All Things Great and Small

Introducing…

Gia — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:06:15 +0000

New photog blog: picturesbygia.tumblr.com. Clean, shiny, more about photos, less about words.

- gia

Spider web

Gia — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 01:33:53 +0000

Instructions for Lord Oliver

Gia — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:30:31 +0000

Eastern Shore, Md. – part 2 -

Gia — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:28:45 +0000

Eastern Shore, Md.

Gia — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:26:35 +0000

one summer, one pot, two catastrophes

Gia — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:01:36 +0000

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

Gia — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:48:14 +0000

One summer, one pot, one catastrophe.

Gia — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:01:55 +0000

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

Gia — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:35:53 +0000

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

One summer, one pot, cont.

Gia — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 01:32:32 +0000

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. . .