female announcer: On "Studio Space," Conrad Calimpong Ceramics are made with traditional techniques.

Find out more about why he works with a wood-fired kiln to create ceramics that are imbued with a sense of history and connected to the natural world.

Laura Keenados is a local printmaker and teacher.

Her darkly humorous work is drawn from life experience.

Learn how her travels influenced her method.

"Studio Space" explores the thriving art colony in Northern California.

This activity is funded in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Kati Texas: Hi, I'm Kati Texas.

David Ferney: And I'm David Ferney.

Today on "Studio Space," we explore what art can do for the spirit, both for the artist and for the audience.

Kati: I'll be delving into the healing power of art with printmaker Laura Keenados, but first, David discovers the unpredictable nature of wood-fired kilns with artists, Conrad Calimpong.

Conrad Calimpong: It's just a good feeling when I work with clay.

As a kid I, you know, we all played in the mud, and those are some of my fondest memories.

Like, because I grew up in near a bunch of fields, you know?

I lived out in the open, so there were a lot of irrigation ditches.

So, we'd play in the irrigation ditches a lot.

And that was basically clay, the mud.

♪♪♪ David: Conrad, thank you so much for having "Studio Space" here in your studio space.

I've been really excited to talk to you and see your work.

Conrad: Yeah.

Well, thanks for coming.

David: Yeah.

Can you just tell us a little bit about how you got started doing ceramic arts?

Conrad: Well, I was a high school student.

my sophomore year, I wasn't very happy with school.

So, I found out that I could graduate early.

And one of the ways to graduate early was by taking my US history and government classes at the local JC.

So, that summer after my sophomore year, I signed up to take US history, and ended up getting a job in the afternoons cleaning the ceramic studio.

And watching the other people make ceramics and hanging out there and cleaning the studio, I got real involved.

And that, after that summer, I started taking night classes out at the college.

And I've been doing it ever since, that was 1969.

David: And where was that?

Conrad: That was Gavilan College in Gilroy.

David: Now, you have two kilns in there and you're firing your smaller one?

Conrad: Small, yeah.

David: Can you talk a little bit about the difference and the process of the smaller one and the bigger one?

Conrad: The small one that we're firing now is a salt kiln.

So, it doesn't take as much time and as much wood.

It's also wood fired.

The glaze in this kiln is basically salt.

We throw salt into the kiln mixed with water, and it volatilizes.

The sodium adheres to the silica in the clay and forms of glaze.

It's like that's the same way that German beer steins were made.

David: Oh, wow.

Conrad: Yeah, there's no glazing.

It's just you throw the salt in, and that becomes the glaze, whereas the other kiln, we fire longer.

Oh, it takes--we fire for three days, three-and-a-half cords of wood.

And it's around the clock.

And it's the wood that forms the glaze on the exterior of our pieces, and it forms the patina.

So, some people glaze their pieces.

I prefer not to glaze.

I prefer just for the wood ash to have the effect that takes on the clay body.

That unpredictability, you can't really control it because you get too much control and the work seems sterile.

It doesn't seem to have its own kind of character.

And that's what's nice about the wood firing, it kind of makes whatever happens happens.

I mean you a lot of, in a certain way you have a lot of control because you are stacking controls the way the pieces look after they're pulled out and the way the flame moves through the kiln.

That's real important.

That's real key.

So, you have that much control.

But there are a lot of other things that you don't have control over.

You don't have control over the person who's on shift three that's new to wood firing, and they're doing certain things that they shouldn't be doing, but they're gonna do it.

And or someone else who fires a little differently.

They like to fire with more wood each time than I would normally do, or less wood, and that changes things.

So, that that kind of unpredictability is kind of nice in a way.

David: I really appreciate the elemental aspect of the work of the clay and the fire.

You've talked about slowing the process down, slowing everything down and how that puts you in touch with, with the natural world more and your work.

Can you talk a little bit about that, about the slowing down of the process?

Conrad: You know, each time you put a piece of wood in the kiln, you know, that piece of wood ignites, and it slowly burns and you can watch the flame.

You can watch how the flame pattern moves through the kiln.

And it gets you thinking about that process and what's happening in the kiln.

And you wouldn't get that any other way, you know?

You don't get that kind of experience firing a gas kiln-- a little bit, but electrical kiln never.

Yeah, that's just flame, the fire draws me to the process, yeah.

David: So, what is it about clay that you really love, as opposed to like glass or wood?

Conrad: Well, I also do a little woodwork.

