Images on Clay

While working in clay while living in Los Angeles, I was introduced to this technique of applying images to clay.  There's enough iron in the toner that once it has been bisque fired, it leaves an image!  (The following video, found on YouTube, is the one that convinced me to find one of these machines.)

When I moved to San Francisco, I sold my copier because I didn't have space to store it.  Now that I'm in a place where I have a studio (even if it's mainly fiber art) and I am able to do work in a ceramics class, the desire to get another of these *very hard to find* machines has become overwhelming.  Below, you'll see one of my platters from a few years ago where I used this technique... featuring vintage knitting images.  I simply HAD to find another copier!

I searched high and low...  and finally located one about 1.5 hours outside of San Francisco.  After some negotiating (and the aid of a good friend!) I headed out to pick up my new toy.  The drive was beautiful and I took a few photos out the car window while we traveled to lovely Lodi, CA to make the purchase.

On Monday morning, I made my image copies and then considered how to get them from my studio to the classroom where I was going to use them.  After some pondering I discovered if I fold the paper in half, then fold the blank side of the paper up (maybe 1/2") to create some space, I can tape the edges together and create a pie-shaped holder that will keep the images from smudging.  I put these in a little paper bag and carried them gently on the 1 hour ride on public transit to the ceramics studio.

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...and so far, it worked!  I made two pedestal bowls that day.  The second one received the first transfer from my new machine... it's an assemblage of vintage images from the graphics fairy... and as always, I'm stamping text into my pieces.  This piece features one from Daisy Whitney:  

“We are what we love. We are the things, the people, the ideas we spend our day with. They center us, they drive us, they define us to our very core.Without them, we are empty.”

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