New Take on a Classic

Everyone knows what a gravy boat looks like, right? There's a classic shape that we see reincarnated in different materials. I've made this shape out of clay in several ways - an ovaled bowl with a turned-in rim, a bottom-added ewer shape with the rim cut in a swoop - but I've never really loved my results. They always seem...contrived, I guess.

Luckily, the classic is not the only form that will serve to transport gravy to your potatoes. I kept the oval shape - so helpful in channeling the liquid - and obviously the spout and handle are indispensable. Maybe it will become the new classic!

Open all the way down to the bat, then pull up and in.

Collar in until the form is closed; pinch off the top.

Rib off slurry, and slightly flatten dome.

Press into an oval shape. IRl this is a 2-handed operation!

Have patience! this works much better if the piece is leatherhard.

Using food coloring, plan out the shape of the opening.

Cut the opening. The wall will be a bit thicker where the piece was collared in.

Trim away the excess thickness.

Smooth and shape the edge

Throw a small disc, about 3 inches in diameter

Cut a gibbous moon shape away. You will be using the larger piece.

 Attach to piece

You will also want to attach a bottom (Thanks, Captain Obvious!) and a handle. I tried a few handle shapes; I am liking the high loop best, I think. That may change after I have had a chance to test drive these. An alternative way to make the spout: throw a small bowl and cut a broad scoop out of the wall. You can get three spout out of a 1-lb flat bottom bowl.

So Many Plates

Many years ago, someone asked me why so many potters hate to make plates. I couldn't answer for all potters; it wasn't even easy to answer for myself, though at the time I did, in fact, hate to make plates. It wasn't the skill involved - it's hardly more difficult to make a plate than a bowl. They do have a pretty high breakage & loss rate, but it wasn't that either. Plates occupy a funny place in the world of functional ware. They are ubiquitous on western tables, but almost always in sets. Even the most casual of households tends to put matching plates on the table at mealtime. People think of mugs as individual. A mug with a cute saying or a picture of somewhere you've been, or indeed, a handmade mug can help define your identity to the world somewhat like your clothes or your car or even your sofa do. Nobody seems to have their special plate that speaks to who they are. Nobody buys one plate.

It never was plates that I hated; I hate making sets of plates. People's eyes are so accustomed to the exact match of machine-made plates that the tiniest differences read as flaws. Once I accepted that I prefer making plates that are cousins rather than twins - a lesson driven home by the Great Plate Debacle of 2012 - I discovered that I actually love making plates.

I don't think I blogged about the Great Plate Debacle at the time, I was so discouraged and annoyed. A couple from Colorado bought four plates of mine in a local store. They later called the proprietor to ask if they could order more. Despite my policy to never, never, never, never take custom orders, I took this one because the store owner is a good friend of mine, and, like all of them, it ended poorly. (Even the ones that end well end poorly, as I always put far more time into a custom order than I could ever hope to be paid for.) I made the plates, but the customer said the oribe was a little brighter on some than others, and there was an eighth-inch difference between the biggest and the smallest...ugh. Not clear on the "handmade variation" concept! Worst of all, now they didn't want ANY of the plates...even the ones they had purchased, in the store, six months previously, before they even placed the order. There's more to this stupid story, but even typing it is giving me a stabby feeling, so I'd better stop and go watch some cute-kitten videos.

Whew! I'm back. Anyway, here in the present, I love making plates. They are a wide canvas of space that cries out to be stamped, slip-trailed, and glaze-embedded. Even better, I need five plates for a group show in the fall, and they have to be fabulous. I'll probably make between 30 and 60 plates to get the Fabulous Five.

Above are some in progress towards this goal. I had hoped to trim and decorate today but the humidity is not cooperating! Maybe today is housecleaning and lawn-mowing, and tomorrow, back to the plates. 

The Flip Side

I got a few pieces out of this last firing that exhibit a marked directionality, one of my favorite soda effects. They have distinct "windward" and "lee" sides, indicating which side faced the burner channel.

The flame, carrying soda vapor, passes over the piece from one direction to the other; specifically, from the walls toward the center. It also passes from the center top toward the bottom, and from back to front and then front to back, but those effects are less marked; buy the time all that happens much of the soda glass has been deposited on the pieces it struck first. Here's another:

This one also got a nice kiln kiss, smooth and glassy with no crusty spots, on the lee side.

