Eva Funderburgh

Day three went smoothly as well. I’ll give more details tomorrow, it’s been a long day… Here’s the short version

*spent the day fighting to get the back temp up. Fairly standard for day three. Front was in the 2300s, but the back was back to the 2100s.

*Teabowls were pulled from the front of the kiln in a sort of high temperature raku. Lots of folks came to watch.

*used a lot of wood. We got another cord delivered, and have used about half of the sidestoking wood split so far

*Got to see two of those noisy barred owls fly right past me. Awesome.

The firing is going along smoothly. Yesterday evening, we had a bunch of trouble with wet wood. Between noon and 6pm we just hung out between 800 and 900f, fighting to try and get it to rise. However, we found some dry stuff eventually (under the cords of wet wood we’d stacked infront of it on Saturday) and got the temp up to 1300 in a couple hours.
Since then thing have been going smoothly. They did body reduction during the graveyard shift – putting the kiln into heavy reduction to pull iron oxide (and others) to the surface of the pots. They also started side stoking today, so there’s more to do. Luckly we’re well set for side wood for now!

We lit the kiln at about 9pm last night, with the loading wrapping up smoothly. We keep the temp to a rise of 50 degrees an hour for the first 1500 degrees or so, which can be tricky. The kiln will want to take off at first. At this point the fire is outside the front of the kiln, with the flames being pulled up through the kiln. This also useful to keep warm!! It gets cold up here! However tomorrow night will be the cold one – the fire will be inside the kiln, but the kiln won’t be hot enough to give off radient heat yet. The kiln is a giant physical mass of bricks, and it will take a lot of time and a lot of heat to get those suckers warm.
I have a photo of Anthony lighting the fire, and of Rick feeding it, last night at 300f. The next photo is Beverly, this morning at about 800f.

We’re well into the second day of loading the kiln. Loading is always the slowest part of the firing, getting every piece just right. We also have a number of difficult pieces to load this time. Eric Nelson is leaving some pieces to be fired with us, and they’re so delicate and complex that they’re pretty tough to get into the kiln. I’m guessing we’ll be starting it around midnight.

Tomorrow morning, I will be heading off to my thrice yearly anagama firing. We’ll spend Saturday and Sunday loading the kiln, and start up the fire Sunday night. When will depend on when we get done loading. In the past we’ve started it at times ranging from 6pm Sunday to 3am Monday. Hopefully, it won’t be anything nearly so late as that.
Right now, it looks like I’ll be working the swing shift, 4pm to 12:30am. The schedules are still a bit amorphous, but I hope it works out like that. There’ll be nine of us, working three different shifts. We’ll fire for about 110 hours, shutting it down some time on Friday.
I’ll try too keep things updated on the blog, and I’ll also keep things going on twitter as well! Off I go!

Despite the late hours I’ve been spending in the studio, I’ve also been playing around with a twitter account. You can follow my twitter account here! It’s mostly photos of in progress critters, along with random observations and so forth. Now then, back to the studio.

Here in Seattle, we’ve been snowed in since last Thursday.  We’ve gotten a total of nine inches, with another couple predicted tonight.  In most cities, this would be no problem.  However, the city of Seattle has about 25 snowplows – less snow removal capability the the SeaTac airport.  Even as the city’s been warming up, the roads have been freezing again every night in to two inch thick sheets of ice.  Between that, the city’s use of sand (not salt), and the fact that no one up here knows how to drive in the snow, we’ll probably be stuck here until New Years.  Well, at least I’ve been staying useful.

I recently got myself a scanner (well, maybe it was an early Christmas present), and have been enjoying the heck out of it.  I’ve gone through my old sketchbooks, finding interesting sketches to scan.  I made one or two nice prints for people, recreations of early sketches of critters they now own.  I’ll upload a few more sketches the next few weeks.

I also took the time to finally finish up another time lapse video.  This the the video for the creation of “Conversation #3″.  The music from the soundtrack to “Paprika”, a truly bizarre and spectacular anime movie by Satoshi Kon.  I recommend going to youtube to watch the timelapse in higher resolution.

Of course, I haven’t just been spending the last week hard at work.  I’ve also been relaxing, making and eating a number of cookies, sledding down our street on a piece of cardboard, and introducing our cats to snow.

Happy Holidays everyone!

On Saturday, December 13th, 2008, Florentia Clayworks will have its second Annual Holiday Sale and Party!  This year, we will be doing a single night celebrations, from 7 to 10pm.  Come on by for a chance to check out my work in person, meet my studio mates, browse fun art work, eat, drink, and generally enjoy yourselves! We are located just South of the Fremont Bridge, in Seattle, Washington, on 218 Florentia St.  Stop on by and have some fun!

As a first this year, I will be doing a silent auction of two of my favorite sculptures.  I will donate 40% of the proceeds to charity.  Here are the two beasts, and the two charities.

First off is ‘Digger Beast with Ball.”  He is one of the best pieces I got out of this last firing.  I will be donating 40% of his sale to Child’s Play.  Child’s Play is a group that raises games, toys, books, and money for childrens’ hospitals world wide. I figured this playful digging beast would approve of the choice (as long he can keep his ball).

Second is “Discovery.”  I have to admit that I often wish I could just keep all of my sculptures myself.   I just really like the interaction I’ve capture in the piece.  I leave it up to the viewer as to how these two guys will behave, but personally, I picture the big guy sniffing the little one, and maybe being hissed at.  Nothing too sinister.  However, since real world interaction seldom end up as nonviolently, (especially between countries) I will be donating 40% of his sale to the International Red Cross.

In addition to using some of my new found free time to sign up for an “Anything-goes Art Event”, I also put together another bit of stop motion.  I recommend going to youtube, where it is possible to click on the “view in higher quality” option.

I’ve just now gotten my confirmation for signing up for Design Festa vol 29.  Design Festa is Asia’s largest freestyle art event.  The term “art fair” really doesn’t do it justice.  Twice a year, approximately 3,500 artists take over “Tokyo Big Sight“, the iconic Tokyo conference center.  Next May, I will be one of them.

The way Design Festa works is that anyone can obtain a booth.  It is then up to you as to what to do with your two tatami mats worth of floor.  Photos I’ve seen online range from people showing off paintings, selling t-shirts, jewelry, and vinyl figurines, rocking out on electric guitar, dressing up as a horse while painting a picture of a horse, doing crazy performance art, selling cardboard robots, metal monsters, and tiny faces painted on matchstick heads.  A personal favorite appeared to be a booth that sold or rented paper bags with happy animal faces drawn on them.  The idea, as described in an illustration, was that if you were sad, you would put one of these on your head, and it made you happier. As I said, anything goes.

The more I look around, the more strange and intriguing stuff I find.  (Beautiful tiny dyed fish skeletons!?) While I’m not too sure what to expect, other than an adventure, it is my plan to take myself and a large number of critters to Tokyo in May, 2009.