I have a confession to make. I think I was being fairly conscientious about keeping up with my blog up until the past few months, when I got sucked into Twitter and Facebook. Its all good though. We have a new Webb Pottery Facebook Page there at http://www.facebook.com/WebbPottery/ . If you’re on Facebook, check it out.
This weekend we’ll be at the 28th Annual Grand Festival of Art in Fairhope AL, from 10 am - 5pm both days.
The Eastern Shore Arts Center hosts 2 shows a year, one in the Spring, and this one, in the fall. A few years ago the fall festival was moved from The Grand Hotel grounds in Point Clear, to the park by the Fairhope Pier.
This year, however, it will take place right in downtown Fairhope which will be a lot more convenient for both exhibitors and patrons. For more info regarding the show, please contact the Eastern Shore Art Center at (251) 928-2228 or by email at esac@esartcenter.com.
Please look for us. You can find us in Booth #50 located on Fairhope Ave., toward Church St. .
The weather should be great (sunny both days with temps in the mid 60s), so be sure to drop by our booth and check out some of our pottery. Look forward to seeing you there!
(Also while you’re in Fairhope, be sure to check out the Alabama Coastal Birdfest at Faulkner College across from the Fairhope Library)
From July 16th through August, APTV is hosting an Online Art Auction via eBay, featuring work by the artists in the film as well other contributing Alabama artists (including yours truly. My piece, pictured here, will come up for auction Aug 6th). “All of the funds raised will go to support the education mission of Alabama Public Television, and help us continue to make films like Alabama Craft.”
Looking for something around town to do? Lowell and I, along with 2 other fellow members of the Coastal Artisans, Charles Smith and Maria Spies, are pleased to be taking part in the Shared Expressions exhibit on now through to Sept 13th at the Mobile Museum of Art. The exhibit is a compilation of work by regional artists working in a variety of mediums, from painting to fibre to lapidary, to clay. For more info, please contact: http://www.mobilemuseumofart.com
A couple of weeks ago we had a dumptruck load of clay delivered from the new clay deposit. I guestimated the pile was around 5 tons or so, but as it turns out, our neighbor, who drives for the same kind of truck, told me one of those trucks heaped up with clay like it was, holds something closer to 27 tons (or more?)!! All 27 tons, just for the cost of trucking it to our studio not 15 - 20 miles away. (If you have bought commercially prepared clay, you can probably do the math for what the equivalent would be).
We’ve left the dumped clay uncovered and open to the elements now for two weeks or so, in order for the rain to wash away a little of the residual sand off that was picked up in the dump truck onto the clay’s surface. The mound is already starting to turn from a reddy orange to more of a amethyst-y pink clay color. Yesterday I broke apart a clump to reveal a piece of nice, clean, sandless solid clay. Since the time the of the delivery, three or four batches of clay have been mixed. I have thrown some of it, and the rest I have left to age a little more. ..well, until tomorrow, at least, when I start my throwing cycle again.
Before it was time to mix the second batch, though, Lowell took me out to the new deposit site for the first time to help gather some dryer clay for the mix, since the clay we already had at the studio was still a little too damp to crush to a powder. So off we went..
We drove for about 20 minutes down familiar roads and around familiar turns, when all of the sudden Lowell turned into a little dirt driveway entrance. It was a lot closer than I thought it would be.
Well! I thought the truck load that was delivered was a lot, but I saw where it was excavated from and it took barely a dent out of the mountain that lay before me. Here is a picture of what I first saw. It stands about 20 feet high and is at least 60 feet long . Its mostly pink clay, though there are layers of white, and red, and a layer further in the middle of some dark shale-like material which I assume is the remnants of decomposed vegetation .
I was chipping away dry surface clay and filling up my bucket, as the fog gradually cleared. It was almost like a dream. Off to my right, was another clay mountain .. and yet another further on.
Here is a photo of a hillside that had been excavated with a backhoe. Sorry, I couldn’t get the entire hill in the shot but you can get an idea of the various strata. This layer starts down about 6 feet from the surface and, in this spot, is about 4-6 feet thick.