In each case you can see the design work I did, and in each case that is somewhat obscured just by glaze fluidity on the lee sides. But on the windward sides, woooo! It's a molten blur.

This is why I do what I do: to have the flame come along and undo it. Is that weird?

Icy Water

No throwing today; no bathing, either, or dish-washing. We ran out of oil yesterday - Saturday afternoon, and not just any Saturday: the one just before Easter. I guess I should count my blessings that it wasn't Christmas Eve, and anyway it's no one's fault but my own: I was trying to squeak through March without an oil delivery. Well, I succeeded; but not the way I had hoped.

Fortunately it's not very cold, and I have an electric space heater for the studio, so, onward! (Funnily enough, the electricity went out for about an hour, as well: Frontier Days here on Cony Street! I try to keep a sunny outlook but I admit I started to get a little exasperated. I read by a window until the power returned.)

I did trim some more teabowls for the first test firing of my new line, which, as regular readers know, (O hai regular readers! Mwah!) will be ^6 reduction soda: same palette, same forms (or many of the same), same utility; just less propane. My hands aren't in water too much while trimming, anyway. But trimming is done now, and it seems like a good chance to try something I've had in mind for a while: sketching out some shapes and glaze schemes, with watercolor pencil.

By nature I am a mud potter: throwing, shaping, stamping, slip decorating, all the things that happen while the clay is wet are easily appealing to me. Like a lot of ceramic artists, for years I thought of glazing and firing as just something I had to do to finish the things l loved to make. I tried to choose (or create) glazes that would enhance my shapes and textures, but could be applied with simple dipping or pouring. That has been changing in the last few years, and I feel like my work has taken great strides forward - come to a new level, if I may say so - since I have been treating glazing as just as active and creative a process as wetwork. I want to see if planning out some glaze designs in advance will further develop that aspect of the work.

Watercolor pencils seem like a natural because of the analogy to soda: carefully applying the color, and then along comes this fluid force to melt and soften the marks.  It's fun! And it's a better use of icy water than throwing.



BTW, the watercolor sketches - these, and some others - are available as part of the $100 reward level for my Kickstarter campaign. Even the $10 will get you a card based on one of the sketches! I am leaning towards using the teapot for the thank-you card, but we'll see what else comes out of the brush.
EDIT: Now available for a $29 pledge: the full glaze notebook in PDF form! Also, for Canadian potters who would like a hard copy, you can get one for a $41 pledge, to cover the additional shipping.

Goodwill Find

When I am throwing enough pottery to fill the kiln on the schedule I need to keep, I sometimes find myself nursing a repetitive stress injury. It's a quandary, because - obviously - I have to stop throwing long enough for my wrist to heal. Answer? Why, handbuilding, of course!

Using an existing piece, glass or metal, as a mold has never been my favorite way to work. It seems too...what?...derivative, I suppose. So often all of the details are just impressions of a surface some other designer created. Why should somebody else have all the fun? When I found this silverplate oval platter with no texture or detail at Augusta's new Goodwill store, I saw a solution to both my problems. Because it is a featureless piece, I can go to town on it.

I made a texture roller using a fat piece of dowel from Home Depot, and a hot glue gun. Advice: if you are purchasing a hot glue gun for this project, get the more expensive one. I got the little $2.99 special, and found that it squirted out so little glue at a time that keeping a steady line was impossible.
Still, I managed a spiral design. I stretched out a slab, about 1/4 inch thick - I hate a flimsy feel to my pottery. Then I rolled the decorative roller over it, in several directions, so the rough quality of the drawing became a non-issue.

 

Then I slathered the mold with Murphy's Oil Soap, as a release agent. Clay will stick to anything nonporous, so don't skip this step. I placed the slab texture side up inside the mold. This particular shape would also work as a hump mold - turning it upside down and laying the slab over the exterior. (That's the next one!)I used to fettling knife to cut a more interesting rim.

Then I picked up the mold, slab and all, and dropped it from a few inches above the tabletop, 3 or 4 times.After that, I used my thumbnail to dig a ridge all around the edge, for a double-rime appearance, and attached textured handles.

Last, I trailed slip in a design loosely mimicking the pattern left by the roller. Voilà! A molded platter that retains sometihing of my aesthetic.

The Need to Make

So, here I was, excited to have the house to myself: Doug is away today and I was planning to get So. Much. Done. in the studio. Yeah, well.

