Christie Ceramics

Salt Fired Pitcher

2011-11-12T02:33:00.000-08:00

New work out of the kiln yesterday...

Nature of Home Pitcher Series

Cone 10 Salt Fired Stoneware, Underglaze and Underglaze Pencils

Printing on clay

2011-10-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

I developed a technique in 1999 of transferring designs on to a fresh slab using carved, bisqued slabs of clay. The designs I carve onto the slab are made with a v-shaped carving tool, and are based on Indian textile designs. I originally developed this as a way to add interest to the bottom of the slab built cups, and as a way to quickly dry the slab that would become the bottom, as the bisqued slab wicks moisture out of the clay.

In 2001-2003, I started to use the patterned clay to print the entire piece, but as the size increased it was harder to get a good print across the entire slab, some spots inevitably skip or ghost. A solution to this problem would be to create flexible pad instead of using the rigid bisqued pad, so I have experimented with brushing liquid rubber latex over a freshly carved slab. It works well for getting a good print, but it creates the "negative" that usually ends up on the clay. The result is a "carved" look, as opposed to a raised design. In the photos, the gray stoneware is printed on the large bisqued slab, and the porcelain appliques are printed with either plaster or latex.

In the meantime

2011-09-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

My studio work is plodding forward, slowly but surely, towards the goal of slip casting. I have accumulated supplies and held three plaster work days in the studio with potter friends, just to get back in the swing of mixing and pouring plaster. I have completed a handful of test prototypes of teapots and cups that will serve as models for the pieces that will be cast. The last few things on my list are the most expensive part of the investment. I'm also thinking about kilns...I'd love to hook up my two electrics, and eventually try to convert an old electric kiln to a propane/wood kiln.

In the meantime, I thought I would make a few cups for upcoming juried shows. I did a test of a stamped Grolleg porcelain applique on a hand built 'Dillo' stoneware mug. The applique worked well, and the Grolleg has a nice finish, but I wasn't satisfied with the butterfly impression that the carved 'Speedy Cut' pad made, so today was spent carving up clay to make bisque stamps for the applique pieces. The carving pictured is of a locust and the mug behind is the test piece.

What's next?

2011-06-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

Over the past 6 months I have been spending a great deal of time setting up a studio space at home in the garage, re-thinking and re-working my teapots, and teaching ceramics at Laguna Gloria for the Austin Museum of Art. All of these things have been incredibly freeing and enjoyable. It is important to switch things up in the creative life to keep the process fresh and challenging.

So, what's next in the studio? I am finally going to bite the bullet and delve into slip casting. I've been talking about for years, and I am ready to streamline my process so that I spend more time on surface decoration (my true love) and less time on building. I use an essential vocabulary of simple, straight-sided forms that will lend themselves to being cast. My potter friends and I had a plaster workshop in the garage studio a few weeks ago, and overall things are looking good.

Upcoming Show in New Orleans

2010-11-30T18:27:00.000-08:00

Andrea Christie: Coming Home
Where: The Ogden Museum's Center for Southern Craft and Design.
When: Opening to the public, December 4th, 2010. Member's Opening, December 3rd.

I have been showing my work at The Center for Southern Craft and Design since it opened in 2003. The Center is a gallery housed within the Ogden Museum, and it shows work made by artists who live and work in the South. The name tag for each artist is pictured with a black outline of the state where the artist lives. Katrina took me far away from my New Orleans home, but in the gallery, my name continued to be placed on the state of Louisiana. It always gave me comfort that I still had a presence there. My husband and I are new to Austin, Texas, having moved here from Indianapolis in June, but in so many ways it feels like we have come home. We made our first home together in the south, and we feel in our element here.

It is exciting to have the sensation of "coming home" in a brand new place. I think everyone has experienced this feeling in one form or another. We are excited by the connections we have made through our family, work and creativity, and excited by the potential here. And personally, I am excited my Ogden tag will picture the big state of Texas, and that I am now a "Southern Artist" again.

Put a bird on it!

2010-11-30T17:29:00.000-08:00

2 bird cups

2010-09-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

I've been cranking away at the new studio and really loving it. It's so lovely to work in a space that I enjoy being in, and to be around other artists. I am currently working on cups, teapots, small pitchers, lidded jars, plates and bowls in preparation for the holidays. I'll be doing two shows this year, one in New Orleans and one at the studio here in Austin. I've been getting a lot of inspiration for my drawings from book illustrations, printmaking techniques and textile design, including a wild collection of about 200 vintage hankies from my Mom.

