Rims and Feet

It's been about 10 months since my last post. I have been making items for the marketplace - nothing very exciting - no new directions or techniques and I have just not had the energy to write any of it up.

It's just in the last few months that I have started handbuilding again. I find that it's with handbuilding that I get really excited about my work. I have never been very pleased with the bases of my slab built pots - I felt they were very weak - needed to be stronger and better delineated. Same with the rim - though I have had some success with strenghtening them by adding extra coils or clay strips to them.

This time I tried rolling down the rim with a brayer to make them thicker. I had tried this earlier with a small vase with some success. However with my larger pieces this is hard to do as I never really know what final form the rim will take until I have finished all the appliques and by then the rim is usually rather dry - so I have to keep spraying it with water to keep it wet.



"What If the Snake Had Eaten All the Apples?"

This time I managed to roll the clay down enough to make a rather neat delineating line all around the rim and down one edge. The pot is called "What If the Snake Had Eaten All the Apples?" It was fired in the third firing of my wood kiln and the matt stony yellow, and Hannah blue and ochre ashes all turned glossy with black carbon trapping in some parts - rather muddy colors as somehow I managed to overfire my wood kiln!
Looking at the pictures now, I feel that the rim and base are still a bit too delicate - so next time I need to concentrate more at making them more visually stronger.

Back - the blue ash turned black, maybe some carbon trapping as there was very heavy reduction