Kimchi POWER!!!

Never underestimate the power of KIMCHI!!!

New YouTube video posted!

As promised here is a video I put together my recent visit to the studio of Moon Byeong-Sik. A very skilled clay artist!

Moon Bueong-Sik

Had a chance to spend the day at the studio of Moon Byeong-Sik
yesterday with Juno. He and I threw pots side by side on his two
wheels and were both interested in each of our differences in
technique. It was really nice to see him make such refined pots with
only a knife for cutting the pots off of the hump and a chamois for
smoothing the rims of his pots, no other tools! Above is an image of
his finished work, very tight & clean but in person you can still see
that it is hand made. I was able to shoot some video of him throwing
and plan to edit and post it soon.

Welcome! Ms. Hana Lee Field!

This post comes to you from a public computer, a PC no less, so I'm doing the best I know how, especially considering the operating system is in Hangul (Korean alphabet).

Anyway, the reason for this post is a big one, our daughter, Ms. Hana (rymes with sauna) Lee Field, was born about 26 hours ago. She and Heesoo are both healthy and happy. I have a few links to pictures below. She is a happy and relatively quiet (for the time being) baby and we just can't quite seem to stop staring at her.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=723591&l=609ccf305d&id=1035656430

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=723583&l=1e904e1377&id=1035656430

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=723811&l=3bf7160991&id=1035656430

Studio Visit: Moon Byung-Sik

While waiting for the arrival of our most recent family member Juno and I have been keeping busy by visiting some of the amazing potters this region of Korea has to offer.  Yesterday I looked up a potter, Moon Byung-Sik, we had met a few years back at his exhibiton in Seoul.  It turned out that his home/studio is only a 10 minute drive from where we are staying at my mother-in-law's home.  Mr. Moon is in his early 30's and works in translucent porcelain at cone 8.  His work is defined by it's simplicity and strength of form in contrast with the amazing skill necessary to make such forms from such a difficult material.  The pots in the pictures below represent one day of production for Mr. Moon.  

I was most impressed with his ability to balance his whole price range of work, from tiny $5 traditional cobalt painted porcelain animal figures to 4 foot wide platters with meticulous inlay/carved patterns.  

The few pictures I was able to snap were with my phone camera.  I plan to return to his studio in the coming weeks as he has invited me to work with him in the studio.  I'll be sure to get some quality pix of his finished work.

For those of you going to Philidelphia for NCECA Keep an eye out for Mr. Moon, if I understood him correctly, he is planning to teach a workshop in conjunction with an exhibition at this years conference (more details to come when I have them).  Also, I hope to arrange some other workshop locations for him if his travel plans allow.

Perspective

Today I'm writing from a Duncan' Dounuts' in Icheon, S. Korea, more for the quality of the WiFi then the quality of the products.  We find ourselves in Korea again for the birth of our second child.  We are told that this one will be a girl and that she will be born on November 4th (two days ago from the time of this post).  We are spending our time enjoying the beautiful fall colors and perfect hiking weather that Korea offers this time of year. 

I am always on the lookout for interesting products/product design when in Korea and have spotted some interesting things already.

 Nothing like getting plucked from one location/culture and plopped into another for noticing some interesting & different ways of doing things.  

AVAILABLE WORK

Visit TRAX Gallery to view some of my most recent work...

images by G. Post

In other news, my son Juno and I am getting ready to head back to Korea just in time for the birth of a new daughter/sibling.  My wife, Heesoo, has been there for the last couple of months in the capable hands of her mother.  We chose to have this birth in Korea for a few reasons, the main one being that we wanted to share this experience with our family in Korea.  Another reason is that it will actually be cheaper for us all to travel to Korea for the birth then it would have been to pay out of pocket for the birth back in the good ol' USA.  And, hey, any excuse to head back to Korea is good enough for me!  Juno and I will stay for 5 weeks to get some quality time in with the family and to be sure that the newest member of the family is a fully documented US citizen.  Heesoo and the newborn will stay on for a bit longer, returning home to Durango in early February.  

Greetings from Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe! I'm one week into my roadtrip/onggi workshop tour of the SF Bay Area. Get the full story on the following blog:
http://www.thepotterswife.blogspot.com/

Thanks Robin & Eden for being such great hosts during my stay in Logan.

The Long Way Home

In one weeks time I'll be ready for our journey! My son Juno and I will be making the 8 hour drive from Durango to my hometown, Arvada (a suburb of Denver). While we plan to spend a lot of time with family and friends, I will be dedicating most of our week-long stay to giving a workshop. 

The venue for this workshop, The Arvada Center of the Arts and Humanities, holds a special spot in my memory. As a young child I took many field trips to the Arvada Center whether it was to see a play, take an art class, view an exhibition, explore the extensive pioneer museum, or just for a picnic I always looked forward to the next visit.

Now, fifteen years after moving away, I am excited and honored to be able to offer something back to the community from which I came.





To start off the workshop I will be giving a FREE slide talk on Thursday June, 25th from 7-8:30 PM at the Arvada Center (see map below), I will show images from my travels and will discuss my inspirations and motivations behind my work. The slide talk is open to the public, so if you or anyone you know is in the area come on by!

The main part of the workshop will take place on Saturday and Sunday, June 27th & 28th. For details please follow this link to the Arvada Center workshop description page. To register for the workshop contact the Arvada Center directly (contact info below).  Hope to see you there!




View Larger Map

Unbeatable!

Spotted this scene at my local "Wal-E-World", good thing they added the word "prices" to the sign.

San Juan College "Clay Fest" Workshops

A few weeks ago I taught a workshop at San Juan College as part of their annual "Clay Fest" event. This years fest included a visit from the Art-stream Nomadic Gallery and demonstration/workshops by Christa Assad, Andy Brayman, Steven Colby, Angus Graham, Peter Karner and myself.