New name, new place, new things

2010-07-28T10:44:00.001-07:00

We have made our move to Austin, Texas and good things are happening! Here is a sneak peek of the new work that is fresh out of the kiln! While working in my basement on Park Ave. in Indianapolis, I was limited to electric kiln firing, and therefore used a mid-range porcelain clay and fired to cone 5. I am happy to be back to firing to cone 10, like I was in New Orleans. I'm just a sucker for that beautiful, vitreous porcelain that you can only achieve at high temps.

Shotgun House with Bird and China

2009-11-12T19:45:00.000-08:00

Artist Statement for Shotgun with Bird and China

The year following Katrina was an unusual and difficult time in the city of New Orleans, yet in the midst of disaster and ruin, beauty inserted itself.

This ceramic shotgun house was inspired by the phenomenon of the natural world moving in to the devastated neighborhoods of Post-Katrina New Orleans. As the ground dried and recovered from the brackish floodwaters, the insistent growth of vines and weeds returned. With most of the residents gone from their homes, things were left to grow undisturbed. Less pesticide was sprayed, and as a result, my friend speculated, there seemed to be an unusual number of butterflies fluttering around Uptown. Another friend told me about rare birds nesting in the 9th Ward, and former neighbors reported a large snake nesting in an empty lot in Broadmoor. These living creatures thrived in the absence of the human inhabitants.

I found comfort in seeing and hearing about the small examples of natural beauty that were to be found at this point in time. The juxtaposition of birds and butterflies thriving among the detritus of a million ruined possessions was a poignant image. Drawings of cracked plates and cups on the clay houses became a symbol of our once beautiful and cherished belongings that were left behind to mingle with the flora and fauna: the new inhabitants of our neighborhoods.

The residents of New Orleans in 2005 lost so many physical touchstones that created a sense of security, belonging and personal history. We transitioned to a new sense of place and home. Even for people whose homes were untouched by water or wind, the city was transformed. One feature that remained constant was the sturdy wooden shotgun houses that line the streets. The contents may have been swirled around and deposited on the sidewalk, but most of them stood quietly, letting small visitors nest in and around them until we cleaned them up and filled them with our lives again.

This piece was a part of a series of house forms entitled “The Nature of Home.” The work was constructed using slabs of porcelain clay that were pressed into a plaster mold. They were decorated with glaze pencils and blue underglaze, sprayed with a satin glaze and fired to Cone 5.

Ink Cup

2009-03-07T07:26:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I am glazing a large batch of cups, say 30 or so, I will end up with one or two oddballs at the end of the session. I tend to line up about four or five cups at a time, and work on the drawings in a series. I arrange them by relative size or shape, and then create these mini-series with themes of architecture, botanicals, etc. I can really burn myself out when working on a large batch, and by the time I have completed most of the smaller series within the batch I am ready to scream if I have to draw another house, leaf or flower. It is really liberating to take the extra cup or two and just do something intuitive on the blank space. This piece is the perfect example. I have always enjoyed using ink and a bamboo brush on a creamy soft paper, and decided to take the same approach to the surface of this cup. I used a rich blackish brown underglaze that had been watered down, and first drew out a design in glaze pencil, and then went over it with the underglaze. The final step involved spraying the design with a semi matte peach glaze to give the surface a soft, warm blush.

Small oval vase

2009-02-14T01:51:00.001-08:00

I have made a handful of these small oval vases out of scraps of clay that I have left over while making taller cups and vases. They are perfect for keeping in the kitchen to hold things like a couple of packets of tea, a piece of ginger, or any other small item that needs a place to be. The one in my kitchen sits on the windowsill above the sink, and holds a little toothbrush, and a tube of children's toothpaste.

3 Cups

2009-02-11T10:12:00.000-08:00

These three cups, sometimes referred to as 'vases' by my gallery, are 6" tall and 2.5" across. The texture that you see is a result of a printmaking/stamping technique, with a design based on Indian textiles. The glaze is alternates between a satin-matte 'bone' glaze and shiny, crackled aqua color. The first image shows the bottom of one of the cups. I love turning over a piece of handmade ceramics and finding something interesting on the bottom. I like the element of the unexpected, the attention to detail, and that little "something extra." Functional ceramics are so tactile, and it is very important to me that all of my pieces feel as good as they look, and that they feel and look good from every angle.

A Small Ewer

2009-02-07T11:34:00.000-08:00

This small ewer is a part of a collection of patterned pieces that just came back to me from Prima Gallery in Bloomington, which unfortunately, has recently closed. It was a favorite gallery of mine when I was in Bloomington, for it's representation of local and national ceramic artists making mostly functional work. I was honored to be asked to show there after Katrina, and was sorry to hear it was closing it's doors.

People often ask me what a ewer is. I first learned about ewers in my Islamic Art History class during my undergrad at IU. My favorite examples were ancient and rustic ceramic pots with a funnel top and a very small, nipple-esque spout. The function of these particular ewers was to decant wine directly from the pot into the mouth of the user. The pieces were scaled to the hand, so that the funnel top could be easily grasped and the pot tipped upward, letting a small stream of wine flow out of the short spout, and into the mouth. Think of it as a baby bottle for drunken grown ups.

