Too Nice to Be Inside...

...but I have to work! What to do? Why, head out to the summer studio and do some handbuilding!

I love handbuilding; I just happen to love throwing-and-altering more.  Like, I love chocolate sundaes, I just happen to love caramel sundaes more. But sometimes you feel like chocolate, no? Also a factor: it's harder to sell handbuilt work, because the further pots are outside of people expectations (round, shiny, symmetrical, for starters) the more they challenge the viewer's aesthetic. Some people enjoy the intellectual work involved in having their aesthetic challenged, and some - collectors, say, or other potters and artists - have a broader aesthetic to start with. Slab-built pots are "potters' pots" the way that tenmoku and shino are potters' glazes. They are most appreciated by people with an eye that has been honed by much exposure to ceramics of all sort; an educated eye, if that's not too pretentious. Add to that, I have to charge more for my handbuilt things, because they take longer to make, and you see what I mean.

I think I finally have a venue where it will do well: Portland Pottery's new Cafe and Store. There are so SO many potters in the studio, and practically every potter in Maine has to go there at some time or another. Among the work displayed there, mine and many other potters', I had a single slab built cylinder. I noticed that it stood out like it were waving or doing a little dance. It sold almost immediately.

That was a couple of weeks ago. And now comes today, and a perfect way to be outside, yet cool, and also get some work done.

These will be amber celadon inside, with vertical stripes of satin black outside; and of course they russet color of soda glass over flashing slip.