Author Archives: psgouros

Working up to it… 

Little by little, the pieces are getting bigger. Having started with 1/2 lb. pieces and then doing a series in ever larger weight,  3/4 lb., 1 lb., 1 1/4 lb., 1 1/2 lb., 2 lbs, I’ve just done my first 3 pound pieces. 
Next up is 4 pound. See if that’s big enough to be the right size mixing bowl…

busy, busy…

These actually date back to September, and are the first attempts at making pottery on the wheel.First Terracotta work glazed terracotta fired terra-cotta

I have had a bit of practice since then, and I’ll have to fill in the gaps a bit, but here is the current work in progress…

cups and tumblers

wedging

From the outside this seems like a fairly pointless exercise. “I’m about to spend a whole bunch of time working on a lump of clay before I do an real work on the lump of clay? What’s that all about?”  I hear you cry…

If you are working clay directly out of the bag, it probably is largely pointless. It’s easier to see the point when you aren’t using dress clay and have to mix several different bits of clay all with different moisture levels.  Air bubbles are also a concern…  But there is a secondary purpose to wedging that may or may not be apocryphal, but in my early experimentation seems to bear out.  

The analogy for me is softening butter for pastry work. If you make croissants, after you make the bread dough, you have to insert the butter that is cold, but workable. If you don’t, the butter either melts into the dough and you simply end up with bread, or the butter is too hard and it rips the dough and unpredictable things happen. The best way I have found to prepare the butter is basically to hit it with a stick. If you beat up the butter, what you end up doing is fracturing the structure of the water and fat in such a way that the bits of butter slide past each other and the butter will fold nicely. It seems that something similar goes on with the clay. If you wedge it properly,  basically kneading it, you force any incidental bindings between the bits of clay to break up.  Given that clay particles are apparently platelike, orderly kneading and twisting of the clay will arrange those plates in a regular grain. That this may or may not help with throwing is something that I cannot personally attest to, but it is the popular opinion. If someone has a handy electron microscope, maybe we can find this out…

How many hobbies is enough?

stupid question really. One should have as many hobbies as one can enjoy.

Came up recently due to a long running yen to do some pottery. I have a couple of functional theories that I can think of no other way to work out than by doing them.  Handily, I also found a really nice potter’s wheel on Craigslist being sold well below list. (I love it when the wealthy give up on hobbies…)

So now in the studio I have the wheel set up and a big block of fresh clay.   Onwards….

One early note that I would like to impart to any other new beginners out there who might stumble on to this post. For your first bag of clay, from which you are going to make a lot of throw away material, buy a color of clay that does not show up well on the workshop floor. Terracotta is lovely stuff, but as a beginner, the last thing you’d want to worry about is staining everything within a yard of the wheel with bright red staining splashes… Learn this lesson well…

Dr. Waters’ Words to Live By

John Waters Commencement Address – RISD 2015 from RISD Media on Vimeo.

Just moments after he was miraculously dubbed “Dr. John Waters,” the wonderfully irreverent filmmaker and cultural critic gave one of the most inspiring and spot-on RISD Commencement addresses in recent memory. Waters accepted an honorary degree from RISD – his first degree of any sort from anywhere – “without irony,” as he put it.  At the podium the maker of Pink Flamingos, Hairspray and many other over-the-top films appeared to be totally in his element as he told the crowd that he’s surely qualified to be RISD’s Commencement speaker, especially given a short list of non-accomplishments and misdemeanors – and his early aspiration “to be one of the filthiest people alive.” “I’ve been called ‘The Prince of Puke’ by the press,” Waters smiled, “and most recently, a title I’m proud of: ‘The People’s Pervert.’ I am honored to be here today with my people.”  In a bouncy speech (hear the full thing above) that kept the crowd of 3,500 graduates, families and guests laughing so hard that he had to pause from time to time to be heard, Waters pointed out that as unlikely as it might sound that RISD would offer him an honorary degree, “I didn’t change; society did.”  Mostly he focused his attention on RISD’s 667 graduates, urging them not to hoard their talents. “Remember, you must participate in the creative world you want to become part of…. Keep up with what’s causing chaos in your own field…. Read, read, read. Spy, be nosy, eavesdrop!”  Waters also reminded graduates that they shouldn’t hate all rich people, especially since someone needs to help fund their creative endeavors. “I’m rich,” he said, because “I have figured out how to never be around assholes at any time in my personal and professional life. That’s rich.”  While targeted at RISD students in particular, Waters’ words seemed to resonate with the majority of the crowd packed into the RI Convention Center hall. “Go out into the world and fuck it up beautifully!” he urged.

Source: Our RISD — Dr. Waters’ Words to Live By

UITextField note

interesting to note that when using the simulator, in an effort to be helpful, the simulator assumes that you intend to use the hardware keyboard. unfortunately, this disables the screen keyboard. and you spend waaaay too much time wondering why, when you select the text field in question, the keyboard does not appear…

cmd-shift-k it is…

Fixed!

After a regrettably long time, I finally found a workaround for the issue I was having with overlapping gesture recognizes. And Quinda is fixed! … Now I just have to remember how to go through the release process…

Fwiw, For gesture recognition speed, unless you’re going to entirely write your own, I heartily recommend using a pan gesture recognizer and its associated velocity to stand in for multiple swipe recognizers. You don’t have to move as fast, and the uncertainty time is much shorter.