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Instructions for Lord Oliver

Eastern Shore, Md. – part 2 -

Eastern Shore, Md.

one summer, one pot, two catastrophes

Sometimes in pottery tragic things happen beyond your control.

I finished my pot two weeks ago and left it to be bisque fired.  It came out of the bisque firing late last week broken.  I have a couple guesses about what may have happened to it (a kiln shelf broke, a nearby pot may have exploded, etc.), but in the end it doesn’t matter.  I went ahead and glazed it for the final firing, so that I can see how the techniques I tried would have come out, and it should be coming out in a couple days!

Here’s the pot post-bisque firing:

Summery produce

One summer, one pot, one catastrophe.

Two weeks ago, this was me.  I was barefoot and sitting on a table to coil my pot upwards because I could no longer reach it standing on the ground.  It had 40 lbs of clay coiled into it.

Then I got out a paddle to form its shape better, and it collapsed.  Here’s the carnage:

But not all was lost.  The bottom half of the pot stood strong, and I have been able to redeem the pot somewhat:

I actually think I like this smaller size because it’s more manageable, and now I can focus on its surface design instead of its shape.

<3

Found: An anatomically-correct heart-shaped green bell pepper.

One summer, one pot, cont.

This summer in my pottery class I am making one pot.  Only one.  I am loving this slow process, because each week it allows me to take a step back and evaluate what I think of how it is going and what direction I want to take it.  For example, as I was building the walls up this evening, I realized that my original Art Nouveau idea for the decoration will not match the style of the pot, so while I may take elements of that original design and incorporate them into the pot, I am not going to go all out Nouveau.  The style of the pot would be perfect for no glaze, a slip design, and a wood kiln, but alas, we have no wood kiln.  Hmm, now what do I do?

Here’s a couple of photos for how it stands now.  It still has at least a foot to go before completion. . .