John Norris

	Thursday, May 27, 2004

Open Label Project ...

Yup, just getting some time together to work on this art label project.

Anyone can feel free to jump right in there... :-)

9:00:00 PM

	Friday, May 21, 2004

Ceramic Blogs, cont'

Ceramics Today, while not technically a blog, does have almost daily updates (more than many blogs I know.)

Besides, it is just a cool site-

9:38:08 AM

	Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Ceramic Blogs, cont'

Since 2/2004, Lee Love has been running a Potters Blog. It is "all about working with clay" and features some nice posts about clay and life in general.

He also has an older blog that goes back to 9/2002. Hey, that's older than mine by a month!

Lee is a potter in Mashiko, Japan and has a site devoted to his own life and work.

10:17:51 AM

	Monday, May 17, 2004

Ceramic Blogs, cont'-

You might ask why there are not many potters doing blogs? Maybe the biggest reason is lack of time and the small blogging ceramic community that is out there.

Another is the veritable force of nature- ClayArt. This email discussion group has numerous posts throughout the day, and a wide variety of subjects, with lots of responses, and has been going on for years. It is a real community.

I think other areas of interest support discussion groups and blogs, so it is perhaps only a matter of time before we'll see more of this in the ceramic arts community. Blogs offer a unique medium to communicate perspective(s).

Probably the biggest difference, and a blog's strength, is the indepth view the reader gets of an individual's, or group's train of thought. That is to say their interests are presented over a time line.

9:20:11 PM

	Saturday, May 15, 2004

Ceramic Blogs, cont'

Sort of Blogish...Critical Ceramics hosts a forum. Join in the discussion, critique others' works and have yours looked at as well.

I like the idea of communtiy based web information.

I haven't added a forum to my site, been thinking about it...but I did turn on comments for awhile. Unfortunately, I didn't like they way they work on this version of Radio Userland...like I do not get notification when one is made, so I turned that feature off.

Trackbacks would be cool...but not currently supported, and I am not sure there is enough of a community currently to utilize it much.

11:14:09 PM

	Wednesday, May 12, 2004

...oh, and Clayton's studio cam goes back to 1999 as well. That's got to be one of, if not the earliests ceramic (photo) blogs.

6:25:58 AM

Open Label Project, cont'

Still working on this.

In the mean time, you might find Clayton Bailey's bottle of Unobtainium interesting....

6:19:17 AM

Ceramic Blogs, cont'

Liz Dellinger, of Maplewoods Pottery, has the beginnings of a blog.

I think I was one of the earlier ceramic / pottery bloggers, having been at this for a good year and a half. There are now more and more out there.

The earliest I know has to be Clayton Bailey's site. Not quite a blog in the strict sense, but it is updated all the time. His Skycam photos, going back to July 1999, do consitute a photo blog, 'tho.

6:15:33 AM

	Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Pottery Blogs, cont'-

An active Ceramic Painting site, that features both traditional and contemporary work from the community.

I especially like the Relationship Barometer Vase. It has four side, each with a different picture. Depending on how one feels one's relationship is going, one can turn the vase to that side. I think one would change the flowers too.

Such a simple and effective idea...I wonder why I hadn't run into it before.

9:59:41 PM

	Friday, May 7, 2004

Open Label Project- Review

We started this project last month, and it got a bit spread out... let's recap-

So the idea would be to make paper labels available for download on the Internet. They would be a standard size so that other potters pots could use them, and others could make labels that you might want to put on your pot. A potter might include a sheet of them for their customers and a note on where to get more on the Internet.

I'm currently working on 1.25 x 1.75 inch labels, with the wide portion oriented horizontally, with Avery 6570.

While these could be considered fantasy or fake labels, I think they do make valid artistic statements. I have created them with the idea of storage, or containers in mind. Perhaps a notion of Labels of Abstraction is appropriate.

Here's some more typical text for the labels:

1. Nice graphic border, otherwise blank, that folks could put in their own info.

2. "House Seasoning" for a spice jar, to fill with your own dry seasoning.

3. "Special Tea Blend" for tea caddy to fill with your own dry tea.

4. "Hearth to Earth" for a jar that can store seeds.

5. "Tools for Ideals" for a pencil holder type jar.

6. "Famous Quote(s)" to evoke meaning, for any type of jar.

7. "Refresh" for a jar holding candy, fragrance, toy, or other thing that can be used for a break.

More abstract examples:

Dreams

Fortunes

Fate

Jokes

Insults

Speaking to handmade ceramics and craft in general:

Handmade Stuff.

Things by Humans.

Essence of Beings.

Grown, not made.

.... more conceptual notions:

Pieces of an autobiography.

Portions of Time.

Memories Bound.

Substance gathered from the psychic realm.

Elements of Homogenaity.

Whole Pieces.

A Jar of Expanding Universe.

Intersects of Time and Space.

Vestages of Tomorrow

Evidence of Another Space

Missing Voids

Particulars of a Forgotten Majesty

...And as noted before:

This post is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

10:43:17 PM

Open Label Project, cont'...

Still working on the graphics for the Open label Project of last month. (Creating interesting labels that can be placed on pots. Labels are to be a standard size and orientation so that they can made by others and so can the pots.)

A quick mock-up of a label at 2" x 4" looks way big. The proper pot size would be at least 6 to 10 inches in one dimension at a minimum. That's just too big for a minimum size. I think a smaller label would also work with a large pot and thus give more options.

I think the 1.25 x 1.75 inches with Avery 6570 would work better.

Plus it allows one 32 labels per sheet...

Yikes! Better get cracking...

10:07:48 AM

	Thursday, May 6, 2004

Ceramic Blogs, cont'-

Another blog that includes pottery (Art Pottery) is Sean Malloy's. Lots of political posts, but some ceramic posts as well.

6:47:14 AM

	Tuesday, May 4, 2004

Ceramics Blogs-

I just stumbled upon another ceramic blog, Scott Cooper's site. Nicely done.

His clay movie really caught the groove for me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this stuff is the future.

10:17:03 PM

	Sunday, May 2, 2004

OLP, continued....

Untitled

:-)

thx, mlm.

This post is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

8:23:11 PM