It has been very busy around here with the family reunion over the weekend and then a visit by some cousins on Monday and an old friend on Tuesday, I've hardly had a chance to think about blogging. However, I didn't want to let too much time pass before moving on to my next fact: I love clay. As it turns out, though, I do not have much time or energy to post about this tonight. So, I leave you with some photos that I will narrate later.
It is now later. This head is my first project with clay. I took a clay sculpture class. We had a model who sat on a revolving stool encircled by about 10 students all modeling his head. The students would stay in one place and the man would move 1 quarter turn every 15 minutes. I really enjoyed this experience and thought my head looked quite a bit like the model.
After that, DH set up a studio in our garage with an electric potter's wheel that he had kept from 15-20 years earlier when he had worked as a potter and a newly purchased electric kiln. He started teaching me to throw pots on the wheel. I decided to take an entry level community college course. We learned to make pinch pots, slabs, and coils, and to begin to work on the wheel. Below is one of several assignments completed during that course: to make a set of goblets combining at least two of the techniques we had learned. These are made with pinch pots, extruded tubes, and coils. Hopefully, you can tell they are meant to resemble winter trees against a night sky!
One day, DH and I left our lives as we knew them and moved to a small town in Pennsylvania to open a pottery shop. The piggy bank below was a joint creation from that time. DH threw a vase shape (set pig on its bottom and remove all attachments and you will see the vase) and I added the piggy details and decoration. This one was called polka dot pig and I kept it for myself. We sold barnyard pig and blue sky pig.
Also, during this time, I tried my hand at sculpture again. This time I used a photo of a civil war re-enactor published in the paper to create this clay sculpture version. I called it "Rebel Yell" because that was the caption in the newspaper. I was secretly quite pleased with this sculpture. My father's comment, who is a Civil War buff, was that it didn't look like he was yelling. Oh well, at some point in your life you've got to give up trying to impress your father.
DH made the covered jar below in his past life (i.e. before we met) and it now sits in our dining room and contains his father's ashes.
Part of our pottery collection displayed in our house, consisting of both things we have made (mostly DH) and the work of others.
6 comments:
I once knew a guy named Clay (last name), but I didn't like him all that much. ;)
Breathlessly waiting for the narration--head tilted, of course, to view the creations.
Your pieces are amazing! I've been at pottery for about a year now, and *sheepishly* I must admit that only now am I comfortable with centering. I enjoy it though, and as far as hobbies go, I'm hooked!
Very cool! You are quite an artist! And he does look like he's yelling.
I love the goblets! When I saw them without the narrative the first thing I thought of was "trees!" Very cool. Wasn't there a bust of a woman that you did or am I imagining that?
Turtle Guy: I've been told that centering and pulling up a cylinder are the hardest things to do. Once you can do those two things, you can make anything. (I have not mastered either.)
Mary and Possumlady: Thanks. I did make a bust of a woman, but I don't like it. It's in the garden, along with a sculpture of DH's head that exploded in the kiln!
Anvilcloud: What can I say?
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