Eva Funderburgh

It’s been a long week.  I finally have all the work photographed, sorted, titled and captioned.  I’ve even sent off the first boxes to galleries and costumers.  The photo is from Monday, when I’d been pushing really hard to get off an application to an emerging artist contest thing.  I was going to just keep working on stuff on my laptop, but between the soft pillow and the soft cat, I didn’t stand a chance. However, everything is now finally up! Enjoy!

So I just now finished getting everything photographed and uploaded to flickr! (well, almost everything).  I had been planning on re-photographing a few things, but decided that it was more important to have everything up now.

Anyway, in order to celebrate all this new work, I’ll be hosting a slightly impromptu opening at my studio tonight.  It’s going to be pretty low key, but I will have all of the new work there and on display, along with food and drink of some type. If you’re in the Seattle area, I recommend coming on by! It’s at 218 Florentia st, just on the south end of the Fremont Bridge. We’re in the building with the crazy mural. I’ll be there from 6pm to 8, and maybe till 9.  Stop on by!

The kiln has been above 2000 degrees in both front and back for about a day now. It’s been keeping between 2200 and 2300 in front, and we’ve been fighting to get the back to match that. We’ll gain maybe 100 degrees over the next two days. It’s funny how you spend the first day or two working to keep it slow, and now we might have to fight for every 20 degrees.
For the next few days it will mainly be about what the cones are doing, and what the coal bed is like. Cones measure a combination of heat + time, and give us a better idea of how the pots are doing than just temperature. Last I heard, cone 13 is bending in front, and 10 is down in the middle. Not sure about the far back. The kiln will continue to feel hotter and hotter as we go on.
Flame and smoke from the stack with every stoke now. Also, it is a VERY beautiful day.

I’ve been on shift since 4, and right now we’re at 2250 in front, and 2100 in back. I’m on the back of the kiln, and have been fighting with it for the last hour. It went down to 2040. I had to switch to small rapid stokes (3 pieces at once) from larger stokes (7 pieces). I ask Steve, who’s down at the front, as to how many pieces he’s been putting in – “how ever many pieces he #%}^* well feels like”

Second swing shift of the firing. 8:30, and we’re 24 hours into the firing. We’re at 1550 degrees in front, and 900 some in back. It will even out as we go along. Red heat in front.

We’re most of the way done with loading. Both the middle and the front fireboxes are a bit roomier than normal. We aren’t going to be using the far back firebox, since we think it doesn’t effect the kiln. We just used the space for pots instead. The kiln is packed very tightly.

So I have a link to my brother’s site on my “connections” page, but I don’t think I’ve had a chance to talk about him here yet.  In short, he’s an awesome artist up in NYC.  While I work away in my ceramics studio, he works away with a Macintosh.  He makes beautiful, tight artwork, very influence by Victorian wallpapers.  In fact, he has made wallpapers before, beautiful ones, that a place in Brooklyn hand silkscreens.  One thing that always makes me smile about the possibility of getting a house of our own, is the fact that we could put up some of it.  Anyway, I really recommend checking out all of his work.  It’s amazing

Anyways, here’s what is causing me to make a post on Dan right now.  He’s teamed up with Geekhouse Bike to make beautiful bicycle that was inspired by Obama’s 2004 “There are no red states and blue state, only the United States” speech.  The bicycle, is beautiful done in tight paterns of red, blue, and white.  It’s presently for sale on Ebay, with all proceeds going to the Obama caimpaign.

I’m quite excited about the firing coming up in late October.  I’ve had some extra time to get pieces together for it, and I feel like it’s paying off.  I think I’m on track to make enough work for my galleries, and have a holiday sale at my studio.  I’ll post dates and stuff like that once I have them, but in the mean time, here’s more of a sneak peak at my drying shelves.

These are the ones that I finished most recently.

Also, in my studio, I have a big white board.  I use it to make random notes to myself, sketch ideas, and just doodle stuff.  I really like the idea I have on there now, but I’ll have to wait and see as to how it comes together.  I’ve been big on antlers recently, but I don’t know how well they’ll survive the firing.  They might just droop.  To avoid that, I’ll have to make them very stocky.  Also, do you you recognize the guy in pink?

In this last week, I decided to shuffle all of my work between my galleries.  I just took most of the stuff from gallery A and gave it to gallery B and so forth.   This just keep everything fresh for everyone.  Part of the fun of this (besides trekking all over Seattle with a suitcase full of critters), is that most of the work I have for sale in my studio has been refreshed too! The new list of pieces for sale is up on flicker.  Stop, browse, and have yourself some fun!

When I work on my regular sized beasts, I tend to make them in batches.  I’ll start with about 3 to 6 balls of clay, and work on them in parallel over the course of a few weeks.  Often each step in the process of making a beast will only take an hour to half hour, but I’ll need to let the parts rest and dry for a day between each step. This makes sure that seems don’t reopen or wet legs don’t get attached to dryer bodies.  I’ll often spend a morning or a day doing nothing but making legs or sanding backs.

Before the last firing, I decided to track a whole group of critters as I made them.  I started with a bag of clay and ended up with Beast with a Ball, Flatout Beast, Mournful beast with horns, the papaya beast, and the two stilt beasts having a conversation.  This last week I finally got around to putting together most of the timelapse footage, and have four new videos for you.

Papaya Beast

Flatout Beast

Beast with a Ball

Mournful Beast with Horns

I find it very amusing to watch the clues as to the progression of time: What I’m wearing, what color bandana I have, if I have a soda, and how messy my work area has gotten.