Angus Graham with his new toaster form!

Waldemar "Wink" Winkler, of Waldemar Winkler Viedogrophy, was kind enough to photograph some of my workshop, I particularly like the plate sequence below, thanks Wink!

NAU Anagama highlights

The large Anagama kiln at NAU was unloaded more then a month ago and I am really starting to appreciate the results. It usually takes me a while to get over my expectations and to really view the pieces more objectively. Here are a few images of my favorites as arranged by my new friend Timothy Hsu. Mr. Hsu is into tea about as much as I am into clay, he documents his tea experiences on a beautiful blog: The Mandarin's Tea

NCECA Onggi

After shutting down the NAU anagama at 2 AM and sleeping for 3 hours it was off to Phoenix for NCECA. An amazing Korean Onggi potter, Mr. Heo Jin-Gyu, was one of the demonstrators at this years conference. After an introduction and conversation in Konglish (Korean/English mix) we decided it would be helpful for me to be his technical translator. It was a great opportunity for me to talk to a large crowd about Onggi as well as answer questions from the folks watching the demo. This was also a great opportunity to spread the word about the upcoming tour I will host to Korea in October. It was quite an honor to assist such a skilled potter. Though most who saw the demo wouldn't know it, Mr. Heo later said that the clay he was using was literally "the worst clay" he had ever worked with, yet he was able to make five beautiful (and extremely large) pieces, each taking about an hour to create.

Long time no Blog...

Since the last post I have been keeping busy. Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to squeeze an Anagama firing into the whole NCECA Pre-conference and conference experience. The firing took place during the NCECA pre-conference at Northern Arizona University, in their larger Anagama (about 30'), the crew consisted of some long-time friends from the USU grad program, Trevor Dunn & Robin DuPont, as well as some new friends Cole Taylor (Durango) and Steve Schaffaer (Studio tech @ NAU), some of the NAU students also pitched in too. While it was great fun, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't try it again.
Between stoking and splitting wood we were able to sneak away to the studio to check out the Pre-conference demonstrations by; Don Reitz, Eva Kwong, Christa Assad, Brad Schwieger and Russell Wrankle. The Artstream Nomadic Gallery was also there and set up shop right next to the kiln whed where we were firing. This all made for a bit more entertainment/distraction then your usual woodfiring.

My studio full of greenware bound for the NAU Anagama

Nice rock formation between Durango and Flagstaff, this one's for you Tony Clennell

Loading the Anagama

The Crew (far to near) Steve Schaffaer, Cole Taylor, Robin DuPont and Trevor Dunn

My Website

As I type it is 10 minutes till 3 AM, my ride to Flagstaff for the NCECA pre-conference (6 hour drive from here) will be here in 2 hours. Up early, you may wornder?? Unfortunately not, up LATE. It's all for good reason. I just finished the latest version of my website, in time for NCECA where I will be spreading the word about the upcoming Korea pottery tour. And that is why I had to get the site up and running with all the new info.

I would love to hear any feedback on the site; does it navigate easily, does it read clearly. I'm not looking for a pat on the back, I just want to know from an outside source if the thing is user friendly or not.

You can use the link for my website on this page (just down and to the right of this text box under my slideshow, under links) or if you feel like typing or copy/pasting then here goes:

http://www.adamfieldpottery.com


Thanks!

Full Plate

Wow, things are getting a bit crazy around here. Between preparing for an Anagama firing at NAU during the NCECA pre-conference, the arrival of my mother-in-law from Korea, putting final touches on the details of the upcoming tour I will host to Korea, redesigning my website, and being a father of a 4 year old, I've been super busy lately and the blog has suffered a bit, but plenty to come from Flagstaff (this and next week), Phoenix for NCECA and all the details of the Korea tour coming soon.

Also, I'm happy to report that the new clay body I used on this round of Onggi pots seems to have made it through the bisque with only one cracked piece!!

Power Ranger diving platforms

It's been a bit since my last post, I've been busy making work (and drying a lot of clay) for the upcoming firing. Also made it up to Fort Lewis College here in town to demonstrate Onggi to the beginning pottery class, my first Onggi demo to an English speaking group. Thank you FLC!



It's always interesting when customers share a different, unintended, use for my work, thats why I was inclined to shoot a picture of my son's latest discovery. It turns out my pots make a perfect diving platform for mini Power Rangers, I'll have to add that one to the list.

Studio weather

"Studio weather" has returned, with spring-like weather for the last few weeks it was easy to start venturing out of the studio a bit more, that all changed today as the clouds moved in and the snow began to fly, perfect for firing up the studio heater turning on a fresh TAL or Radio Lab podcast and getting to work. I've been focusing on a few different surface treatments as a departure from the strict traditional Onggi jars and am getting excited about this round of pots. The jar in the images below has a twine impression on the top section and I scratched in the lines on the bottom to be inlayed with porcelain slip.

Some new pots

Here are a few pots from the latest firing, not the best photos, but you get the idea. I always enjoy getting a bunch of cups of varied size and design in the kiln especially in an anagama, they're like test tiles and it seems I always gain loads of knowledge about what is happening in different spots of the kiln.

I really like how the porcelain inlay mixes in with what's happening on the surface of the glaze, much more of this in the future!

Above, 2 views of the same cup. I added a very subtle twine texture to the bottom section of this cup, i think the surface may be one of my favorites from this firing, just a hint of pattern, not overboard.

It was nice to get a few Onggi pots in the main firebox, interesting to see those forms with so much ash.




As is usually the case I am not completely happy with the results of the firing, I learned a lot and am excited to put what I learned to use in the next firing just 3 SHORT WEEKS AWAY!! :/