life in the studio these days…

As if a global pandemic wasn’t enough, wildfires have been raging just miles from my studio space and even closer to friends, fellow artists and families homes here in Santa Cruz. Ash and burnt leaves have fallen from the smoke darkened sky for days, while we cross our fingers and send positive vibes into the universe that this ends without anymore destruction.

So, time in the studio these days has been split between packing up our just-in-case boxes, incessantly refreshing the fire map, making a plan if we need to evacuate and also bouncing between a few different clay project experiments because you can’t just stare at the fire map all day.

Since my last post about being challenged with building big rock candy pieces, I took what I learned and rebuilt three large rock candy forms that are slowly drying and ~thus far~ not showing any signs of hairline cracks. Only time (and a kiln firing) will tell if they’re meant to survive, but it will be awhile before they are dry enough to be bisque fired. In the meantime, I’ve been working in the completely opposite direction on some small porcelain pieces.

Last October when I started my residency in Taiwan, I really got a handle on making extremely thin porcelain pieces from my Bone Series. I also experimented with embedding them in resin. This process was visually successful but I still struggled with the learning curve of what this medium would and wouldn’t do. I shipped home these experiments from Taiwan and they’ve been sitting on my studio table for months staring at me. I reached out to resin artist Sasha Sykes in Ireland for some advice and was so grateful for her willingness to answer all my questions about resin. She gave the confidence to proceed, so I finally bit the bullet and ordered up some resin, casting materials and started making some porcelain parts to embed. The tedious layering process will begin soon.

Simultaneously, I’m also working on a commission of custom Umbel Series flowers for a clients backyard. These have been super fun to play with new forms and a different color palette than my norm. Hopefully they will be finished up soon and installed sometime in the near future.

While I keep myself distracted from the crazy status of the world with this menagerie of projects, I’m also mindful of how grateful I am for all that I have while some have lost so much this year. Thank you to the fire personnel who are out there battling these wildfires day after day. Stay safe.

sometimes a teacher, always a student

Whenever I take on a new challenge in clay, I’m always humbled by what I don’t know…

After a month long trip through Baja, we returned to California and to two large pieces from my Rock Candy Series that were anxiously awaiting me in the studio. They’d been drying on the shelf the whole time we were gone, so I knew I could get them into a bisque kiln right away- which I did. It was great to just jump right back into the making process without hesitation.

But then they came out of the bisque with the same hairline cracks on the seams that I’d been getting on some of the medium size pieces. I know that they will only get worse in the glaze firing, but I couldn’t help myself and decided to try it out anyways. So I glazed them up and reloaded the kiln with my fingers crossed that the kiln gods just might take pity on me.

Well, the results were worse than I imagined or rather the worst I had ever seen come through my kiln. Ever. The pieces literally fell apart, collapsing, causing huge stress cracks and ultimately made me feel like a complete amateur in clay. How could these tiny hairline crack cause this much damage? And how is it possible that I’ve been working with clay nearly my whole life and I can’t get a few simple large shapes to survive?!?

Maybe I shouldn’t build big, maybe I don’t know what I’m doing, and maybe I’m not good at this. Doubt sneaks in easily in a clay studio where the ongoing mantra is always “this is ceramics, there are no guarantees”. Luckily, my pity party of self doubt didn’t last and the problem solver in me won the mental gameplay. I started looking for solutions.

I asked fellow artists and clay experts for help and now, with their help, I feel like I’ve got ideas of how to be successful at this new challenge. I’ve been a teacher of clay for over twenty years, but I will be a student of clay for a lifetime and I’m so lucky to have a community of experienced fellow clay peeps to keep learning from.

So stay tuned with your fingers crossed for me on this journey because now I’m determined to make these babies come to fruition!

fuego en el desierto

While the paperwork on our property purchase is making it’s way through the system, we’ve been keeping busy at Taller de Terreno creating fires in the desert. The big multi-fuel kiln was fired up last weekend and it was fun to be a supporter during the 15+ hour process of firing it. It took a few days to cool and then we were able to unload it while ooohing and ahhhing at the results.

I was lucky enough to get a few of my pieces into the kiln too. Three large-ish rocks from my Rock Candy Series and two Umbel Series flowers were included. Unfortunately, the rocks got some big stress cracks in them, but the surfaces came out really interesting because of the addition of salt and soda ash to the kiln towards the end of the firing. The Umbel flowers came out fine and it was interesting to see how some of my typical glazes changed in this type of firing. There were a ton of beautiful pots that came out and as always there are some that were destined for the shard pile too. Ceramics is always a lesson in experimentation but this type of kiln firing only adds to the level of chance.

Once the kiln was unloaded, the three potters Christa Assad, Steve Jacobi and Fernanda Cov started to get all of their pots cleaned up, priced and organized for display for an art party sale at the studio. For us it was a great opportunity to meet (socially distanced of course!) a lot of the locals and learn a little more about the community here in Todos Santos. Everyone was really welcoming and it’s been fun to start to view this amazing little pueblo from the locals perspective instead of the tourists.

While the summer is obviously not the ideal time to be camping out in the desert, we definitely can’t complain about the sunsets, long stretches of empty beaches and the night skies.

Hola!

Crossing international borders is pretty much off limits right now, but despite that, we are currently in Mexico. “Why?” You might ask…

Well, about 18 months ago we started the process of purchasing property in Baja Sur and the realtors were ready to close just as Covid hit. We delayed crossing the border since so much was unknown then, but now four months later with masks, hand sanitizer at the ready and things starting to reopen in both California and Baja we felt we could safely cross and travel down in our van to complete our business.

The bonus to this trip is that our new property is adjacent to Taller de Terreno, a ceramic center and architectural wonderland based just north of Todos Santos. We are camped out there with clay friends, enjoying ocean views and desert life while we process our property sale. We arrived just in time for me to put a few sculptures into their multi-fuel kiln firing. Five of us took over 15 hours to haul the work up to the kiln site, wad all the pieces, and load the kiln. When the final brick on the door was placed at 2 am, we were mentally and physically done. I haven’t been a part of a big atmospheric kiln firing since I was in school 20+ years ago, so it was super fun to relearn all the tricks and techniques. Can’t wait to see the results!

a tree grows in wulai

If you followed along with my residency in Taiwan late last year, you may remember seeing me working with a group of kids at a school in the mountain town of Wulai outside of Taipei. We did a number of individual projects but we finished our time together working on a group project. Wulai is in the mountains with waterfalls, hot springs and lush foliage, so I thought it would be great to make a tree of our own for the the school. Each student picked leaves from their neighborhood and brought them to class to use to press into the clay, they carefully cut out each leaf and then they were glazed with a variety of natural colors.

a tree grows in wulai | the dirt | Jenni Ward ceramic sculpture

On our last class the students, teachers, the ceramic museum coordinators and myself worked together to assemble the tree in the school’s stairwell. I prepared the trunk and branches in advance using some landscaping cloth twisted into a wire mesh. The kids attached all the leaves and it was hoisted up to attach to the mesh wall of the stairwell. The kids were so proud of their work and the tree was a wonderful symbol of each of us working together to create something new. Photos of this project are now up on the website under the public art section of my portfolio.