Here is the result of eight weeks of pottery classes, the yield from fifty pounds of clay.
Not pictured are all the pieces that collapsed during throwing, the pieces with holes punctured in their bases during trimming, the pieces that cracked in the kiln on the first firing, or that just came out too ugly.
F, G, J were the first three I glazed. F is the pen holder mentioned last week. G has a nice shape but is supposed to be red; the glaze is far too thick. I’ve been using J as a container for my pottery tools. It could work as a planter with the right kind of plant.
D was an experiment with an olive green inside glaze and a white outside:
The walls get really thick inside toward the base. You can see the glaze pooling at the bottom. The piece is too heavy and it doesn’t know what it wants to be. A teacup? A toothbrush holder? It might’ve looked better if I had I left the outside unglazed. It’s going in the trash, as B was a second, slightly better attempt at the same effect.
C: Clear glaze makes imperfections like the dent in the lip stand out more. Throw away.
E: Like a Chinese teacup but bigger and thicker, which makes it feel slightly awkward in my hand:
The stone-like “field mouse” gray makes the piece look heavier too. Interesting glaze, but not right for this specific form.
A: I really like the color (this glaze was super-thick on application) but the “belly” is either too flat or not flat enough:
H: Brushed the same butter-white from A onto another glaze, and I like the result. The bowl is far too thick though, the outside form doesn’t match the inside, which is less rounded.
I: The last bowl I glazed and definitely my favorite of the bunch. It’s the right weight and the walls are relatively even and not too thick. I dipped it once in the raspberry, then turned it on its side and half-dipped in the white. In the future I might try brushing on the second glaze instead.
Unfortunately as I was holding my accomplishment up for a photo, I dropped it!
Quite all right though: I think it’d look great mended kintsugi-style, don’t you?