Art by Fuzzy

Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz

The “SuperChuck” beta testing complete

It works!  In my last post I described how I made a version of the SuperChuck.  A couple days ago I got to try it for the first time.  I threw a nice vase form and it turned out to be the perfect candidate to trim in the chuck.  The black shelf liner material I used provided enough grip and I trimmed the bottom of the vase in no time.  You can see an “in progress” shot and then a picture of the finished pot next to the chuck.

I only wish that I would have made the chuck a little taller because the other vase/bottle that I threw had a neck that was a little long for the chuck.  I got around it by wadding up some of the extra shelf liner to make the chuck thinner in the middle so the shoulder of the pot would have a place to rest.

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.

Custom Ceramic Sink: Finished

This is actually old news…  but the large ceramic pieces that I’ve been working on are complete.  I was asked to create a bathroom sink by a family that is building a new house.  I had never thrown anything so large on the wheel before but I was excited to try.  The first few attempts turned into large bowls because they weren’t big enough (mostly because I didn’t start with enough clay).  I finally got the diameter that I wanted but then the shape wasn’t quite right and the bottom was too thin.  On my fourth or fifth attempt I finally got a shape and size that I liked.  Then I made an extra just to be safe.  I did some measuring on a store-bought sink and then calculated for shrinkage and cut a hole for the drain.  After bisque firing, glazing, and glaze firing the hole was almost the perfect size.  I don’t know much about drains or plumbing but I hope the installation goes smoothly.  Below you can see a few photos of the finished products.  The sink is about 15 in. in diameter.  The bowl is probably closer to 12 in.

As you can see I’m a little closer to where I want to be as far as photographing my ceramic pieces.  I also got to try out my new tripod that I got for Christmas.  I think I pulled the finished pieces out of the kiln in mid February but I’ve been busy working on the Ligonier Elementary yearbook for the past few weeks.  Last weekend I rearranged my clay studio and put up some more shelves.  Be on the lookout for some pictures…

Last Glaze Fire of 2008

In my previous post I mentioned that I glaze fired another load just before Christmas.  It had a lot of small items that I used mostly for testing glaze combinations.  I’m starting to get some combos that I like.  So far I like combining Pam’s Blue (Coyote), Red Gold (Coyote), Textured Turquoise (Amaco), Temmoku (Amaco), and Blue Rutile (Amaco) in various ways.  If I can talk my wife into it I want to order some larger quantities of a couple glazes so I can do some dipping.  That way I don’t have to spend half my life painting 3 coats of glaze onto each piece with a brush.  Here is a picture of all the goods:


I took a little break from the clay studio but now I’m back and working on something a little larger.  If it actually turns out I’ll put up some pictures.