Digression

The first and only book I ever wrote (The Berry Grower's Companion, 2000) was full of something I called "digressions". This was a term that I stole from the Knitting great, Elizabeth Zimmerman. I really liked the idea of pausing and giving some background. Taking a breath. In the spring, that's really important, though our collective breaths have been held by rainy weather for the past couple of days. Anyway, my editor was not delighted with the idea, but eventually gave in.

The second Chickadee house is almost done. I'm going to make a false bottom for it so that cleaning it will be easy. Once again, I'm not crazy about the glaze, but I do like the form (and embellishments) quite a bit.

The glaze is Klaus Hard White fired to cone 5. It used to fire to a matte finish. For some reason, it's been firing glossy these days. Not my favorite look. I think I need to make a new collection of samples and find out what's going on.

Also, via my class at the community center, I've been working on throwing open forms for altering. I should say open cylinders, since that's the only thing the wheel gives you. Once again, I'm mildly to very happy with the forms, but not so much the glazes. Ack. 

The two green forms were originally fired with only a clear glaze over the underglaze and clay body. I'm really not impressed with the clay body (Laguna #76). . it fires much grayer than the white stoneware I've been using. More learning. Yay. 

Anyway, I so disliked the clear-over-#76 that I re-glazed and re-fired using a transparent green (Laguna MS7, Forest). Still not happy with it, so both pieces are in the re-glaze pile until something amazing occurs to me.

The last 3 pieces are either greenware or bisqued. You can see the forms, and I am waiting for enlightenment before I go back to the glaze booth with them. I did use some of the community studio's underglazes prior to the bisque firing. Nice to know that works so well, and I think you can use less of the underglaze to get a good color. I won't really know until the final firing, though.

This little square bowl is a favorite. One of the things I didn't count on was the way that a thrown altered pot retains some of the rounded edges from it's history as a cylinder. I think that's kind of cool. I'm thinking a VERY simple glaze for this little guy. . .maybe satin black on the outside, and olive green underglaze with a clear overglaze on the inside. 

Finally, these two little oval vessels were the first thrown and altered pieces I made in the community studio.

I like the forms a lot, and the leaf-berry appliques will look less cute when they interact with some glaze. Please. Less cute. 

Like hand building, the thrown/altered pieces take a lot more time to make than pieces that are simply thrown. What you're buying is the very even walls, and I think it's easier to make the walls thinner on the wheel, than to roll them out and construct them. It depends on the clay body, of course. And it's always tough to get them to just the right hardness before alterations.

So. I think that's the end of the community studio experiment. I am so spoiled by both my own studio, and the amazing community studios in which I worked in both Boise and Melbourne. And then there's my aging back. Another lesson for me. I really really do need to work on a standing wheel. Let's hope I can continue to do that for a while. . .