And I played with glass a little bit.

My son's a glass artist.

But I liked the tactile-ness of clay.

I love just the feel of it.

When I first started handling it the way it just felt in my hands and the way I was able to push it around and manipulate it, it just felt right.

From this clay here, I'm pulling this form down like this, flattening it on two sides with my hand--my fingers.

And then I'll take a section of it that I think is appropriate amount for a handle, and clip it off with my fingers like that.

And as I was doing that, I was collecting the slip in my hands on the edge of this bowl.

And I'm gonna use that when I go to attach the handle.

So, I've scored here, scored all that, and I took the slip and I placed it here.

So, that'll help me attach this handle to here.

One of the things you have to do when you're making handles, you push in, and you gotta wiggle it back and forth, and press around the edges to make sure that it's gonna adhere correctly.

If you don't press it in firm enough, the thing is gonna crack.

And I'll take my thumb down at the bottom to make a nice clean edge on the bottom.

And then I've got a little bit of a space where it's a little thin, which is not a problem.

You just push the clay back in there, thicken it up again.

Sometimes you can get away with not having to do that and so that I get kind of a little, so it looks like that.

Get a taper to it widthwise so it tapers this way from thick to thin.

If I'd done it right, it should just fall over in a nice natural curve like so.

Then I gotta press it down into the clay into the cup itself with my thumb here.

Take the knife, make a cut, and then press the sides.

Make sure the curve is what I want.

And then I'll go back with my sponge and any sharp edges you want to smooth over because those don't feel really good when you pick up a coffee cup and you have a sharp edge and it cuts into your finger.

So, you want to smooth those over.

And so, this is what you get.

So, I'm just gonna glaze this and show you the process of what I do when I glazed my pieces.

First doing the inside, then I'll dip.

I kind of wait for the glaze to kind of roll into one area.

And the last drip, I'll turn the bowl like that so the drip drips on the inside of the bowl.

And then I'll place it here and it dries pretty quickly.

And then once it dries, I'll wipe the bottom and I can show you how I decorate.

It's dry already since it's a warm day.

I'll go around once on the foot rim with a wet sponge.

So, I'll just kind of get this close to being centered.

The pots not completely centered, but I kind of like a little wobble in my pieces.

And I'll usually put some lines in here, one on the inside and one on the out.

So, this is the last, this color here is a black.

And this is iron oxide which turns kind of red in the firing, a brown red.

Oh.

Okay, it's a pretty straightforward and simple process.

David: In 1985, you started working on a body of work that you called in classical shape.

Conrad: Oh, yeah.

David: Which was after, you know, a certain shape or style of a pot.

It's really interesting to look at the history of some of that work.

Can you talk about that idea of that work?

Conrad: Yeah, I, when I was first starting ceramics, I got--fell in love with the meiping shape, prunus vase shape, which is basically a narrow, tall vase that has a bulbous shoulder and a very small neck and lip.

And I just started just throwing that shape over and over and over again.

And then I found out later on--I mean, I used to throw, you know, pots like that of 125 pounds of clay.

And I found out that they were made in sections, you know, that they were coil thrown.

After I'd done all that, but that was, but I just, I love the shape.

So, I kept doing it.

And then one year, a friend, person, had a piece that blew up.

And I was doing sculpture at the time too.

And I took those fragments, and I made a steel wire cage in the shape of a prunus vase.

And I put all the shards in it.

David: Yeah.

I think I saw.

Conrad: Yeah, and put it on a brick base.

And from there, I just started making that shape sculpturally.

And I've done it on wood, several types of different woods.

I've done it in found material.

David: Right, like twigs and-- Conrad: Twigs and cans.

David: I love that idea.

Conrad: And foam insulation that was discarded at a rental and just, and paint, old paint.

David: There's kind of an interesting bridge between the old and the ancient and the present and the contemporary in your work.

Do you find that also as well?

Conrad: Yeah, that's one of the things I really love about the wood-firing process because it is the most basic form of ceramics.

This is where our ceramic history came from, fire and wood, and clay.

And I love being attached to that.

I don't want to let that go because I think it's really important tonight.

I feel a lot of times when I'm firing the kiln, I feel like I'm touching back to the ancient ways, you know?

And I love that part of it.

David: Very elemental.

Conrad: Very elemental.

It's just basic, you know?

You can't get it any other way.

You can't get that feel and the process.

I mean, I think about old Chinese pots and old Japanese pots and old Neolithic pots, I just like I'm in touch with him.

I'm not in touch with them, but, you know, I feel that connection.

David: Great.

Well, thank you so much for having us here.

Really appreciate it.

Conrad: Well, thanks for coming in.

And I appreciate the interest that you're taking to spend the time here.

David: Yeah, for sure.

Our pleasure.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Kati: Hi, welcome to "Studio Space."

I'm Kati Texas, and we're here today with Laura Keenados, a printmaker.

Check it out.

♪♪♪ Kati: I noticed a theme in subject matter.

What's with the cats?

Laura Keenados: Oh.

Kati: Thank you so much for inviting us, Laura.

Laura Keenados: You're welcome.

Thanks for coming.

Kati: Can you tell us a little bit about where we are?

Laura: Yeah, we are in Alleyway Arts, which is one of the community art spaces for the Ink People Center for the Arts.

Kati: Okay.

Lots of stuff going on here, including your printmaking.

Laura: Yeah, yeah.

A bunch of people share this space, and I'm lucky to be one of those artists.

Kati: Thinking of you as an artist, can you tell us what is your art form-- what do you do?

Laura: I'm considered a multimedia artist.

I do a lot of printmaking and mixed media works, as well as drawing in ink and different various dry mediums.

Kati: What is it about printmaking that you like?

Laura: I enjoy the amount of detail that I can get out of it, and how versatile, and how adaptable it is, and how you can use skills across the board, as far as printmaking goes, and really explore what that can look like.

There's a lot of layers.

There's a lot of graphic design stuff that falls into, into making your proofs and your images and how the different layers interact with each other.

It's really fun.

The ink stays on the surface, and sometimes it looks like it goes down underneath a little bit.

And that's okay.

Kati: What's this?

This tool is-- Laura: This is a brayer and this spreads the ink.

So, then you take paper.

Kati: I've see you've lined it up with the bottom of the board, so you get your paper where you want it.

Laura: Yeah.

And then this is a tool called a baren.

And yeah, it's got a little nubbies on it.

And those nubbies kind of catch what's happening.

And you learn over time, how heavy you have to be.

And this is our first run, so the ink might be interesting.

We'll see how it comes out.

Oh, that one turned out real good.

It works.

Kati: It's very exciting.

Laura: Yeah.

Kati: I mean meh.

Laura: Meh.

That's why it's my favorite Valentine's Day card.

Okay, so there's that one.

Oh, there's that, there's that bacony sound.

Kati: I don't know if I'm hearing it, but I can definitely see how the ink starts to get a sort of like texture, a tackiness.

Laura: Yeah, that tackiness is exactly what you want because that is what's gonna help it adhere better to the paper.

And there's, you know, depending on what kind of ink, and how many prints, and what all you're doing with your end piece, just because you can, you can really multimedia up with printmaking, and do so many different things at once.

This really makes it tacky, and lets it sit on the surface and then that way, the baren can do its job.

And the baren is what presses the ink into the paper.

And when you, when you have folks using large printing presses and letter presses, you'll see an actual imprint from the actual block itself.

Kati: Oh, like an impression where the block presses into the paper.

Yeah.

Laura: That one looks really cool.

This is on a different piece of paper, so you'll notice this is a thicker, this is a thicker stock with a little bit more tooth on the surface.

Kati: There's a little different quality to the way the ink laid down based on the texture of the paper.

Laura: This is a lighter weight, smoother surface.

Yeah.

Kati: That's really cool.

It's always like this puzzle because you draw it, and then you flip it, and then you carve it.

And then that is gonna end up backwards from what it's gonna be, and then do that with three or four colors.

Laura: Exactly, yeah.

Kati: That sounds like a fun logic puzzle.

Do you like puzzles?

Laura: Yes, asterisk.

As long as they're not math, math related puzzles.

Kati: As long as their art puzzles.

Laura: Yeah, yeah.

Kati: How long have you been doing printmaking?

Laura: Oh, man, I've been doing printmaking for probably about almost ten years now.

A main reason why I got into it is, honestly, because I have a hard time sometimes getting rid of my artwork.

And by doing printmaking, you can make a hundred of the same, same, same thing.

And by, you know, I realize that that's kind of an awkward statement.

But as far as printmaking goes, every single print is considered its own piece of artwork.

However, you are using the same equipment, the same ink, to make multiples, but they each have their own personality.

Kati: And usually in a printmaking run like that, in an art print run, they'd be numbered and signed.

So you know.

