Making Garden Ollas

I have recently been working on making garden ollas. Ollas (pronounced "oi yeahs") are used as an ancient irrigation system that delivers water directly to a plants roots. The shapes that you see in the above picture are made out of terra cotta clay and they are only bisque fired. Since these pots are not glazed they are still quite porous. This allows water to slowly seep out of them. The idea is that you bury these pots up to their neck in your garden then you plant your favorite garden plants around them. Keeping your ollas filled with water ensures that on those hot days during the summer, your plants will have a nice steady water supply. The roots of your plants will eventually wrap around the ollas so that the water seeping from them is delivered directly to the roots.


The lids on these pots are to keep bugs and dirt out. Ollas are not meant for; bushes, shrubs, trees or any "wooded" plants. The best time to plant them is in the spring when you are planting everything else. Summer is almost over, so this is probably the worst time for me to be making ollas because it will be raining like crazy soon and they will not be needed. But, by next spring I will have a bunch of these fine pots and they will be ready to go in the ground. It may be a bad time to be making them, but that is okay with me because I find that I really like throwing these shapes on the wheel. It's fun! In the picture above I am working away in my studio making ollas while using my truck as an extra work bench (since my studio is kinda small).

My sister (who gave me the idea to start making ollas) sent me the following youtube clip about how to garden with ollas:

OPA Ceramics Showcase

Come and see the show!


I will be entering "Brutis" the zombie pig with hopes of winning the blue ribbon for "best of show" in this years Oregon potters Association Ceramics Showcase. The "OPA Showcase" is The nations largest show and sale of pottery, sculpture, garden art, home accessories and other works in clay exhibited in 150+ booths.

As well as exibitimg my scariest zombie pig I will be teaching anyone interested how to work on the potters wheel at the "adult clay area" on 4/30/10 from 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM. Then on 5/1/10 From 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM I will be working with children in the "children's clay area" where we will be sculpting all kinds of fun things out of clay.

This years Showcase is at the Oregon Convention Center. Admission is free. It Opens 10-9 Friday & Saturday and 10-5 on Sunday. Hope to see you there.

Firing in the Rain

Well, normally it is just fine firing my kiln in the rain because here in Oregon it rains a lot but it never rains very hard. So normally when the rain drops hit my hot kiln they evaporate right away. Not today. Today it is POURING! But that's okay because I rigged up an umbrella for my kiln. I also decided to write a song about it. Wanna hear?

Another Fund Raiser for Emme

Emme Ek, a 4th Grader at Forest Hills Elementary, was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma, a cancerous brain tumor.

Emme has been at Doernbecher Hospital for the last month enduring many surgeries to remove the high-risk tumor.
Eventually, she will have chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Emme's mom, Nicole, has left her job at West Linn Hairport, to care for Emme at the hospital and is uncertain when she will be able to return to work. Emme's big brother, Austin, a sophomore at Lake Oswego High School, also has been at his sister's side.

It's times like these when our community must come together to help a family that needs and is grateful for our support.

This is the second fun raiser for Emme. This is a good chance to help out a family that really needs it. Some of the pottery that my wife and I have donated was not auctioned off at the last fundraiser (see pics at this link), instead It will be auctioned off at a fund raiser taking place tomorrow night. Hope to see you there.

Where and where?

At The Hawthorn Theater 503-223-7100

1507 Se 39th Ave Portland, OR 97214

Thursday December 3rd starting at 6:00pm

There will be 5 live bands playing at this fundraiser. $10 at the door. So buy some cool homegrown Oregon art, listen to some music, have a drink, and donate to a good cause!


If you can't make it to the fundraiser and you still wanna help you can check out www.gooddeeds.org to find out where to send donations.

Have a Frightful Thanksgiving...

...And a Happy Halloween.

That's right it's nearing thanksgiving and we're still working on jack-o-lanterns. This unglazed jack-o-lantern is the one that I made in "the CodyO Show Halloween special #1". My wife Leah carved it into a scary jack-o-lantern. Who would have thought that such a kind hearted sweet woman like Leah would be able to imagine such scary faces to carve into all these pumpkins that I make? All the pumpkins in the picture below were made by me and carved into scary monsters by My wife Leah.

Stay tuned, I will be firing the newest jack-o-lantern in an up coming episode of "The CodyO Show". Maybe I will still be doing Halloween stuff for Christmas.

