Oh the colors…the Clearing, Gills Rock. Tom ’saw’ and then he ‘told’
Ellison Bay Pottery solves your Valentines Day gift dilemna @ Arti Gras Feb 6,7 Green Bay WI
Ellison Bay Pottery will help you celebrate Valentines Day with ease because you already bought that perfect gift from us at the Arti Gras fine craft and art show in Green Bay WI Feb. 6 and 7. Times are 10-5 on Saturday and 10-4 on Sunday. There is an entrance fee, but it’s for a good cause: Art for the children in Green Bay.
Buy your sweetie a gift from us next weekend and we will have a special surprise gift for you. Boys and girls love our pottery, so you can’t go wrong shopping with us.
What is there to do besides visit us and buy our pots?
special events—–including children’s activities,
and some great food.
Where is this fabulous event being held?
The Resch Center in Green Bay WI (directions and maps)
Ikebana, or the art of Japanese flower arranging, takes you from just sliding the bouquet of flowers and other greens into a vase to being in the moment, almost meditating, while you arrange each flower, each twig or branch, each piece of grass, creating a moment of space and peace, both while creating and each time you look at your creation.Some examples of our vision of an ikebana ‘vase’ are here. We have more glazes in the gallery, soon uploaded on etsy and always available to order.Inside these ikebanas is a frog, a heavy metal circular thing with lots of sharp needle type things to support your flowers.The ikebana we make is for you to use while getting into a meditative frame of mind, or spirit and create that beautiful and unusual holiday table display.
Ikebana – Matte Black with bronze highlights
Ikebana-Fake Ash and Super Green
Ikebana-Bare Naked Clay
For her OR him-Buy one of our Valentines Day Flower Arranging Ikebanas – add grace & beauty to your life. Easy to use: in just a few moments you have an elegant floral centerpiece for your table. Make your Valentines Day at home special. Buy one of these & you can buy that great bottle of wine. As a Thank You We’ll throw in the chocolate ‘kisses’!! (instructions included).
Our neighbors, our good friends and a member of the Ellison Bay Arts Community. Open in May. Put this on your must visit in Door County.
Finally a restaurant that understands gluten free folks. Can’t wait to get down there. The Wittig’s have offered a great variety of healthy foods for years.
A class preparing pots for the pit.
JOIN US! Our Pit Fire Workshops resume Wednesday May 19, 2010. Call for reservations 920-740-5859
This pottery is not waterproof…..
It’s decorative.
It’s Just Art!
And you created it.
We do not paint or glaze the pottery, we treat the surface with magical and mysterious substances. Intrigued?
Details:
The pottery is bisque-fired and unglazed, as it was thousands of years ago. We say we are using a primitive method but we’ve also used our modern brain to tweak it just a bit.
PRIMITIVE: Build a fire, let it burn down a bit, the put the dried pots on the perimeter to dry further, then build the fire up around it and keep it burning for hours, then cover everything so it smolders creating shiny black surfaces.
MODERN: We bisque fire the pots before we pit fire them. A bisque is the first firing. We bisque our pottery to make it stronger, so when we handle it to either glaze or treat the surface, it won’t break or dissolve, (glaze and surface treatments are mostly water). Also – it protects the pot from exploding.
That’s right. Sometimes our pots blow-up in the pit firing. To minimze this, we bisque the pieces before we pit fire them.
Why do some pots break and others don’t? We don’t control how fast the wood burns or where. In the pit the temperature goes from ambient (air temperature) temperature to 1700F in 30 minutes, in spots. Two things pottery does not like is uneven temps and quickly rising temps. So the stress is intense. We think it has to do with the fire and rapid increase and unevenness of that heat. But something interesting happens and all is not lost if a pot explodes.
I make the pots you chose from simple, plain & slightly primitive, to stay with the whole 10,000 years old process theme.
Now you become part of the story. After the business part of the day ($30 per person covers two pots, firing fee, information, aprons etc. John’s puns are free), you get to pick your pieces in the studio and we might even put you to work carrying out ware boards with plastic containers stacked on them, aprons, buckets of water, you get the idea.
I get to tell you the first part of the story;
Ancient people, through accident probably, figured out that heat in the form of fire hardened clay. Soon, they learned that they could store water (not very long, so another problem to solve) and grains, and even cook in it. Civilization. People are always asking questions like “Wonder what would happen if I did this?” and the answers lead to more questions.
There is more to tell, but it will have to wait until you get here. What I do get to do is show you what happens to a vase when it explodes, and what we do about it.
That’s right John glued the vase together n the sun so it wasn’t’ too bad. And then we used it as a teaching tool : this might happen to yours everyone thought it was cool
Once outside, John will first describe the process, and then will show you what to do. Don’t worry, you will not have to remember everything, we are there and will help you.
What do we use? Terra sigillata, copper and salt wash or cobalt and salt wash, plant foods (liquid and crusty), other minerals and oxides, raku glazes (now we are getting complicated) leaves, grasses–the magical and mysterious stuff I mentioned.