And, of course, the blocks, right, they have a life.

Laura: Yes.

Kati: You can't just print infinitely on a hand-carved block.

So, no matter what, it's gonna be a limited run.

Laura: Yeah, yeah, there's a terminus to it at some point, but you're not stuck with just one.

And then what happens if someone buys that one?

Kati: I see.

When you said you had trouble getting rid of your art, I thought you meant people didn't want it.

And I'm thinking, that can't be true.

But you mean you have difficulty letting it go, so you're happy to have multiple copies?

Laura: Yeah.

Kati: I gotcha.

Kati: You say you took a gap year between community college and your university.

What did you do during that time?

Laura: I did a lot of traveling, I went to Asia, and was really interested in the different forms of peasant artwork.

And something that was really prolific in China is, obviously, the communist takeover.

And so, something that happened when Mao took over is he sent all of the artists out to the fields to become peasants.

Kati: Because there was a cultural purge.

Laura: Yeah, there was a cultural purge, all of the art was destroyed.

Professor Ding was an artist, and he is known as the creator of the peasant art movement post Mao.

Kati: Beyond the composition and the colors, did you pick up any styles there that you really like or any forms?

Laura: Yeah, there's a lot of drawing style and graphic style that I really picked up and enjoy using.

And a lot of that is in like floral designs and borders and how backgrounds are drawn up and created.

I also really like, I'm a huge fan of mandalas.

I think they're amazing.

When I was in Nepal, you can see the different mandalas that are created with different colored sandalwood powder.

And they're created just by dropping, sometimes, like kibble by kibble of these colored, really brightly colored sandalwood powder.

And they're the most beautiful mandalas.

And you can't even imagine how long it must have taken to create one.

Kati: I see you're talking about the mandalas here.

Laura: Yeah.

Kati: Some meditation.

Was this something in particular?

Laura: That one is actually probably one of the most difficult mandalas I've ever drawn.

I drew that the day after my niece committed suicide.

Kati: Oh.

Laura: And so, that is definitely, definitely what we would call processing or, you know, just grief relief.

And it's a really, it's really helpful and really useful.

Kati: What are you, what are you thinking when you're, when you're doing something like this, when you're working on it?

Laura: Sometimes I honestly just try to clear my mind and just draw, like pure, pure meditation, try to--if my brain starts moving too fast, I'll, you know, bring it back to the breathing and really focus on my breathing while I'm drawing, and just let the ink maybe just pull the emotions out and put them on paper.

Kati: Of course, we worked together on North Star Quest Camp For Girls, which is a middle school girls camp.

And you started there doing the arts and crafts.

But tell me about doing arts for the kids, for middle schoolers.

Laura: Well, their minds are so ready and so open and so capable of so much, that being able to give them any way to be able to express themself, I think is incredibly important.

And just seeing what they can do with a small amount of information like an instruction on how to do something.

Like how to make your own zine, you teach, you teach a child how to make a zine out of one page.

And now they have the ability to put media out into the community and talk about what's important to them, and teach what's important to them.

Teach, you know, they can teach others what they want folks to know about.

One of the workshops that I put on is something that we called Thrifty Crafty, where we take old clothes and we tear them up, and I teach them some punk rock sewing skills that allows them to like make a small stuffy.

And that directly comes right from my childhood.

When my mom was working in schools a lot, she was at home less.

She taught me this really bizarre way of making paper stuffed animals where essentially you're using like lined paper and cellophane tape and like crumpled-up paper.

We would make paper stuffies, and that's kind of where that whole, Thrifty Crafty, making your own little punk rock stuffies came from.

It's like, well, how else can we think about materials use and maybe make smart decisions, considering how much waste there is in the art industry already?

Like, we should really kind of think about material use, as well as intent and, you know, what you're trying to sell, speak, or share.

And I think that those really important things for kids to have, have it modeled to them, have it shown to them, and see it in practice.

Kati: Especially kids that might not be coming from wealthy families, or even families who can afford little luxuries like a stuffed animal.

Just the idea that you can make that yourself.

You can do that.

You can imagine it, and you can create it for you.

Thank you, Laura, so much for talking with us, for inviting us to your studio.

It's been a lot of fun.

Laura: Yeah, you're super welcome.

I really enjoyed this.

Thank you.

Kati: And thank you for joining us on "Studio Space."

Kati: We hope you enjoyed today's episode.

David: To visit with more Humboldt County artists, go to studiospace.tv.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: This activity is funded in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪♪ ...