Art by Fuzzy

Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz

Decorating the Clay Studio

New posters and pictures for the clay studio

New posters and pictures for the clay studio

I recently noticed how uninspiring my clay studio was and decided to spruce it up a little.  I found a few old posters I’ve had since college and found some pictures of pottery that I like (mostly on the internet).  I slapped them up on my walls and all of a sudden I feel much more inspired!  Maybe this summer I’ll get some interesting quotes printed off and taped to the wall.  In the picture you can see the wall by my wheel.  I also put a few pictures on the opposite wall and on the door.  I’ve still got a lot of empty space so if you have something interesting I could hang up, send it my way.

Studio Improvements

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on improving my clay studio here and there.  I put in a few more shelves and cleaned the whole thing not too long ago.  Below you should be able to see a few pictures of the new set up.  I rearranged the glazing area and added a shelf near the wheel.  I’m also trying to get some things together to hang on the walls for information and inspiration purposes.

I built the shelf by the wheel out of some spare wood that I had.  Some shelves were on sale at Menards so I bought some and set them up in the corner of the glazing area.  I also switched around the long skinny table and the tall metal shelf along the wall under the window.

If I can squeeze it in sometime I’ll try to post some pictures from the egg hunt at Crossroads or tell about a painting I finished, what I’ve been doing on the internet, or  some of the other things that have been happening.

Photo Booth for Shooting Ceramics

Here is my biggest project from Christmas Break.  I wanted a place to photograph some of my more appealing ceramic items.  I started thinking and designing a few months ago.  When Christmas Break finally rolled around I put my plan into action.  Since I don’t have large quantities of empty space I decided to make it collapsible.  You can see the whole thing in action and a few test shots below.  Not bad for my first attempt…

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Small Clay Studio Upgrades

Last weekend I was hard at work in the studio.  I not only made a few small clay pieces, I also improved the studio a little bit.  I got tired of walking all over to get a bat when I was ready to throw so I upgraded my wheel table to include a bat holder.  It can hold a total of eight bats at a time and is conveniently located under my wheel table to the left as I am sitting at the wheel.  I also decided that I needed  little more shelf space.  I put a larger shelf above the original glaze shelf which hangs over the glaze table.  Now I have room for glazes, tools and bisque pieces that are ready to be glazed, all within reaching distance of the clay table.  So now I’ll probably have to start some sort of exercise program since I won’t be walking back and forth across my studio every few minutes.

This past weekend I threw a couple small lidded vessels.  Perhaps there will be pictures available on this very site at some time.

Time To Vent (the kiln)

This past weekend I spent most of Saturday installing a vent system for my kiln.  I attached the Vent Master to the wall and then put some metal tubes up through the ceiling of the garage, across the attic a few feet and then out the back of the house through the soffit.  The hardest part was squeezing up into the corner of the attic while trying to stay on the boards that I laid across the joists.  And I didn’t fall through the ceiling or impale my head on the nails sticking through the roof so I would say that it was a successful venture just staying alive.  But I got everything connected and sealed up so the next time I fire I should be able to vent the kiln without running a tube out through the door.  I guess we’ll see what happens…  And if you didn’t notice, I learned how to put hyperlinks in my post!  If you aren’t sure what a soffit or a joist is you can click on the words to find out.  (I had to look them up to be sure that I had the right term myself).  Below you can see some pictures of the new vent system: