Pulling Handles

A small platoon of mugs with their handle blanks attached, waiting to be pulled. I like to attach first, then go back and pull them (maybe with a blog post in between!), because even the few minutes it takes to finish the board of pots and go back to the first one allows for a stronger attachment and fewer handles pulling free while I am making them.
One take-away from the 100 Mugs project: some of my favorite pieces were the simpler, less busy mugs. To that end I tried to minimize the stamped decoration on these, to leave room for the sig and soda to work their magic without distraction. Not that I am giving up stamping any time soon; I am just too enamoured of the tension between the mechanical qualities the wheel imparts and the soft squishiness of clay, as recorded and made evident by stamping. This group of mugs was preceded by another bunch that sport what I call "outies:" the stamps are concave, so I have to push outward on the wall of the pot to make the clay bulge out to take the impression.