Really, really, really still trying to find My People here on Mastodon. Am I on the wrong server or something? I'm a self-employed #artist / #maker / #writer ... I make #ceramics ( #pottery )... dye #yarn ... #knit ... read #sciencefiction ... have two #dogs and eleven #cats ... am a recent #widow who loves to talk about what a wild ride #grief is ... and I'm a #Floridian scared shitless for my #BiPOC and #lgbtqia friends and family. Is that enough tags? Hello? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
I just love how modern, timeless, fun, and stylish this Minoan vase is.
Minoan pottery is just gorgeous.
The whole design, artwork, proportions and shapes not only hold up, they still look avant garde, still looks highest quality.
I dream of becoming a full-time potter one day and quitting my day job.
I've been seeing some posts that are critical of artists sharing/selling their work, but I'm hoping Mastodon will be able to become a sustainable alternative for artists.
Please consider joining me on this journey and follow along if you like my work, and/or please boost to help me connect.
If you're reading this, I'm looking for work. I'm a ceramicist, photographer, and all-around craftsperson based out of the so-called San Francisco Bay Area.
Please let me know about any open positions for a:
🏺 production potter
🎨 studio assistant
🖌️ arts educator
🖼️ museum/gallery staff
I'm currently open to part time work and (paying) internships, ideally in the city proper but I'm also more than willing to commute to the east bay or the peninsula for the right position. If you have any leads on these or similar roles (or, tbqh, any open roles in the arts or arts management), please hit me up!
Thanks for reading this far; please enjoy some of my work as thanks. Boosts very much welcome and appreciated :)
Handmade.social is a dedicated space in the Fediverse for all handmade artisans. Whether you knit, craft jewelry, make pottery, or any other unique creations, this platform welcomes you to showcase your work. It's a fantastic way for your shop and business to connect with a community that appreciates handcrafted artistry. Consider setting up an account on handmade.social to promote your beautiful creations.
Tired of insta and etsy, starting my mastodon journey today!
So let me do an #introduction post. I make ceramics and porcelain in a small studio in Berlin.
Sometimes practical, but mostly experimenting with the artistic side.
German and English are not my native, so expect me to translate a lot.
I know the #fediverse is full of craftspeople, and also people who appreciate that you can have one absolutely favourite bowl that is the only bowl certain food tastes right out of.
My favourite bowl met with a #dyspraccident - I do intend to kintsugi it into a flowerpot, but I really really need to have a watertight replacement.
Who can make me one? Will pay handsomely. It has to be slightly wonky and have nubbly drips of glaze and a gritty underside and be all lumpy. #pottery#fedigiftshop
Decided I wanted a new pour over cone filter so I made one… wet clay last week, glaze fired to 2200 F yesterday and making my coffee today. Pottery is magical isn’t it? #art#mastoart#clay#ceramics#pottery
I guess instance migration is a good time for an #Introduction post. Hello lovely people, I'm here both as a scientific researcher and as a human being, and you can expect a range of genres of posts and interactions from me.
On the work side, I'm a computational scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the field of biological X-ray crystallography, specifically at free electron lasers. It's a glorious interdisciplinary mess, and the description I give to non-scientists is that i use my degree in chemistry to write software to do math that models the physics of experiments that we're running to learn about biology.
For fellow structural biologists: I work on crystallography data reduction software for the steps between photons hitting the detector and a merged set of structure factors. I also support XFEL experiments, both on site and remotely, and assist in post-experiment data processing as needed. My PhD focused on using simultaneous XFEL crystallography and XES spectroscopy to probe the water splitting reaction in oxygenic photosynthesis. I did a postdoc in computational methods development for cryoEM, and I'm now back to XFEL crystallography but still in methods development.
For fellow software developers: all of our work is open source and mostly under the cctbx project/repo. It's mostly python with a bunch of C++ under the hood (including some low-level stuff redundant with scipy and numpy because those weren't around yet!), plus a user-facing wxPython GUI. More recently we've done a ton of work with GPU acceleration (using Kokkos, for NVIDIA, Intel and AMD architectures) and scaling up at three different national labs' supercomputing centers in anticipation of next-gen experimental capabilities. I derive too much joy from writing bash-sed-awk monstrosities on the occasions we need them to fix an urgent problem during an experiment, and I guess I'm most proud of the fact that I somewhat understand git.
As far as hobbies, the longest-standing one is probably #coffee, followed closely by #language (s) / #languageLearning and a love of #patterns and #symmetry in various contexts. I have too many different ways of making coffee (they have overrun my coffee cupboard), but my favorite remains the classic latte, and by now I can make a better latte than I can buy. I'm trying to refresh my #Japanese and learn #Dutch and #German simultaneously/comparatively, which of course is terrible for speed of learning, but fascinating. So far I've found #ASL the most challenging but also deeply satisfying -- I only have one semester under my belt but hope to take a lot more. I studied and continue to study all the #math and #science I possibly can. Right now I seem to be pretty engrossed in #electronics, #CAD, #3DPrinting, and just generally #DIY-ing/fixing/repairing things. Other active interests include #sewing, #reading, #cooking, #bike commuting, and #publicTransit. My journeys in #aikido and #pottery are on hold but I definitely want to pick them back up when I'm not already overcommitted. I'm casually interested in #neurophilosophy, #neuropsychology, #neurodivergence and #neuroscience. I've taken one course in neurophilosophy and can read literature in the rest, with effort.
On a personal note, I'm trans and nonbinary and very open about it -- I transitioned back when I had to explain what that meant. I've retired from some forms of community engagement and support but I'm very happy to answer any questions I can about the US legal and medical landscapes, available resources, policy and terminology best practices, or whatever you know you shouldn't ask [person in your life].
Finally, I spend a lot of time with my cat Rory (pictured), who is perfect and the most affectionate creature I have ever met. I promise to share photos of him from time to time.
The pot pictured below is one of my favourite pit fired pieces of pottery. .
Pit firing is the original method for firing clay pots and dates back 30,000 years. Colouration comes from combustible materials that are burned. As these materials burn, vapours are released. Hot pots, still porous take the colour.
I do a pit firing once a year and I love feeling connected to the dawn of my chosen craft.
In Greek mythology, a little owl represents or accompanies Athena and has become known as a symbol of knowledge and wisdom attesting to the staying power of the Olympians. The whispers of Athena's legacy are everywhere.
The symbology of the owl has often inspired my own journey. The ability to see through the darkness of life and find knowledge is a potent totem.
Lately life is becoming pretty tricky for artists. Promoting one's work to a wide audience is essential.
Twitter, FB, aren't healthy or ethical spaces. I'm in an fortunate position of not relying on my art for my livelihood. Not all artists are. Consider purchasing from them .
As an artist in a rural area who happens to be LGBTQ, it'd mean a lot if you could follow along my pottery journey. Boosts/follows appreciated.
One of my favourite things about making pottery is playing with, tweaking and combining glazes. This typically requires testing. Some potters do this with flat or upright test tiles.
I've decided that this year I will use tea bowls for this purpose. Later in the year, I'll make a few teapots to match my favourite tea bowls.