New Dishes
I found the pictures of our new woodfired pottery! Here they are:
See how it’s brown where the smoke hit it, and greyer on the other side? If you click to enlarge it you can actually see some of the ash deposits on the grey side, which give it a kind of silky-nubbly hand feel. This is my new favorite mug.
I made us 8 dessert bowls. They are all glazed the same, but the one on the left was on the top of the kiln and the one on the right was on the bottom. The left got lots of smoke color, but the right got lots of salt glaze. They weigh only 1/2 lb each (I was motivated to keep things light and trim the heck out of them, since we only got one bag of clay) but the globe shape means they can hold much more than our old dessert bowls – actually exactly as much as our old huge soup bowls!
The rims are pinched up in five places just before the final shaping. There is slip inside for texture. The white spots on the rims are where wadding was placed in order to stack the bowls. I tried to get it exactly on top of each “bump”. If you click to enlarge you can see my “D” stamp on one of the bowls.
Our new plates. These are cut pentagonally before being thrown and stretched. The texture on the inside is a thick slip of excess clay bits. Can you see the “D” stamp?
Here’s a closeup of one of the rims. You can see the way the flying ash was deposited on it (around one of the pieces of wadding) and melted on, creating permanent “freckles.”
I’ve already signed up for another workshop in May. I should be going to go get my clay now – I think I have just enough time (only 4 weeks! EEEK!) to get the other half of my set done. I need to make 8 soup bowls and 8 dessert plates, which leaves me with 2 mystery pieces (we can bring 18). As soon as SofÃa wakes up from her Longest Nap Ever, we can head out.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Your pottery is so beautiful!