edging along in clay

Feeling a little bit edgy about the holiday markets.  So much left to do. One thing after another pushed my studio timeline so that it is wavy instead of straight.  I guess wavy is better than broken.

  

 

There is this bowl.  A very small bowl.  A very simple bowl that I love.  It was a test bowl for a creamy, buttery glaze on reddish earthenware.  I learned a lot of different things with this bowl. It has made its own history.  I used the glaze on some simple slab plates for displaying my ceramic pears.  They were sold together with great success. Something functional with something non-functional. What a pair!

  

We keep missing the point, despite divine intervention from our patron saints.  On the well-paved road to life, we're hunched over the wheel, traveling at a high rate of speed, following the red taillights of the cars in front of us hell-bent on some distant destination.  Life is not up ahead of us in the windshield; nor is it behind us in the rearview mirror.  It's here and now, in the car, on the road as we go, fast or slow.

                                  ~from Seeds by Richard Horan

     

That brick of clay I had couple of weeks has soften enough for me to wedge into 1 pound balls.  My tabletop and rolling pin is my slab roller of only choice.  I slam the clay onto the table a couple of times until about 1" thick and then I use the rolling pin to get it down to about 1/2".  It's pretty effective for what I want to do.  I wanted to have some thick slightly curved, scalloped plates. Really edgy.

In the meanwhile, the kiln is cooling and I need to figure out how to get the red on the pomegranate.  I layered on some terra sig at leather-hard stage and buffed.  It is a little purplish, but will make a good foundation for later after bisque firing to a soft cone 010. 

After that I will add the reds and some orange tones, buff and fire.  If that doesn't work----out comes the pigments and wax!