My pottery challenges

Navigating thru the clay and glaze choices 

Black clay vs a soft brown earthenware with manganese 

There are so many choices when it comes to clay.  I sort of gravitate toward the darker clays.  I just love the rich tones that come thru and the warms and browns that pop up randomly.  But this clay comes with problems.  It has to be fired to a lower cone.  People often push it to cone 6 and hope for the best, but I so heavily decorate my pieces that the likelihood of there being issues with the surface are very probable.  Still I try...sigh.

Many times I get one or two pieces back that I love, most of it is not acceptable and chalked up to "learning"and receive the hammer.  

This one turned out and I am going to keep it.  It's pleasant to look at but it didn't fully pass the Kolene test.  Are there blisters?  No,  Is the glaze smooth? yes. Does it hold water? UHHHH,  NO.  I had to put something inside it to place the flowers in.  Alas, this will be used (probably) for Christmas cards.  It really is pretty and someone would probably even buy it, but it didn't pass the test.  I am picky for a reason, folks. 

The bowls I will keep but only till I come up with ones that are more perfect, they have some blisters.   I will gift them to some friend who will appreciate them for what they are.  I should have fired them to Cone 5 instead of 6.    However, The vase is a keeper.  I like this vase and it passed all the above tests.  

These vases are pretty, very.  They hold water.  They look great, but I don't care for what they feel like on the inside.  They didn't pass.  It's really okay with me, finally, that I am not getting much back that I like.   At first I was so discouraged.  I would push and push myself, staying up to all hours, not sleeping, trying desperately to figure out what the Heck I was doing.  Now I just accept, there are rules to clay.  Until I figure them out, there will be learning curve of what not to do.  

I did not go to school for this, after all. 

This has a few issues and didn't fully pass all the tests, but it is very pretty and I am going to sell it.  It will be a table lamp when it is done and I bought a great shade off of Restoration Hardware for it!  It really looks nice next to my wall art.  

This is just plain white on the inside.  You can't see it but there was something
that fell into the glaze at the bottom, which turned it right away into a second. 

I am leaning toward letting the insides of the cups being plain without glaze, just maybe a wash.   Why try to hide that beautiful brown?  I am not going to anymore (for now).  It is just another step. 

This was a collaborative piece that I did with my friend Wanda.  She's a very seasoned potter.  Everything comes out shining colors with her.  I am so happy to know someone like her.  She's friendly and helpful and full of knowledge that she is willing to share.  Can you see the manganese in the clay?  That's the spots.  Some people love them, others not so much.  I do love this clay but think that it might be better without so much decoration.  

Thanks for looking.  When I finally have a website for the pottery, I will be ready to start selling some.  Once it makes it to that website, you can buy with confidence.  I will accept returns, but I don't have the website ready yet.  It doesn't much matter, I am not quite ready to start selling.  

Warm regards to you on this fall day. 

Kolene 

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Hand Building Pottery - Some finished pieces and my feedback

My feedback on my Hand Building Pottery Pieces 

My favorite piece because I love the scalloped edge

Well, my first 8 weeks of Hand Building Pottery has flown by, and I just gave my instructor, Lin, another check for another 8 weeks.  I made 5 pieces, two of them were so-so and one of them was sent to that little trash can in the sky.  Surprisingly enough, the painting part of it was as challenging as anything.  Too much paint or not enough or blotchy~these are the problems that I encountered.  I am still going to use these pieces that I am getting ready to show you, but they are NOT without flaws.

Flour, Sugar, and Lemon tray 

You probably can see the issues.  The Lid on the left piece didn't stay true and flat.  That was because I constructed it incorrectly.  I didn't have enough support on the underside and it sagged (that was what the instructor said).  The tolerances on the right canister are not consistent.  It is necessary to have the lid lined up just perfectly for it to fit :(  I still like them, though, because I made them and I learned something.

This was my very VERY small brownie dish-LOL~it held 1/2 the recipe
(I guess I better learn to measure better!) 

As I said in an earlier post, clay is really like people.  You just don't know what you will get until it is fired by the adversity of LIFE.  The firing process brings the beauty out and makes the clay less fragile.  One day, I picked one of the lids up by the handle.  This was before it was fired but after the clay was dry.  The instructor noticed me do this and quickly cautioned me not to do that again until it is fired at least once.  "It will weaken it or worse break off!"

I love the color.  I don't Love the way it sagged outwardly.  But you know, it still is sort of neat.  It is unique, and well, I do like UNIQUE!

Next week, I am going to show you my twine holders.  Yes, a twine holder holds twine.  I think they are neat.  I made 6 of them and hope that they survive the 1st firing. HAHA. 

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