A bit about terra sigillata (stamped earth). It was used by Greek & Roman potters to make the surface of their urns shiny and to provide a very temporary water proofing for cooking pots.
Salt washes provide us with colors, blues and pinks mostly. Plant food, minerals and oxides and the raku glazes, too. Leaves etc. are good for leaving designs on the pots.
We have a 30”x 60”x 30” above ground pit because there is very little topsoil in Door County. We used old firebricks with one and hard bricks with the other. We made the pit smaller because we fire them weekly.
First the pit is filled with 4-6” of sawdust. It is then lined with pine slab wood, which burns the hottest. Salts (table, sea, water softener, de-icer), oxides (cobalt, copper, iron), organic materials, which contain minerals, (dry dog/cat food, dried banana skins, coffee grounds, pine cones, cherry pits, sticks, leaves, dried bunny manure, walnut shells) are sprinkled on the bed of sawdust before the pots are loaded into the pit. All of these are transformed into gases when burned, combine and then alter the surface of the pottery, which are also treated. Pots are tumble stacked, or leaning into each other and resting on top of each other.
We can get away with this because there is no glaze on the pots, and therefore no risk of pots sticking to each other. Instead, each pot’s decoration and surface treatments affect each other. We then begin to build a bonfire on top of the pottery, starting with small pieces of scrap wood. We then twist newspaper and stick it into the spaces and then put another layer of wood, larger pieces now, and then more paper and then finally, the last layer of wood. John dribbles an orchard mix on the top layer and then lights the bonfire. We let the fire burn hot for 30-45 minutes and then cover the pit using old kiln shelves, reducing the amount of air and causing the firing to go into reduction, which helps develop colors.
Pit
The fire takes between 6-8 hours to burn completely down and it’s safe to open it up. Once the ashes are brushed off, the pots are scrubbed clean and then allowed to dry. A final application with a water based poly preserves the surface and gives it a slight glow.
Pit Fired Fern Vase
Pit fired pottery is decorative, so use dried arrangements. Hairline cracks are evidence of the firing process, as are the marks of the flame left on the surface.
Winter firings are so cool, dark comes early, flames are shooting high into the night, the cracks between the bricks glow with the heat. If we are lucky there will be snow on the ground which will crunch. It will be mild, and almost magical. If you are interested, call us, we’d love to have an excuse to fire up the pit earlier this year.
2010 Art Shows
January through May-
Classes or open Studio: Want some one on one mentoring? Now is the time. A whole week or a few days. Call (920-740-5859) or email dmcneil83@gmail.com.
February-
Saturday and Sunday February 6 and 7 in Green Bay, WI at the Resch Center ARTI GRAS
March-
Saturday and Sunday March 6 and 7 in Madison, WI at the Hilldale Shopping Center the WEAVER’S GUILD INVITATIONAL ART SHOW
April-
Saturday and Sunday April 24 and 25 in Deerfield, IL at the NORTH SHOW UNITARIAN ART SHOW
May-
Friday Saturday and Sunday May 14-May 16 Ellison Bay WI Ellison Bay Arts Spring Art Crawl
Wednesday May 19 3pm FAMILY FRIENDLY PIT FIRE WEDNESDAY WORKSHOPS BEGIN
Friday Saturday Sunday Monday May 28-31 Ellison Bay Pottery’s Spring ALMOST PERFECT POTTERY SALE
June-
Saturday and Sunday June 12 and 13 Monument Square Art Show Racine WI
Friday, Saturday and Sunday June 25, 26, 27 Olde Ellison Bay Days Ellison Bay WI
Here’s our calendar- you can find us all over the place this winter or here every day 12-4. Or Call us we are easy to find
lifestyleCrafts on Etsy.com from local artisansShop Local on EtsyBy: Shari GollnitzOnce upon a time when shopping for handmade/crafty items, it meant we’d have to wait for the warmer weather and an arts/crafts fair to snag a unique piece of pottery, an art print or handmade jewelry. With the invention of Etsy we no longer have to wait – all we have to do is click and we are taken to the largest arts/crafts/handmade fair in cyberspace.
For those not familiar with the ever-popular Etsy “your place to buy and sell all things handmade”, I suggest you click on over to Etsy.com and make its acquaintance. The site was launched in 2005 and allows artisans and crafters to set up their own virtual storefronts featuring their handcrafted items. If you are new to Etsy it can be intimidating and dizzying, as the online community now boasts more than 193,000 sellers. You can find anything from pet accessories, to hand printed stationary, to jewelry, to toys.
The Etsy members have made it easy to find that special item you’re looking for by offering certain ways to shop on their “Buy” page. You can search particular categories such as art, jewelry or needlecraft. Or you can search by seller, color, newest items added, and featured items. What many folks don’t know is that you can also shop locally on Etsy. Etsy features a “Shop Local” category where you can enter a particular town/city or even general area, such as Western New York, and you will see a list of local sellers. Now you can shop locally without leaving the comforts of home.
Believe me, once you start looking you’ll be hooked! So, sit back, relax, go check out Etsy and support your local artisans.
Can’t drive here? Call us or try Etsy..
