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.