The Man Behind Crockett | David Kring | Episode 575

David Kring | Episode 575

David Kenton Kring was born and raised in Frankfort, Kentucky where he grew up in a small family-run men’s workwear store. This blue collar atmosphere helped to influence not only David’s passion of working with his hands but also his surfaces. David received his BA from Transylvania University focusing in ceramics and mixed media. David then began working for the ceramic distributor Kentucky Mudworks, where he honed his skills as a figurative sculptor and potter. Since then David has exhibited nationally, lectured and demoed at major universities, and has begun curating gallery shows and craft markets. David is currently living in Lexington, Kentucky where he keeps a home studio as a full time working artist.

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At what point in your process do you start adding any color in your work?

Leather hard. So I will throw something and later that day or covering it and the next day, with say the image transfer work I’ll lay down either a colored slip or a white slip and put a layer of a different color slip onto the transfer paper that is cut out and measured out to the circumference to the piece. I put that on and use heat guns to create how fast it dries and burnish that on with a rubbery plastic rib, the Mud Tools yellow one. I let that set up and there is a difference between letting it set up naturally and going at it with the heat gun. That does create more flakes sometimes, going at it with the heat gun , which I like. So usually leather hard, but all my mugs are all Terra Sig but that is not until bone dry.

Do you put handles on after you have put on an image transfer?

Yes, so what I will do is for a mug, I will do a cylinder and put the image on and then I will kind of look at the mug and if it is not already plotted out I will try to plot out the handle on a seam. Because I will have the front side of a mug that will be different from the back side of a mug but still be the same concept and color scheme and pattern. I will either try to find that seam or if it’s completely random I will just turn the mug around and hold it with my fingers to justify where a handle will go and it is a matter of taking a serrated rib and scraping back those layers so I can attach the handle to the actual clay body and build up the slip and score process. Because it will pop off of the slip I noticed and it will create big cracks around it because of the drying temperature.

So you have to really emphasize the scoring is what you are saying?

So basically scrape away, if I have put three layers down onto this mug with image transfer, I have to scrape away all three of those layers just to get back to the clay body. And where I have probably scraped away some of that clay body I will even put down a little pinch of the clay and score it and slip it.

How many firings do you take your work through?

Two. I have been doing two with bisque to 06 then I go to cone 5 for the glaze firing. I have been experimenting more. I do lusters every now and then because they are fun and they get a nice reaction from people. But experimenting with the decals, I have been playing with taking them straight through and the second firing works really well on some of my slip surfaces and not on my Terra Sig surfaces and also kind of playing with it on top of glaze. Yeah, I have done decal work where I have just put it on top of the slip and the pattern and underglaze and taken that to cone 5 and gone to it with sandpaper or a sponge and make sure it is actually on. That stayed on! That’s cool. Because a lot of time I have had decals that wash off.

I notice that you put color on the bottoms of your pieces. How do you keep those from sticking to the shelves?

It the Terra Sig. It doesn’t flux. But with the image transfers that’s where you have to be careful. I put a lot of image transfers on the bottom of my face mugs and that creates a fun, little hidden effect. But there’s certain Amaco velvet underglazes that flux. Greens, reds, electric blue, there’s things that will flux. Black is completely fine, I have not had problems with it. I have been working with a teddy bear brown color and that one definitely fluxes and that’s why I love it on the surfaces but I know not to put it on the bottom.

After your bisque firing do you put any more colors on other than glazing the inside?

Yes, I will do a black underglaze wash. That is primarily what I have been doing. With my figurative work I use a red iron oxide wash on it and use combinations of underglaze washes and red iron oxide washes. But primarily on my pottery it is a black underglaze wash, which I love going and getting that depth and it brings out the cracks that happen in the Terra Sig. and it stays within all the crevasses within the transfers.

What do you like to do when you are not doing ceramics?

I like gardening, fishing, and going to loud music. Those are the ways I can unwind. I love the idea of gardening. I love the idea of being outside in the creek fishing and if I can go see one of my favorite bands that’s fantastic.