starting in January...

Are you going to NCECA?

Blog colors

I just updated my blog colors... What do you think? Also check out the new ceramics lynx in the right-hand column for some artists I like, and links to my website and Etsy shop.

The new home studio

I bought a wheel several weeks ago and finally got around to using it today. Although the only thing I have to show for it is a large lump of wet clay, it was good to get in the studio again. The home studio! It's beginning to feel like more than just a laundry room with a wheel in it:


What I love about a home studio:

1. I can listen to the music I want on Pandora.com instead the repetitive shit they play on FM radio. (Please excuse the language... I just want to make my feelings for the radio obvious. It blows.)

2. I can fix myself a cuppa tea as frequently as I like. Is 6 servings of green tea in one day excessive?

3. I can have my lunch break whenever I'm ready. (The guild is closed 12 - 1 PM.)

4. I don't have to pay $4 for a bus ride and overhear socially retarded people talking about guns, drugs, sex, or other things that I won't want to overhear.

5. On cold, windy days like today I don't have to leave the house to be productive.

6. When I flop as many pots as I did today I don't feel quite as bad because no one is watching me...

I realized the reason my pots were so terribly off-center in the first half of my day is that I was being lazy in wedging the clay. I was taught to first wire-wedge, then spiral wedge, and I don't have a handy wire firmly attached to a cement wedging table. So I skipped the wire and quickly spiraled my clay on the slick table top I had available. I realized that wouldn't get me far, so I gave in and used my ordinary wire tool. I discovered a nice little shortcut though... after each cut with the wire I set it straight on the table and slammed the clay back onto it to make the slicing easier:


Two things I need to look into for the studio: a wedging table and a throwing stool. Do you have any suggestions?

Creativity and Artsy Things

I'm in the creative mood again... a good mood to be in as an artist! So along comes some creative blogging to go with it.

Catching up on my readings I scrolled through the blog of Linda Johnson (Little Flower Designs) and stopped on her post about the pARTsy! - a blog for "A Celebration of Artsy Products." My latest addition to my Etsy favorites is this: Cocoon Designs. I must say I'm not normally a fan of stuffed things... like extra pillows on the bed, they're just a thing of decoration that takes up space and gets tossed around needlessly. But these are fun. They're kind of odd, quirky, colorful, and I would love to have one sitting on a shelf next to a teapot in my studio. I like this little guy because it reminds me of an owl.