Pottery stuff catchup....

It always seems like a minor miracle when I can actually get my camera out, suffer through the squirrely download/edit process and get this stuff posted. I still can't figure out an efficient way to get the pics to line up nicely on the screen. The options are: left. right. center. none. They need a 'dummy' option that says, 'Would you like us to figure this out for you? If Yes, click here.'

My false-hellebore vase is not here. It suffered a problem in the kiln. Literally, two of the leaves wilted.

Here is the Raven teapot I threw together here at home last summer on a whim. The glaze colours came out pretty nice. The 'black' is a matte black glaze I purchased and expected it to be much more 'matte.' But I'll take the semi-gloss it turned out to be and am delighted this thing survived intact. I was still very new to working with clay when I made this and in hindsight can't believe I attempted something so ambitious. It is not 'functional' as a teapot and was never intended to be. I don't put bottoms on my vases because that would make them too 'functional.' I'm trying to make Art here. The rectangular gray spot on the cheek (below) is a camera angle problem that is looking into the 'inside' of the cheek on the other side. The beak area had minimal space to get glaze inside and that was a spot I could not reach. It doesn't 'read' like this in person.

Below is my Tab vase. It was one of the first things I glazed with some of the glazes I bought from Seattle Pottery Supply--as opposed to just using what the studio had. This is a 'milk glass' glaze with 'licorice speck' over that. It is the first item that came out looking like something *I* might buy. Meaning it doesn't scream "Amateur!!" and there are no glaze mishaps. And I figured out how much you need to smoothsmoothsmooth before bisquing if you want it to look decent. That smooth finish did not happen on its own! It's all in the details.

There are three windows cut out in the back. You can see one in the photo below.

Sigh. The vase below has another personal glaze, Burnished Steel and would have been really nice had it not stuck to the kiln shelf because the glaze ran too much. I LOVE this glaze. It is very metallic and suits my style really well. I made this and the Tab vase about the same time. I really like the design and will try it again...

Below is a piece that is sitting on my work desk in my garage and is still 'wet.' It is sort of a crazy ambitious thing. I've put lots and LOTS of time into smoothing it. Each of the 'fins' were placed in the body by me cutting a slice out of the vase (x8) and placing the fins in using a 'slip n score' process that hopefully will make them stay put. For a while I never thought I'd be able to get the thing to look like a single piece. I should have shot it when the slimy wet slip was oozing out of both sides of the fins and on the inside of the vase and was leaning all over the place. It was a hot mess that I thought I'd never be able to fix.

Another view of my WIP.

If you didn't believe Ravens are really smart...

One of the pair of 'my' ravens hangs out on top my car's luggage rack, using it as a perch. The other raven usually hangs out in one of the tall pines in my back yard as watch out (I suppose).

Raven-on-car will start vocalizing if I don't notice if soon enough and give it food. Their usual breakfast is a hot dog. When I toss out one dog, car-raven hops down and grabs it, bites it in half and then proceeds with delay tactics. At this point tree-raven is starting his dramatic swoop down--he always does a lovely spiral-down instead of a perfectly acceptable straight down approach. Car-raven will still be in delay tactic mode waiting to see if I will lose patience waiting for it to take off with the dog, because IF I toss out the second hot dog she always beats the tree-raven to it. Sometimes I will have to stand there on the deck for several minutes, a cold, dripping hot dog in my hand while she plays a game of picking up and putting down her hot dog pieces.

So a few days ago, I tossed out the second hot dog to the left of car-raven, far as I could to try and speed things up and get TR his dog. I watched CR fly/dive over to the new dog and the TR (now sitting on the mailbox post across the street) dove for CR's original dog. Win Win. I didn't have to stand there in the cold waiting for CR to fly off and they both got one hot dog.

The next day ditto. I was able to do a bait-and-switch with them and get outta the cold promptly.

This morning CR did not bite the dog in half. I didn't think too much of it. TR had done his swirl down and was sitting on the mailboxes...and note WHO is the smartest one here:
I tossed the second dog to the left, expecting another baitnswitch scenario. CR immediately made the short fly to the left for the second dog. TR flew off the mailboxes and headed straight for the area in the driveway where the usually abandoned (original) dog would be. He landed perfectly in the right spot and I was suprised to see he did not have the dog in his beak in a matter of seconds. I looked left. CR had two hot dogs in her beak. CR had taken her original dog (not bitten in half) with her on the fly to get the second dog, too, instead of leaving it as had happened two days in a row. She learned within two experiences the routine and thought ahead as to not have to deal with two pieces of hot dog, keeping it whole, knowing she would be doing this.

It's not the first time I've had to dole out three hot dogs (CR is good and I am sometimes impatient) but the thought process here was pretty amazing.