Vangstad Pottery

I stumbled upon a couple high school ceramics substitute teaching opportunities recently. Although it might not seem like a glorious job, subbing certainly has it perks. For instance, when I centered the clay to make these vases and pitchers the awe that spread across the art room full of high schoolers was overwhelming. I almost felt guilty. On the other hand, when I finished the pitcher a student asked me why the mug I made was so big, so there is also that. Maybe he didn’t see the spout? That’s what I have been telling myself at least.

Here are some mugs I have fired recently and really enjoy.

Vangstad Pottery just stepped up their professional game a little bit. After spending about 70 bucks total and devoting a quarter of my bedroom to the project, I created a halfway-decent, 100% jerry-rigged photography studio using my closet door, some gradient paper, a few clamps, special bulbs, and a couple clamp lamps (complete with Kleenex brand light diffusers.) I’m even halfway pleased with the results. Now all I need to do is take some photos of my compounding pottery collection...

Hey, I finally made my first signature stamp! After trying for a while to come up with a clever design that incorporated all of my initials and some fancy linework I decided to just keep it real simple. I’m sure a plain ‘v’ has been done before, but that’s all right; I like the way it looks. I have refused to use a stamp for a long time because I haven’t ever wanted to fall into a trap of relying on my stamp to make my pots “my own.” I couldn’t really tell you what that actually means to me, but I guess that is just part of doing pottery. I’ll figure it out at some point.

Well, after about a month-long hiatus from the studio I got back into the swing of things with a soda firing. Some new rules at the Bethel studio have shortened the time we can have our kilns going so this firing ended up being a long 13 hour day. Fortunately, nothing bad happened with the quicker firing schedule. In fact, this was my favorite firing so far. I am starting to feel like I can actually predict what will happen in the kiln, so that’s pretty positive. Here are two of my favorite mugs that came out of this firing.

I just finished setting up a pottery stand at my aunt’s hair salon in Spring Lake Park, MN. Stop by Salon Classic if you are in the neighborhood for a great haircut as well as some great pottery! Actually, they might not do drop-ins for haircuts at Salon Classic. I’m not sure, as it’s a little bit nicer than the Great Clips from where I tend to get my haircuts. At any rate, you don’t need an appointment to buy some quality pots!

Happy Shopping!

Over the past two months the church I am a part of allowed two of my best friends and myself to be their “Artists in Residence.” This entailed the three of us to set up small displays of our work (you can see Joel Willson’s pots in the background against the wall [they’re pretty cool]), discuss our craft to the congregation via a short Q&A from the pastor, and even throw some pots during one of the services. Although it took a fair bit of prep-work and setting up, this was certainly a great experience. Our church often has an artist in residence, I believe they try to get one every month or so, but this was the first time I can remember ever having more than one artist. This was really exciting to me because throughout all of our “careers” in pottery the three of us have basically sat right next to each other in the studio every step of the way. We learned how to throw together, we fire kilns together, and we continue to bounce pottery ideas off each other to this day. So, it seems only fitting to me that we would share the position of artist in residence, and this was probably the highlight of the whole thing for me. At the same time, we did get to sell some pots, which is always great, so that might be tied for the highlight position. Actually, creating the display was pretty fun too, as was being able to talk pottery every Sunday for a few weeks. I guess I just enjoyed the whole thing.

All in all, I think the vases turned out great. I used two different clay bodies, B-clay and white stoneware, and two glazes, a clear and a celadon. The clear turned out very opaque, which was a surprise, and the celadon came out pretty much as expected. Oh, and I fired them all in a soda kiln without spraying soda, so that definitely impacted the final product. I would have used the regular gas kiln, but I was short on pots to fill that kiln completely so I decided to risk it on the soda kiln instead, which still ended up being quite loosely packed. The kiln fired very unevenly, as you can see via the cone packs. I tried everything to correct this during the firing, but ultimately I blame the heat difference from top to bottom on the poor packing of the kiln. Fortunately, the leftover soda residue didn’t do much to impact the celadon or the clear glazes and the uneven firing didn’t seem to affect anything significantly either. Of course, I still had to drive the 15 vases down from Minneapolis, so they weren’t in the clear right out of the kiln. There ended up being only one freeway pot casualty, and once the vases were set up at the reception I was very pleased with how they looked in their appropriate element. Congrats, Kelli and Jeremy!

I’ve built up a pretty good-sized collection of bisqueware again, so I guess it is time to fire. These pots are going to be in my second-ever soda firing and I certainly learned a lot from my first one, so I am hoping for some great results. I recently fired the car kiln at Bethel as well (normal reduction atmosphere), and that firing went pretty much exactly as I had hoped, so that is giving me some confidence going into this firing. I’ll post some pictures up of those pots soon. I was going to get some pictures this weekend, but Bethel security kicked me out of the buildings pretty much the second I stepped foot into the studio. Apparently the campus closes for some major holiday that occurs around the beginning of July...

Hey, it’s been a while. For the past couple weeks I have been pretty busy in the studio on a daily basis, which has been great. I have been experimenting with new mug and bowl styles, working on pitchers (relatively new territory for me), coming up with ideas for vases, and figuring out how to throw and trim plates. I realized I had kind of been in a rut throwing similar forms for a long time so I decided to take a few days and just have fun throwing new things. In the past year or so I feel like I have been focused on making things which I know will be successful, or pots that I know I have been pleased with in the past. I think I became too focused on creating “successful” pots, however, and lost track of actually enjoying the process of creating fun ceramic things. So, these past few weeks of simply expanding my “catalog” of wares has been refreshing and exciting. Hopefully the firings turn out well for these pots!

As a full-time substitute teacher, every now and then I get to sub for an art teacher and every now and then that art teacher only teaches ceramics classes. These are rare days, but they are the best days. I got to throw some pots and teach some kiddos about clay; it doesn’t get too much better. Sure, none of the bats fit, the wheels were janky, and the clay was riddled with pencil shrapnel, but at the end of the day, I got paid to do something I love to do. It was a good day.

This was one of my favorite pieces out of the recent soda-firing.

Oh, and in other news, I finally got some pictures up in my gallery section! Check it out.

I just finished up a soda firing yesterday and am eagerly waiting to open it up tomorrow. This was my first solo firing as well as my first soda firing so I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m hoping for some great results. I didn’t blow up the kiln, or the studio for that matter, so at least it went well from that aspect. It pretty much went as expected, the cones fired to what I was aiming for, I used the amount of soda I wanted to, I reduced to what I think might be a good amount. Really, everything about this firing was up in the air, just a lot of experimenting on my part. I definitely already learned a lot about firing with soda from this one time, without even opening up the door yet. I’ll see if the pots turned out tomorrow!

Here are some mugs I threw the other day, pre- and post-handling. I’m much more pleased with the buff ochre mugs (green) than the high-iron. The high-iron is the go-to studio clay, which is usually fine, but it was a little on the stiff side for my tastes this time around.

I am very excited to fire Bethel’s soda kiln this coming Memorial Day. This will be my first solo firing as well as my first soda firing. I can’t help but have high expectations for these pots, but I also have a strong feeling that this firing will not go as planned. Many of these brave pots are destined for the dumpster, but hopefully their sacrifices will teach me a thing or two about firing with soda, which will make it all worthwhile. We will just have to see how it goes!