I have always had an affinity for small ceramic objects, the kind that fit just right in your hand, and I suppose I enjoyed the Bacchanalian aspect of these little handle-less pouring pots. My ewer is also meant to be grasped by the funnel for pouring, and would be appropriately used for dispensing wine, whisky or a cup or 2 of mint tea (in the middle eastern style) into small-ish ceramic cups.

Flitting Bird mugs

2008-12-16T05:18:00.000-08:00

These mugs were made for a commission by a neighbor who had admired some of my older work, done in New Orleans for the Ogden. These are made out of slabs of clay that go through a sort of 'printmaking' technique that I have developed, using carved and bisqued pads of clay, and thick, cut out silhouettes of birds on branches. These mugs where fired in a cone 10 reduction atmosphere, and were sprayed with shinos and clear glazes to achieve a rich, earthy and layered surface.

Committed to the Craft

2008-12-07T08:54:00.001-08:00

I may be 7 months pregnant with severe sciatica, stabbing rib pain, and working in a mildewy basement studio that is 52 degrees, and filled with creepy spiders, but the show must go on! These pieces were about to receive the final spray of glaze before the firing. Although my situation is less than perfect, it is still much more tolerable than 3 years ago when I was spraying the glaze in the garage on Thanksgiving day. The problem that day was that I missed Thanksgiving dinner altogether, and that the glaze was freezing in the air before it was hitting the pots. I guess that was was my strongest show of commitment to date. The subject does bring to mind the all-nighters in Bloomington, spent stoking a wood kiln in the dead of Winter, but back then I had the option of drinking whiskey to warm the blood and help the pass the time.

The Art of Giving

2008-11-30T08:13:00.001-08:00

This series of cups is part of the work that will be on display at the Ogden Museum in New Orleans for the 'Art of Giving' event on December 5th. This is a member's only event, but will be open to the public on the 6th with free admission to the Museum. These cups were made at the Art Center in Indianapolis, which gave me access to a high fire gas kiln, something that I have been pining for since leaving New Orleans. I just love the subtlety in the palette, and the vitrified porcelain claybody. There is something to be said for the predictability and vivid colors possible in a cone 5 electric firing, but for me, it lacks the magic of a good old fashioned cone 10 reduction firing.

Botanic Pitchers

2008-11-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

A new body of work has finally made it through the process of creating patterns, constructing the pieces, bisque firing, staining, liner glazing, drawing, underglazing, spray glazing, glaze firing, and being photographed. Well, a few have been photographed. More of that step will be happening over the next few days, then the work is off to New Orleans and Watercolor, Florida just in time for the Holiday events.

First Hibiscus

2008-08-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

I planted 6 Hibiscus plants in the Spring and we finally have our first bloom today. I took advantage of it's beauty to start my "tile sketches" which will function as originals that can be reproduced quickly and easily on to my cups and teapots. Usually I do these types of sketches on paper that is divided into small, rectangular sections, but I really prefer drawing on bisqued clay, and I have run out of room in my sketchpad, so as usual, necessity prevails. I think they will be nice little items in their own right when I get a big handful of them finished and fired. And in the dead of Winter, I won't be at a loss for what to draw on my work. I can just pick up a tile and remember the sweet Summertime.

Back to work!

2008-08-15T16:36:00.001-07:00

I have slowly been getting back to my studio work, and today finished up 3 new teapots that I am pretty excited about. I have come up with a new pattern for spouts and a thrown funnel top, as opposed to the slab built top that I normally use. The addition of a thrown form to the handbuilt piece adds a certain softness and fluidity that I felt was lacking from the teapots. I usually don't throw because it creates a slightly ridged surface that my glaze pencils don't like, but I rarely draw on the top portion. I will post pictures when they are finished.

Abe was very excited today about "working in the basement" after school, so he came down and we threw some pots together. I was amazed that he seemed to have a natural intuition for throwing, and he required less instruction than most adults I teach. But maybe it is because he is so young, or maybe he learned in utero? Either way, I couldn't believe that he actually centered one of the pieces. I was really surprised by his upper body strength, and he managed to give shape to the smaller piece without destroying it. Amazing.

He also did a little abstract expressionist work on a thick clay tile that was pretty nice. It was fun having a little visitor to the studio today, it helped me get back into the swing of things, just to see him so excited about all of it.

a little time off

2008-08-05T08:27:00.001-07:00

The Christie's took a mini-break this weekend and went up to one of my favorite spots in the world, New Buffalo, Michigan. The weather was perfect and beautiful, and we had a great time visiting my Mom. Classes will be starting up again soon, and I will need to crank in to high gear for the Holiday Season sales. But it has been nice to take some time to relax and spend time on important things, like flying kites and doing puzzles with Abe.

