Closing Arguments

Sorry for the gap between posts. Our first class (semester) has ended and now we are waiting for the 2nd session to begin. Here is a cool cup to keep you amused. I really like the glaze job; the inside of the cup is a dark brown and the outside is much lighter. We are getting better at throwing larger items. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but there are 2 large bowls in the kiln that should be blog worthy in 2 weeks ;)

Best in Show

You shouldn't be surprised that Paula has made the nicest mug so far...

Gravy Train

Another gravy cup....

You know your pottery stinks when everyone starts asking you about the glazes you used and doesn't mention the actual pottery...

Fired Up

Here are some more glazed pieces. This cup could be a good match with one of our first finished products shown here.
This is a terrible piece that came out looking like an egg holder. The white liner glaze underneath didn't work well.

Planter

This piece has my favorite glaze job so far. This is a double dip of obsidian and it is very smooth and dark and covers lots of imperfections. This piece is also a fine example of a well-pulled handle. Don't ask how to pull a handle. I will show you this image clipped from JH Pottery Tutorial and you can get the picture of the general technique.


A good glaze job on a holy piece of pottery.

Does anyone need a planter?

Goals

Where do we look for inspiration? A few years ago our friend Paul started taking pottery lessons and we witnessed his evolution from beginner to expert potter. I haven't seen any of his recent work, but I'm sure he has achieved grand-master status by now! The bowl pictured is a gift he made for us and it sits on our coffee table. It usually holds a pen, the keys to our mailbox and a letter opener, but for official guests it is emptied and displayed in its purest form.I don't know how long it will be until either of us can make a bowl this smooth and symmetrical, but we keep on trying. It may be even longer until we figure out how to put a cool swirl glaze on our pottery.

Another source for our artistic inspiration has been the artwork we have seen in our travels. We really enjoy mosaics and ceramic tilework. The mosaic pictured was not at the Alhambra, but it is available here. Recently, a NYT article suggested that medieval Muslim artists had found patterns for their mosaics that were solutions to mathematical puzzles that have only recently been solved. Here is a link to the original Science article titled "Decagonal and Quasi-Crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture".

Act II

The second round of items produced some interesting results. The black/blue combo of glazes on the red clay gave this piece gave an incredible texture.

This piece produced an interesting lesson in wheel pottery: when you have completely messed up the rim of a bowl or cup you can always make it a spout and pretend that was you original intention from the start! We'll see this strategy several times in the coming weeks. The glaze combo for this piece was a bust: clear chum under a blue didn't work.

In the beginning

Welcome to our pottery blog. We started taking pottery classes in January 2007 and we hope you will watch our progress as we learn and improve. Our goal is to become proficient using the pottery wheel as well as with slab pottery.

Here are our first pieces of pottery to succesfully make it from our bags of clay into finished, glazed products. Keep in mind that the pottery looks 200% better in the digital photos than it does in person. The bowl on the left is made using gray clay and the cup on the right was made using red clay.

I found a video of someone making a nice bowl. This guy makes his bowl/vase in less than 2 minutes... it usually takes us 10 minutes to get the clay close to being centered on the wheel. Throwing pottery can be very stressful, I found a video that gives a great example of throwing pottery in less than 15 seconds.