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Dawn Candy | Episode 682

Dawn Candy is an artist residing in Red Deer, Alberta. Dawn earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Lethbridge where she studied analytic philosophy and religious studies. Dawn then went on to study visual art at Red Deer College. Her work has been exhibited and collected internationally. Currently Dawn teaches community art classes in addition to making her pottery.

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Let’s talk about your studio. I’m curious. Who makes your clay?

I get my clay from Plainsmen in Medicine Hat.

Nice. Are you familiar with Chiro?

Yes! I think he runs the social media feed for Plainsman. I think we met briefly at NCECA but just in  a quick Oh, hi! Hi! kind of a way.

You mentioned you use a lot of slip. Do you make your slip or do you purchase your slip?

I make my own slip. I use my clay scraps and I kind of call it casting slip because I add a deflocculant to it. It’s just kind of by feel. I just mix it up and add a little bit of deflocculant to the consistency that I want, sieve it, and then I am good to go.

What does deflocculant do to clay slip?

It just makes it so that it holds its shape a little bit better. I can get a raised line a little bit easier with the slip with less water content. So it just makes it so it behaves as a liquid even though it doesn’t have as much water as you would typically need to make the clay flow that much.

You do a lot of sketching on your work. What kind of tools are you using to actually do the sketching?

Oh, may favorite tools are those little tiny ball pointed stylus tools. So they look like a pin tool but they have a little ball on the end and you can get them in different sizes. I love those because I can make curvy lines and I don’t feel like I’m wounding the clay. I don’t feel like I’m scratching into the surface and creating all those little raised burs.

You do your drawing with a stylus. How do you get your marks on there with the color?

Okay, so depending on the imagery I may draw on the green ware with a pencil first before I dive in with a stylus. But often times I just freehand it with a stylus. And then I usually do my slip trailing over top of that and then I put a wash of stain on it and then wipe that back. So it’s kind of simultaneously  outlining my raised lines and filling my recessed lines. It’s kind of two techniques for the price of one.

Do you do the wash during the green ware stage or is that after it’s been bisqued?

I used to do it after it was bisqued but I am doing it on green ware now.

How do you do a wash on slip trailing and not loose the form?

That is where the consistency of the slip comes into play. Because it is more of  a casting slip than just a watery slip, it holds it’s form really well. I mean I have developed the type of touch I need. The thing I like about doing it on green ware is I can scrub as much as I want away as well and really clean up areas where they look pristine and that’s maybe where that stained-glass window look comes into effect is because I am able to go right back down to the clay and remove all incidental marks whereas when I was staining the bisque ware-you now it is on bisque ware-every teeny-tiny nick on the surface is going to absorb that stain and it’s there forever.

With all that wiping, how do you keep the clay surface from not getting groggy?

I use a very fine grained clay. I can’t use a coarse stoneware. It just wouldn’t work. So I use a porcelain blend and it tends to be fine. It’s so smooth that you can wipe it quite a bit and erode the surface without creating a grainy texture.

You and your partner are both creatives. What do you like to do in your spare time?

That’s a good question. Lately, I don’t know why exactly, but we’ve been binging a lot of TY shows in our spare times. So we usually watch an episode of something before bed and you know, chat a little bit at the end of the day. But we genuinely don’t have a ton of spare time. I mentioned I like to read. Yeah, we just watch some interesting shows together and watch the odd movie.

Book

The City and The City by China Mieville

Contact

littlesister.ca

Instagram: @littlesisterpottery