Thursday, August 27, 2009

Some More Sgraffito...

More studio last night, mostly spent slipping/decorating/trimming, but I tried to squeeze some throwing in there as well. I'm not sure what's up, but my throwing has been just a little bit off the last few weeks.
I'm trying to decide if I'm to blame, or if I can pin this one on my clay. After all, I did find a pea-sized something hard (bisque? plaster? concrete? unidentified particulate?) in my clay while throwing. And not recycled clay, either, but this clay came straight from the bag, from the box, from the distributor (clay maker?). Fortunately I caught it while I was centering, and not after I'd opened and started pulling, but man, that's not something you like to find in a fresh bag of clay. Now, my recycled clay is full of that stuff - plaster from drying bats, hair (from my brushes, and probably from trimmings swept off the floor), and who knows what else - not native to the as originally purchased.

To sum, I did a lot of slipping and decorating, and ended up throwing a couple of pieces, including another nice low bowl to carve the inside. So, not a bad night in all, but the throwing could have gone better. I'm thinking that it's actually been several months since I've had a solid 4+ hour block of time in the studio to just sit down and throw, and that's where the production really starts to happen. I think I really need 45 minutes or so to just get warmed up before I can really crank the pots out, and that doesn't really fly when I'm trying to get in and out of the studio in 2 hours and have other stuff to do besides throw. So there's that. I'm not entirely sure what it amounts to, but c'est la vie!

Que sera sera is another happily used foreign-language cliche in my vocab, and it too happens to be quite the useful maxim when working in the studio. Especially when it comes to glazing. Which I need to do soon. I'm almost out of room on my studio shelves for new pots because the bisque is taking over...

Here's some pictures, and this is probably the last from me this week, and have a great weekend!
Plates. Those are trimmings in the middle, not decoration. Although I have done some Pollock inspired plates in the past that I rather liked... maybe I'll have to look into that again...
Pots. The one on the left is upside down, in case you couldn't tell. The one on the right may still not get fired at all. I'm not sure about it, and sometimes you just need to throw it back in the bucket and turn it into something you are sure about. We'll see.
Another one of these bowls. They've been fun lately, and I've been able to throw them. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.

2 comments:

scott kelly said...

Well it's been 3 years and it looks wonderful.

Luke said...

Thanks, Scott! I like to think I improve little by little each year!