As you may know, the majority of the clay we use for our functional ware is native clay which we dig locally and process right here at our studio. (I posted previously about our clay mixer)
A few weeks ago we got a lead on a new clay deposit, again, here in Baldwin County. We are quite lucky here in this part of the country because you don’t have to dig very far from the surface to find clay. Typically it can be found along road sides, waterways, and construction sites. The clay we use is not of any use to anyone but potters, it seems. In construction, it is just cast off or covered over and is sometimes referred to it as “chalk”. Of course its not chalk, but its not the kind of clay that’s good for road base, like that bright orange clay one typically sees everywhere down here and what Alabama is known for.
The clay we look for is typically bubble gum pink to white in color. We fire it to cone 10 (approx 2400 degrees Fahrenheit), but I know through experience that it can go higher. It makes for a nice durable stoneware body, that usually fires to an offwhite to toasty light brown in reduction. Clay that is more yellow or orangey red (more iron) seems to have a lot more imperfections causing problems in firing such as popouts, bloating, pinholing etc.
Anyways, I wanted to share a photo of what the clay looks like right out of the ground. Its very pretty and is almost amethyst in color. In fact, its probably about the pinkest clay I’ve seen since coming here. It is remarkably clean and relatively free of debris, and it crumbles so nicely.
Over the weekend, the first batch of it was slaked down and mixed. This batch has about 85% of this ‘new’ clay and the rest is reclaim. Unfortunately its still a little wet to try to throw so I’ve got some drying out on the wedging table. Its very strange to see it next to our usual clay which I always thought had a bit of a pinkish tinge, but this new stuff is positively rose colored.
Lowell came in this morning with this little baby mockingbird he found hopping across the road with no parents in sight, no nest in sight, and on his way to getting run over. Pretty obvious he had fallen out of his nest. He is quite a skilled hopper, even for a little guy.
For now, we are spoon feeding him and hopefully we’ll be able to set him free once his flight feathers grow in. As anyone who has found little wild chicks like this can tell you, it can be a challenge to keep baby wild birds alive once you take them in. I hope this little guy, who my daughter has already nicknamed “Tweet”, makes it.
To feed him I am using a tiny baby spoon which is actually just a little narrower than the inside diameter of his beak. A teaspoon can also work well if you bend the edges of the spoon in and kind of over to fit inside the bird’s beak enough to get the food down its throat.
I’ve been down here on the Gulf Coast now for about 8 years now. While I don’t care for the oppressive humidity in summer or hurricanes, I do like the fact that when I get the Feb-March gardening jitters and break out the seed catalogs, I know spring really is right around the corner. The unfortunate thing is it makes it very hard to be in the studio because you just know that if you don’t get out there asap, the weeds will take over and you never seem to catch up.
Our area is considered ’sub-tropical’ which means we can grow certain varieties of citrus that will tolerate mild winter freezes including Meyers lemons and satsumas, as well as other plants too that could only be grown as houseplants or annuals further north. Here are just a few examples of what we have growing: a spineless yucca, a philodendron, and a loquat.
Yesterday I was just getting ready to cut and slam wedge some native clay that had been sitting on the wedging table to dry out, as I often do to pick out the odd little rock or left over hard chunks of debris. Found this little fellow “hunkered down”, as they would say here in the South. He had chewed and burrowed his way about an inch into the clay.
Earlier in spring and summer, we are pestered by some much smaller black beetles, resembling this one, actually, only about 1 to 2 millimeters in length. They come out once the sun goes down and make their way into the studio, seeking out leather-hard pots and damp clay. Groups of them will actually burrow right through the sides of pots. Sometimes I think they make a point to go for those pots you have spent the most time on trimming or carving a design into …pure coincidence, of course.
Since we don’t have screens on the windows and the studio is kind of open, we usually try and wrap or cover pots with dry cleaner’s plastic. We have to also make sure we turn the lights to the studio off when we leave, since they don’t seem to nibble in the dark.
Regional artists of various mediums, not just clay, donate a piece of work: their interpretation of a bowl.
Friday, November 16th, 6 to 9 pm Cathedral Square Gallery, 260 Dauphin St, Downtown Mobile Tickets: Just $35 from the 15 Place web site “…eat hearty soups, drink assorted beverages, munch on artisan breads and gourmet cookies, dance to a great band, BAYRUNNER this year, and at the end of the evening take our bowl home.”
My name is Anne Webb and I'm a studio potter living and working just outside of Magnolia Springs, on Alabama's beautiful Gulf Coast. Please leave comments!
This weekend we’ll be at the 28th Annual Grand Festival of Art in Fairhope AL, from 10 am - 5pm both days. 
