Notices by Pottery by Osa (potterybyosa@mastodon.social)

I often look to traditional Nigerian pottery forms for inspiration. The pot on the left is a vessel from the Nupe tribe. I’ve read as extensively as I can about how they may have been used by it never makes sense to me. First of all, the pots are quite large, no less than 40 inches in circumference, so very heavy to pour from—and the narrow neck makes pouring even more difficult. I address this by making mine a smaller handheld size with a spout. #Nigeria #AfricanArt #pottery #ceramics

I’m making a new batch of terra sigillata from #clay I collected in Ocala National Forest. I stored it in a plastic bucket with a loose fitting lid for three years and it’s still damp. An anthropology professor told me that 95% of clays in #Florida are smectite clays—a group of clays that absorb more water and dry more slowly than other clays. This causes them to shrink more when they dry which could be a reason I get this crackle effect from most FL clays that I process into sig.

I just sent this pot to a collector in Brooklyn. I'm so grateful. The form of the vessel is inspired by Gwari water pots made by Ladi Kwali (Nigeria's most renowned potter) and other women potters of that region whose names we do not know. The surface design is inspired by my favorite plant the Thai red roselle which I'm harvesting in my garden right now. The decorating slips were made from clays foraged in Puerto Rico, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia. #pottery

I was given the recipe for the off-white glaze I use by another potter and it was a game changer for me. Before that, I was using glossy opaque glazes that completely covered my red stoneware clay whose color I loved so much. For years, I would compensate by wiping glaze away from certain sections to let the iron rich clay body show. Finding this glaze made my work more subtle and rustic, recalling antiqued or rusted surfaces worn with age. #ceramics #pottery

Wild garden bouquet for my husband’s birthday get-together tonight. 💐

This is the first pot I ever made that united coil building and wild clay terra sigillata. I learned this method of coil building from a Zulu potter in 2023 and I started painting pots with wild clay in 2024. Uniting the two techniques felt like a huge progression for me.

It came out with a crack so I kept it and I’m glad because it’s sentimental and perfect for an occasion like hubs’ birthday.
#flowers #pottery

Last night, my husband took me to see "A Life Illuminated" about Dr. Edith Widder, the first marine biologist to document deep ocean #bioluminescence. To me, the #film served as a reminder to leave room in our minds for the beautiful, magical things that exist in this life that we don't often hear about or that remain unseen. Check and see if this #movie is coming to a theater near you.
https://www.alifeilluminated.com/
#MarineBiology #science #OceanScience

@mayintoronto For those following in the US, that’s about $3000 USD.

I hope that showing my test tiles—including those strange, unexpected, sometimes undesirable results—gives you a window into what it takes to produce a piece like this that turns out just as intended.

Each section of the surface began as a test tile that I may have had to tweak or troubleshoot. The form and details required evolution over time. And from here, the work continues to grow and change. I wonder what the pots I’ll be making in another decade will look like?
#pottery #ceramics

Dirty porcelain.

I fired a little pinch pot to test the #porcelain and wild clay mixture I made. It’s a cone 6 porcelain, so that’s what I fired to, knowing full well that the #WildClay is more refractory and would raise the melting point of the resulting clay body.

That just means that this clay body is more porous at cone 6 than the porcelain would be all by itself.

Visually, I enjoy the earthy, speckled impurities the wild clay adds to pure, white commercial porcelain. 🧵

I have a mushroom-obsessed friend who got me growing pink oysters in plastic buckets this summer. I decided to make her a mini mushroom pot out of clay and this is how it turned out. I put my hand in the pic so you could sense the scale.

You basically mix a neutral substrate like straw with mushroom spawn, wet it, and the #mushrooms eventually sprout through the small holes. I can’t wait to see this little pot with mushrooms sprouting all over it.

I’m making a clay body out of a dried out bag of porcelain a friend gave me and some super sandy clay from a construction site that someone brought me back in 2023. It’s for a community event on Monday. I can’t wait to see what it feels like to work with. Here are photos from the source. #WildClay

Commission complete! This is the urn I was asked to make for an altar. More info upthread ⬆️ #pottery #ceramics

Today, after my admin tasks are done, I'll begin working on some commissions that I've had on my list to complete. One is for a lidded vessel to be placed on an altar that honors ancestors and orishas. This isn't the first time I've received such a request, but it's been a while. I'm always honored to be asked to make pieces that carry spiritual significance.

I had a minor medical procedure this morning and had to enlist the help of my husband to unload the kiln for the first time in my eleven year career. I’ve been a lone wolf for so long, I forget that a little bit of company makes things more fun. As usual, there were lots of great pots but others with glaze flaws that I will sell as seconds. Also, a couple of gifts for friends. More photos soon!

It’s unreal how long it takes to get around to those smaller details in life. I made a batch of lamps for an interior designer back in 2023. I kept the ones with glaze flaws for our bedroom, got them wired last year, and I finally got around to ordering lamp shades last week.

I think they would have looked better with cone-shaped shades but we have a smaller bedroom with small bedside tables so this size & shape work best. I really like the way they turned out! #pottery #beautility

A recent Ringling College film school graduate got in touch with me asking to take photos to fortify her portfolio. Aside from the usual headshots, she took very cool photos of random things in my studio that I thought it would be fun to share, to give an inside view of my workspace.

If you live in SW #Florida and need a photographer, check out Vivian Hoang: https://lilmissvivian.com/

#florida #photography #artiststudio

RE: https://mastodon.social/@joynewacc/116744416775409343

I’m just now seeing that @joynewacc made it out of #Gaza and is continuing her studies in Italy. I just wanted to boost for all those who contributed to her fundraiser just in case they missed her previous posts, as I did. The support we provide as a global community can be life changing. Her family in Gaza obviously still needs our continued support: https://chuffed.org/project/farah-needs-help

I’ve been making bedside water bottles for years but I don’t make them very often. They’re inspired by Mexican botellones—small clay water jugs with an accompanying cup which serves as a cover. Sometimes the cup has a handle. I’ve also discovered a Congolese version of the botellón. It’s such a simple and effective idea that it’s no surprise it would appear in multiple cultures. #pottery #ceramics #beautility

Rain Vase.
It’s been eerily dry. It hasn’t rained heavily in almost a month. Usually, this is my favorite time of year. I love standing on the beach under a dramatic, overcast sky watching lightning and off-shore rain storms. I love walking out into the garden after a thunderstorm and noticing how turgid and bright-green all of the leaves are. This year, even the native plants in my yard are barely hanging on. We’ve been in drought for years but it’s so hard to accept this as the new normal.

Unfortunately, we won't have enough time to create a face jug from beginning to end during today's #Juneteenth Arts Festival, but participants will be given the chance to play freely with clay while learning about how enslaved Africans held onto their spiritual beliefs through the creation of these ceramic vessels.

If you're interested in learning more about this, look up "face jugs" and "The Wanderer," the next to last slave ship that entered the US in 1858. #BlackHistory #pottery