ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY
MF POTTERY X TREIBDESIGN
MF POTTERY X TREIBDESIGN
ARTISTS
Mijanou Fortney of @mfpottery + Kaspar Heinrici of @treibdesign
WHERE
Artists in residence at the Tierra Learning Center in Leavenworth, WA
PROCESS
Modular patterns silkscreened onto 6" ceramic tiles / silkscreened newsprint transfer onto curved ceramic surfaces
WHEN
February 2019
Mijanou Fortney of @mfpottery + Kaspar Heinrici of @treibdesign
WHERE
Artists in residence at the Tierra Learning Center in Leavenworth, WA
PROCESS
Modular patterns silkscreened onto 6" ceramic tiles / silkscreened newsprint transfer onto curved ceramic surfaces
WHEN
February 2019
Mijanou Fortney, a Washington based ceramic artist, invited Kaspar Heinrici and Ali Filippelli of Treibdesign to her studio in the Tierra Learning Center located in the Sunitsch Canyon, 10 minutes outside the quiet town of Leavenworth, WA. We were the first residents to be hosted, living in a nearby studio on a farm, spending our days learning about various ceramic processes, and getting to know some of the people who lived in the small town tucked away on the eastern side of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. I documented our time there, while also working on my own hand building, throwing, and illustrations. Kaspar worked with Mijanou to test out a method of transferring silk screen patterns onto the curved surfaces of her ceramic pieces, while also continuing a project he had started in the summer of 2018, hand painted modular pattern tiles.
Kaspar's process is to pull a pattern from his sketchbook, modify it on his computer, research materials, and jump in - problem solving along the way. For this project he traced the patterns from his computer onto contact paper, cut them out by hand, and adhered them to 4 different silk screens. He custom mixed low fire underglazes with water based acrylic silk screen medium, created 3 colorways, Tonal, Neutral, and Jewel in both curvilinear and geometric patterns, resulting in nearly 70 tiles. These tiles can be combined to create nearly endless variations, they can be rotated to be flowey or angular, symmetrical or random series. As Kaspar finished each batch of tiles he would slow down and play to see what patterns came about. It was fun shoot and incredibly satisfying to see his process from start to finish.
Mijanou and Kaspar have been friends for nearly 20 years, Mijanou has been working with clay for over 17. She makes custom small batch collections, mugs, bowls, jars, planters. She also works with children, adults with special abilities, and leads introduction to ceramics series. In her free time, she and Kaspar worked on a newsprint silk screen transfer method. The premise first was to silkscreen print on newsprint paper, and then using slip (mixture of water and clay) to transfer the printed glaze pattern from the newsprint onto a curved surface of a mug. The slip was painted both over a leather hard mug and separately the newsprint. Carefully the printed pattern was lain face down and wrapped around the surface of the mug - with pressure and smoothing - the pattern would transfer when the newsprint was lifted off. As with any craft, this took patience and many attempts, and as I documented the process, I saw two artists working together, one whose craft is careful, solid, honed, the other unexpected, raw, dynamic. They played off of each other, one patient, the other tireless - I was witness to a collaboration between two old friends having fun and coaching one another. It was pretty damn near perfect.
For custom tiles contact Kaspar at Treibdesign and for information on MF Pottery contact Mijanou at her website, MF Pottery
Kaspar's process is to pull a pattern from his sketchbook, modify it on his computer, research materials, and jump in - problem solving along the way. For this project he traced the patterns from his computer onto contact paper, cut them out by hand, and adhered them to 4 different silk screens. He custom mixed low fire underglazes with water based acrylic silk screen medium, created 3 colorways, Tonal, Neutral, and Jewel in both curvilinear and geometric patterns, resulting in nearly 70 tiles. These tiles can be combined to create nearly endless variations, they can be rotated to be flowey or angular, symmetrical or random series. As Kaspar finished each batch of tiles he would slow down and play to see what patterns came about. It was fun shoot and incredibly satisfying to see his process from start to finish.
Mijanou and Kaspar have been friends for nearly 20 years, Mijanou has been working with clay for over 17. She makes custom small batch collections, mugs, bowls, jars, planters. She also works with children, adults with special abilities, and leads introduction to ceramics series. In her free time, she and Kaspar worked on a newsprint silk screen transfer method. The premise first was to silkscreen print on newsprint paper, and then using slip (mixture of water and clay) to transfer the printed glaze pattern from the newsprint onto a curved surface of a mug. The slip was painted both over a leather hard mug and separately the newsprint. Carefully the printed pattern was lain face down and wrapped around the surface of the mug - with pressure and smoothing - the pattern would transfer when the newsprint was lifted off. As with any craft, this took patience and many attempts, and as I documented the process, I saw two artists working together, one whose craft is careful, solid, honed, the other unexpected, raw, dynamic. They played off of each other, one patient, the other tireless - I was witness to a collaboration between two old friends having fun and coaching one another. It was pretty damn near perfect.
For custom tiles contact Kaspar at Treibdesign and for information on MF Pottery contact Mijanou at her website, MF Pottery