New Studio!

Since Haystack 2010, a lot has happened; in my life and in the studio. I was still living in Rockland then, and remained there until July 2012, when my then fiancé, Jess, and I moved our studios and home to Camden. I was lucky enough to have a space available to move my studio to, and coincidentally the closing of the Lincoln Street Center was at the same time that a family owned apartment opened up at my grandmother’s residence - what us Smiths refer to as Melvin Heights. Conveniently the studio is right next to the apartment, and thanks hugely to my dad (Sam) and also to my uncle (Ben), I was able to get the space move-in-ready, just in time. 

 

My dad’s old shop - now my studio. After completing trade school in the early 70s he built this shop for a place to work on Volkswagens and other vehicles that may have needed repair or engine replacement. It has also served as boat builder’s and carpenter’s workshops over the years. Still has the tiny door within the barn door for a mast to poke out through.

If we rewind back to 2010, I believe the next exciting thing to happen in my studio is again a Haystack experience. This time I did not apply for the scholarship, but went as a student. When I heard Andy Brayman would be teaching a ceramic printing class there I knew I had to take it.

In the Spring of 2005, as a second year student at Bennington, I had the pleasure of taking a class with Andy while he was teaching his last semester there, before moving to Kansas City to start his two businesses, Easy Ceramic Decals, and The Matter Factory. As a young ceramics student at Bennington College my eyes were already wide open and I wanted to try as many different processes as possible and this semester in particular was quite memorable. It was geared towards wheel thrown pottery, and I had just spent Field Work Term practicing centering and beginning to throw at Camden Hills Regional High School as a studio/teaching assistant for Simon van der Ven (my high school clay teacher, and friend and mentor ever since). So this was good timing to take a throwing class, and Andy was a great all around teacher. We were focused on making contemporary pottery, so we were glazing and we completed high temperature firings in gas reduction kilns, soda firings, fired Raku, and as a department fired the wood kiln too! A great range of forms and surfaces were achieved and a huge amount learned. 

For the next FWT, I was fortunate enough to go out to Kansas City with Alex Curtis and Nate Philbrick, two good buddies and fellow students of Andy, and intern at the Matter Factory while living in Andy’s apartment with his two cats, Rodney and Thomas. This was an awesome experience and a seriously important part of my education. Here we learned in depth about mold making and slip casting, ram-pressing, ceramic decals, and glaze testing, as well as field tripping around to as many artists’ studios and college clay department tours as there was time for. Also, for a couple days we assisted in the construction of Marshall Maude’s anagama in rural Kansas somewhere, where the beer was 3% and the land was flat.

So, even having already studied with and interned for Andy, I knew this was going to be an important class to take at Haystack, full of nearly all new information. My ceramic printing experience thus far was limited to digitally printed decal application on my pots and doing one decal firing. In Printing for Ceramics 2011 at Haystack, we learned how to screen print ceramic decals from scratch, by hand, in multiple ways, in order to achieve multiple results.  While we made ceramic objects, we also gathered or created imagery to develop into screens, to print with the ceramic ink we made, on the home-made vacuum table/screen printing press. In two weeks we had finished glazed objects with fired on decals, and stacks of freshly printed decals for future use, plus a mind bursting with new information and inspiration. This made me fall in love with Haystack all over again and this time was as rewarding and fulfilling as the last. Andy  continues to inspire and is a true wealth of knowledge. At the bottom of this post is a video of Andy printing cover coat on our decals with the assistance of TA Mitch Shiles. 

Here's a cup I made during the class. Wheel thrown porcelain. The decal is from a digital image I took of a tree on campus. In my next post (SOON) I will show more work I made using decals I made, as well as some more current work with other decals I ordered from a screen-printed decal company.