Watercolor

2008-07-18T02:14:00.000-07:00

Although I had promised pictures from the Grant Show, the chaos mentioned earlier is still hanging around and being dealt with, and I am ready to move on to the next project. My Gallery in New Orleans has recently opened a satellite space in Watercolor, Florida, near Destin. I sent down 16 cups for the opening, 4 of which you can see pictured above, and it appears to be doing well so far. They are nearly sold out, and are requesting more. The other exciting thing development is a potential e-commerce site, where my work would be for sale online through the gallery. This would involve a new way of working that I have been thinking about for some time anyway. They are requesting multiples for the website. For example, I would make 10 pieces that are similar enough to each other that they would be listed as 1 item on the site, and would have a quantity of 10 available.

Which brings me to my next move. I am gathering information and prices on slip casting my work out of plaster molds. This will involve an initial investment in equipment and supplies, but in the end would quickly pay off and allow me to double or triple my output within a month or two.

Glorious Green

2008-05-28T05:40:00.001-07:00

I always say that here in Indianapolis, you aren't safe from a wintery-cold day until June, and we are nearly there. Everyone and everything has come back to life after a long winter of hibernation. There are flowers and sweet smells everywhere, and so many things to do. People are walking around, going to parties and getting to know one another. I planted 2 tomato plants and a summer squash on Monday, and the pools have opened. This is my favorite time to get a lot of work done, with so much inspiration at hand. I enjoyed an hour yesterday sitting outside around the neighborhood, doing sketches of flowers, buds and leaves to draw on a series of cups today.

Shotgun Glory

2008-04-24T10:42:00.001-07:00

Jazz Fest has kicked off in the Crescent City, and thousands of people are having themselves a good old time right about now. I sent about 20 cups down to the Ogden for the occasion, the 3 pictured above were a part of the lot. I always get a little sad when I send my work off for an event in New Orleans that I will not be attending, but I am glad that my work can be a part of the unique culture that is Sweet Home New Orleans.

After Firing

2008-04-21T07:07:00.001-07:00

Glazing-Before Firing

2008-04-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

I thought I would do a before and after on these three. Tune in tomorrow (or Saturday) to see the transformative power of the kiln.

Earth Hour

2008-04-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

We took part in Earth Hour last Saturday night, by turning off all of our lights, unplugging unnecessary items, and playing Scrabble by candlelight. Something about the quiet atmosphere and lack of distraction apparently really helped me focus, as I kicked PJ's butt by an unprecedented 105 points.

Bon Temps Encore

2008-03-03T08:22:00.001-08:00

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who helped me have a fantastic trip to New Orleans and Hattiesburg this past weekend. It was so gratifying to see all of my work installed so beautifully at the Ogden, and so very nice to reconnect with all of my friends and colleagues. I was able to bask in all that is good about New Orleans, and only experienced quick moments of the pain of the past few years. New Orleans was a place of contentment and wonder for me for many years, and it was a gift to be able to see the good times again.

Bill's Begonias

2008-02-19T07:52:00.000-08:00

These two plates are my favorites out of the series that just came out of the kiln, loosely entitled "Lost Object, Missing Comfort." I threw 15 plates, and drew into the leather hard clay with a knife tool, which made a very thin and jaggedy line. I drew images of several objects that I find myself missing from my daily life, that were lost to the Flood. I don't miss these things for their material value, I miss them for their connection to my history. They served as pleasant reminders of people, places and time periods in my life. Now, when I look around my house, I am surrounded by objects that mark a time when I had lost everything, a time when we had nothing and needed everything. A time of desperation and confusion. It was a difficult exercise, but I am enjoying the results of the memorialization of some of my missing comforts. These objects included a mug from a favorite professor, a shot glass from my favorite Indianapolis dive, a quilt from my Mother-in-law, a baby hat I made for my son's first Christmas, a tea kettle from my Mother, books, and thriving begonias from a clipping of a friends plant.

This series will be a part of the upcoming show at the Ogden Museum, which should open on February 28th, 2008.

NOLA Fired Up!

2008-02-18T08:41:00.000-08:00

These pieces are a sampling of new work that will be a part my upcoming show at the Ogden Museum. The show will coincide with NOLA Fired Up!, a regional clay conference that is taking place at the end February in New Orleans. More info to come!

It is worth mentioning that I am trying out this new system of blogging because of the problems I was having with uploading images with my first attempt. Over the next few weeks, I plan to re-open my Etsy shop, update my website and get everything linked together. Check back soon, and please e-mail me if you would like to receive notices as things are updated.

Cheers!