Ceramics by Owen and Meghan Carpenter

Hey pottery people, so I have a lot to share this week as it was a busy one with a visiting artist coming to KU, a pit fire, a trip to a collaborative studio to help put together a large commission piece as well as two of the MFA students putting their large works on show. Yes lots going on! This is why I really enjoy travelling to different parts of the world and sharing experiences with people.
First off we had a visiting artist come and work and lecture for two days this week. Danny Meisinger is a Kansas studio potter who apart from two semesters of undergrad at KU is mostly self-taught. He throws large pieces and works a lot at altering forms on and off the wheel. One of those potters who just makes throwing large look easy. He is so good at throwing that he worked as a demo guy for Brent wheels at NCECA a couple of times. See photos of some of the stuff he showed us ….It was a fun couple of days being able to just watch and be inspired to do things outside of the box.

Also this week I was fortunate enough to be involved in a pit firing with a couple of the other students, we fixed the pit up and built a new wall then packed it and fired it off on Wednesday night. This morning (Saturday) it was still hot and smoking despite it being covered and sealed for two days. But we opened it up anyways and dug it out slowly letting it cool over a few hours. Was good fun despite the stink of the cow dung we covered it with to seal it up and keep hot. See photos…
Also worth sharing are some photos of the grad students show, we had a good time carrying David Platters large sculpted head into the gallery space. The other work was by Geoffrey Steven Kunkler, Garden of the Forebearer, this was a great ceramic instillation that you could walk through and observe the various shapes and glaze colours of the hundreds of extruded pieces.
Finally here some in studio photos of the work i'm doing right now. These tall slab pieces are inspired by Tatlins Tower, a famous Russian piece of architecture that was never built but was so next level that it is still seen as pushing the boundary's of architecture. My pieces are dealing with the limits of ceramic material as well as how we become more specialized and skilled as our ceramic careers grow. The finished piece will include three towers holding mass produced teacups. Each will be in a varied state of completion and quality, metaphorically representing the passage of a studio potters skills. We can all remember how hard throwing those first few pots was but as time goes by we progress. The tea cup held up by the tower represents that old foe of the ceramicist mass production. As well as the number of cups of tea or coffee we need to survive those hours in the studio when we just want to give up. The completed work will be posted within the next few weeks so please stay tuned!