Tag Archives: ceramics

A Year of Nipping Constantly

November 17, 2022 lisahouck Leave a comment

Cutting and placing smalti tiles in my Cape Elizabeth, ME Studio

On any given day this year, I could be found nipping ceramic and glass tiles into small components to make mosaics. It made for a good soundtrack for my days in the studio.

A Night Out, 8″ x 8″, mosaic

The background of this piece is created using opus palladium or “crazy paving,” which refers to cutting all the pieces into various shapes and sizes. The background of A Night Out is composed of Mexican smalti (handmade glass tiles).

The rest of the mosaic features a combination of handmade ceramic tiles fired in our test kiln (notice the green leaves on the right hand side) and Murano Millefiori glass, which is made in Italy by cutting cross sections of bundled glass into small circles. Millefiori means a thousand flowers — so it is apt that I used a Millefiori for the flower under the bird’s beak (as well as the bird’s eye and the yellow-brown leaf in the center).

If you’re curious about where I source my materials, I get my smalti and ceramic pieces from two related sites — smalti.com and witsendmosaic.com. The Murano Millefiori glass comes from their website here.

Emerging in Early Spring, 8″ x 8″, mosaic

This mosaic features a large yellow-green ceramic leaf made here at the studio, more smalti pieces, and a few commercial ceramic and glass bits as accents.

Grid of 8″ x 8″ mosaics

These pieces will be featured at an upcoming show “Menagerie a Trois” at Cove Street Arts on 71 Cove Street in Portland, Maine. There is an opening reception on Thursday, December 1st from 5 to 7pm. The show is up through January 21st and features two other artists, Susan Amons and Richard Furneaux Remsen. Hope to see you there!

Studio Life

Musings on Maine, Mosaics & Mixed Media

April 28, 2022 lisahouck 1 Comment

My small kiln filled with little ceramic creations destined for use in mosaics

I’ve been living in Cape Elizabeth, ME for two years now, and I love watching the changing seasons and walking on the beaches. I have been making a lot of mosaics inspired by the trees, plants and little creatures in my neighborhood.

Meeting Near the Big Wave, linoleum block print

I have also been continuing to work on a series of linoleum block prints. I recently completed this piece, a diptych filled with patterns and designs from the underwater world. One of these will be auctioned off at the Children’s Museum and Theater of Maine in Portland, ME on May 13 to raise needed funds for community programs at the museum.

Crescent Beach in Cape Elizabeth with garnet sand

Ceramics, Studio Life

The Five Stages of Unloading a Kiln

September 9, 2014 lisahouck 2 Comments

Lo these many years that I have been working with clay, teaching it, learning about it, making all kinds of stuff, I still can’t get over how many emotions come up when I am firing a kiln. It’s not unlike the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

First I imagine that this kiln load will be different from every other one: nothing will crack or craze, all the glaze will be smooth, colors will be harmonious. Then I crack the lid and try to peek in when it’s really too hot to open which singes my eyebrows and makes me kind of irritated. I should know better but it’s so hard to wait to open the kiln. Then I start thinking about the commissioned platter on the second shelf. Is it good to imagine it broken and already have accepted that disappointment before I lift off the top shelf? Or is it bad karma to imagine it perfect and gorgeous before I get a chance to check it out? In each firing there are several disappointments, often involving the one piece in the kiln which I do not want to re-do.

This leads to questioning as to why I continue to endlessly fool around with this medium that drives me nuts. It’s unpredictable and labor-intensive and involves a lot of heavy lifting and ceramic pieces don’t command the respect they deserve in the art world. Yet I still love the look and feel of colorful ceramic pieces. Over the years I have rolled out slabs to make big tile murals, I have created large-scale platters with a terrific teacher Jeanee Redmond and I have worked with coils, pinch pots, and raku firing. It is one medium I keep coming back to because it is so versatile and fascinating.

So I face the pile of the stuff from this firing that has small flaws and I’m doing triage: which ones can be repaired and re-fired? Maybe I can add a little underglaze to the spot where it came out a little thin if I can just remember which of the fourteen blue shades I am currently using will match this piece. Of course the colors and textures will change in the kiln, and sometimes the accidents will be happy ones. Then I start loading the kiln again while the shelves are still a bit too hot to handle. It’s like gambling-I can’t help it, I keep thinking there is such a thing as a perfect firing. So I set the timer and try not to feel like a complete idiot as my hopes return again.