More pumpkin posts

If you haven't seen: I have also done a video on making jack-o-lanterns, I have done a general update after the video, I have answered emails about making pumpkins, I have received a picture of a jack-o-lantern that someone made after watching The CodyO Show. I have shown you a pumpkin that my wife and I made in 2008, I have thrown a 25 pound pumpkin on a potters wheel wearing a zombie mask, and I have raku fired a jack-o-lantern wearing a zombie mask.

Fundraiser for Emme

Emme Ek, a 4th Grader at Forest Hills Elementary, was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma, a cancerous brain tumor.

Emme has been at Doernbecher Hospital for the last month enduring many surgeries to remove the high-risk tumor.
Eventually, she will have chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Emme's mom, Nicole, has left her job at West Linn Hairport, to care for Emme at the hospital and is uncertain when she will be able to return to work. Emme's big brother, Austin, a sophomore at Lake Oswego High School, also has been at his sister's side.

It's times like these when our community must come together to help a family that needs and is grateful for our support.

Patrick Noe has helped organize a fundraiser to help out with a little monetary support for Emme and her family. He has gotten bunch of us together who are members of the Oregon Potters Association to donate some of our work to be auctioned or raffled off with all the money going to Emme's family's to help pay for their expenses.



My wife Leah and I have donated the pottery shown in the picture above. Going from left to right we have; My salt fired vase, Leah's horse hair pot, my Raku fired jar with chalkboard, and my pit fired vase. There will also be lots of great pottery from the other talented members of the Oregon Potters Association. Did I mention that there will also be LIVE BLUES MUSIC. So buy some cool homegrown Oregon art, listen to some music, have a drink, and donate to a good cause!

When and Where?

At the Trail's End Saloon on Sunday (11/15)

1320 Main Street

Oregon City, OR 97045

503-656-3031

A benefit honoring "Emme." This courageous little 10 year old
girl is being treated for a brain tumor. The benefit will begin
at 1:00pm with a 7 band line-up followed by an ALL STAR JAM at
night. Raffle with prizes all day! The cover is $5 at the door.

If you can't make it to the fundraiser and you still wanna help you can check out www.gooddeeds.org to find out where to send donations.

The Pumpkin of Halloween's Past

Digging through the Halloween box I found this Jack-o-lantern that my wife and I made in Halloween of 2008. Once again, I just made the pumpkin. It was my wife, with the wild imagination, who turned it into this really creepy looking jack-o-lantern. Pretty scary eh? and those lips look really chapped.


From a top view it looks like this jack-o-lantern has blond hair with surfer bangs. This is because with the raku process; the lid of this jack-o-lantern was taken from the kiln and put into a trash can full of newspaper where it would smolder and create different colors according to which side of the piece smoldered more. This was also done with the rest of the jack-o-lantern, however the lid was put into the trash can full of newspaper first. This meant that it was much hotter when it started smoldering than the rest of the jack-o-lantern.


I have found that when I raku hotter I get more gold, red, yellow and orange colors and when I raku colder I get more blue, purple, and maroon. This piece ended up getting a nice contrast between all those colors.

More pumpkin links:

If you haven't seen it; I have also done a video on making jack-o-lanterns, I have done a general update after the video, I have answered emails about making pumpkins, and I have received a picture of a pumpkin that someone made after watching The CodyO Show.

Swril Pitchers Are Fun To Make

Just finishing up the handles on some of my new swirl pitchers. You can see some pictures of some of my older swirl pitchers here. And, if you hurry I might still have some available for purchase here . Also, stay tuned for an up coming CodyO Show where I will show you how to make your own Swirl pitchers.

Jack-o-lanters (continued)

Hopefully you saw episode #1 of the CodyO Show. This Blog post is a follow up for that episode. I have now turned over the pumpkin to Mrs. Olsen. This is the fun part for me because I get to just sit back, watch, and see what kind of crazy character of a jack-o-lantern Leah is going to come up with this year.



In this picture Leah is smoothing out any sharp corners in the verticle lines that I put in the pumpkin. It is easier to do that at this point because the clay is at a moister content known to potters at "leather hard".


You can almost hear the gears turning in Leah's head as she formulates a plan for this pumpkin's new personality. What will she come up with?

One thing that is nice about a clay pumpkin as apposed to a real one is that with a clay one you can add clay to create features. In this picture it almost looks like Leah is adding a beak to this jack-o-lantern.

Wow what a crazy looking creature! My wife has split the pumpkin's stem, which I think really adds to the whole bird look of the thing. A scary Halloween bird. I don't know. Maybe you see something else. Still, you gotta wonder where she gets this stuff. How does she come up with these crazy characters.