I left my clay and most of my tools in the car. Grrr. I have a little clay - about 25 pounds - so I will make what little I can with that, and focus on things like butter dishes that are more labor- than material-intensive.

And, we get a bonus inspiration post this week, because what I am really dying to make is soup tureens.I've been looking a lot at antique silver and silver plate tureens, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries. While clearly functional, they are also almost ceremonial in attitude: special occasion vessels. I want to make something with this feeling: a piece that proclaims the occasion. A potential heirloom, if I may be so grand.

I want to make tureens so badly I could almost make them out of my very will. It's a terrible tickle, like needing to sneeze, with my brain. I just have to preserve this deep inspiration until Doug gets home, with the car and my clay, and I can hole up in hte studio for the rest of the night.

Thursday Inspiration!

It's not just for Thursdays anymore!












Lucy Breslin is a Maine potter whose work makes me dream of starting a movement called Slow Pots; you know, the equivalent of the Slow Food Movement. Labor intensive and painstaking methods can be well worth the effort, and success is not measured by the number of pots on the board at the end of the day.

Uh-oh, I think I feel a class theme coming on...

Pesky Muse

I have an order due July 1st; today is the last day I can throw for the bisque that will contain that order. I should be making items that I can create in volume, in order to fill the kiln: bowls, mugs, tumblers. But did I? Nooooo. No, today nothing would do but I make fussy, detailed dessert pieces: banana boats, parfait cups, mudslide plates, cake stands. What's with the dessert focus lately? Maybe because I am nominally dieting.

Anyway, I got this idea that I ought to work up a themed show: Sweet Life. I can think of three galleries who might bite (heh). Maybe partner with a painter who uses food imagery. So, I take it back. The muse isn't so bad. Her timing sucks, but what would we do without her?

Four Sundae Cups

...on Sunday.

Functional vs Utilitarian

Banana Split boat, as promised. Sorry for the crap photo, but you get the idea. I threw a flat-bottomed bowl about 7 inches in diameter, then, at leatherhard, cut an inch-wide strop put of the middle, and reassembled the halves.

This project got me thinking about the difference between function and utility. Now, this boat is perfectly functional; it won't leak, for example, and it's not made of lead or pesticide or something. But you wouldn't call it utilitarian. Those little peaks - so like a circus tent! - are just dying to break off in the sink.

Although function is an important aspect for me, in some cases if feels right to add details which make a piece less functional. In this case, because it's a sundae boat, it contributes to the sense of specialness, of frivolity, for the bowl to require a bit more attention. Some shapes, too, have cultural associations: inverted scallop shapes are associated with festivity. So are dots, which I will try to incorporate during the glazing.
Thinking too much? Maybe. But now I am thinking about another sundae. I'm gonna wait until this dish is finished, so I can take it for a test drive.

Topsy Cake Stand, Take 2

Back in the ring to take another swing! Plan B: instead of cutting the pedestal into three diagonal sections and reversing them. I am just going to cut a smile-shaped dart out near the bottom, and the replace it near the top. Like so:



Will post more photos when the stands are assembled.

Topsy Wishes

When Doug & I got married in 2006, I sort of got my heart set on a topsy cake for our wedding. He didn't care much -- his wish was that our ceremony include a dip in the river, in our wedding finery, which he got. Also, he's not much of a one for sweets, although a bite of the wedding cake was all he did have to eat that day, as I recall. Anyway, the topsy cake turned out to be crazy expensive, considering our shoestring budget, and my practical side won out. Our cake was chocolate, and lovely, and quite delicious -- but I never forgot the wedding cake of my dreams.

Today I am on the studio making, among other things, cake stands. Topsy cake stands to be exact. 

So, let's see how that topsy thing is workin' out...Not that good, tell the truth! My first effort looks more like one of those novelty mugs reading "I got smashed on Bourbon Street!" or where ever. Not what I had in mind.

In my enthusiasm, I started too wet, and lost the freshness: an occupational hazard of altered work. Of all people I ought to know that clay is all about timing! Not that this one is a lost cause, I'll still tinker around with it, add the plate part, see what happens. but it's time to step back, do something else (I'm thinking, get a whoopie pie. I saw some double-chocolate ones at the grocery yesterday, and all this talk of cake...), and come back to the second one once it has firmed up a bit. 

So, this sort of turned into a live-blog. Live-blogging the cake stands! I like it. Back later with some better results.