pottery class 2, week 3
Jan. 24th, 2011 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianThis quarter, I'm taking Altered Forms, which sounds like an absurd 80s alien movie or something else excessively ominous. What it actually means is that we throw something on the wheel, then cut it up and stick it together in interesting ways.
Week 1: Throwing bottomless cylinders and cutting up the long walls that result to use as non-round walls for some kind of container. I made a few things; one long half-oval dish, one sort of figure-eight with one side of the wall textured for a nice inside-outside effect, and one seed-capsule-looking trilobate item with a lid and some side detailing. (The lid continues to dissatisfy me, so I continue to mess with it.)
Week 2: Learning to throw closed forms, including hollow balls and hollow toroids. More difficult than I thought! This was taught by a substitute teacher, who turned out to be very good and helped me a lot. Results: Two hollow items of dubious sphericality, the world's ugliest donut, and a melted-down sort of cone shape that I felt certain I could do something with.
Week 3: Cutting up the closed forms and combining them with handbuilt spouts and handles to make bizarre stuff! Just today I told a labmate that this class was fun but not the revelation the first one was. I can deal with the universe being contrary to that; this class was incredible. So many people doing amazing, unique work. One person had a cute little elephant, another made a huge pitcher with a burst-open place on the back for filling, one made a foot-tall looping handle for a little teapot... So cool.
I chopped up the world's ugliest donut to see if the pieces looked like anything, and to me they looked like Chinese-inspired handles that would fit right onto one of the hollow balls. They did! I cut out a sort of keyhole opening and really liked how it looked. (The only bad part about this piece is that nothing about the finished product required the original form to have been closed. I resolved to do better with the others, but I still love this one.)
In the background you can see what happened to the biggest chunk of donut, which I turned on its side to make a sort of rainbow shape. I used a clay slab to make bottoms for the open ends. I was tempted to make it a teapot, but I was already doing one of those with another piece, so I cut four small holes and called it a very odd vase. We'll see whether it actually works.
Here is my crazy teapot! I think it looks a bit like it grew out of a rock spire. The volumes are contiguous between the ball and the eccentric shape (and the spout, obviously), and the rock spire acts as a handle. This may be a problem when actual hot tea is present; I'll have to experiment. The blobby part actually fits my hand beautifully... until the lid is applied. Even without the knob, the lid gets in the way just enough to disrupt my grasp. This is either a learning experience or a routine disappointment that I should expect by now. It may fit someone else's hand nicely, I suppose. After safety testing I'll probably see whether any of you wants it, since giving made things away is one of the best parts of crafting.
I trimmed through a bowl before class, oh well. It was really too damp, but I got all impatient. Still waiting on a little plate to dry more before trimming and on one bowl to be bisqued.
Week 1: Throwing bottomless cylinders and cutting up the long walls that result to use as non-round walls for some kind of container. I made a few things; one long half-oval dish, one sort of figure-eight with one side of the wall textured for a nice inside-outside effect, and one seed-capsule-looking trilobate item with a lid and some side detailing. (The lid continues to dissatisfy me, so I continue to mess with it.)
Week 2: Learning to throw closed forms, including hollow balls and hollow toroids. More difficult than I thought! This was taught by a substitute teacher, who turned out to be very good and helped me a lot. Results: Two hollow items of dubious sphericality, the world's ugliest donut, and a melted-down sort of cone shape that I felt certain I could do something with.
Week 3: Cutting up the closed forms and combining them with handbuilt spouts and handles to make bizarre stuff! Just today I told a labmate that this class was fun but not the revelation the first one was. I can deal with the universe being contrary to that; this class was incredible. So many people doing amazing, unique work. One person had a cute little elephant, another made a huge pitcher with a burst-open place on the back for filling, one made a foot-tall looping handle for a little teapot... So cool.
I chopped up the world's ugliest donut to see if the pieces looked like anything, and to me they looked like Chinese-inspired handles that would fit right onto one of the hollow balls. They did! I cut out a sort of keyhole opening and really liked how it looked. (The only bad part about this piece is that nothing about the finished product required the original form to have been closed. I resolved to do better with the others, but I still love this one.)
In the background you can see what happened to the biggest chunk of donut, which I turned on its side to make a sort of rainbow shape. I used a clay slab to make bottoms for the open ends. I was tempted to make it a teapot, but I was already doing one of those with another piece, so I cut four small holes and called it a very odd vase. We'll see whether it actually works.
Here is my crazy teapot! I think it looks a bit like it grew out of a rock spire. The volumes are contiguous between the ball and the eccentric shape (and the spout, obviously), and the rock spire acts as a handle. This may be a problem when actual hot tea is present; I'll have to experiment. The blobby part actually fits my hand beautifully... until the lid is applied. Even without the knob, the lid gets in the way just enough to disrupt my grasp. This is either a learning experience or a routine disappointment that I should expect by now. It may fit someone else's hand nicely, I suppose. After safety testing I'll probably see whether any of you wants it, since giving made things away is one of the best parts of crafting.
I trimmed through a bowl before class, oh well. It was really too damp, but I got all impatient. Still waiting on a little plate to dry more before trimming and on one bowl to be bisqued.
