triumph and utter defeat

That's the way it is, right? You have to just nod at the successes, and just nod at the dismal failures. I had way more time to throw this week, thank goodness, which allowed me to revisit some of my old friendly shapes. Well, I don't know that I would call the teapots friendly shapes, but they are beloved. They're more like difficult children than good friends.




I managed to make eight of them before I pooped out, seven little guys and one large beastie whose two large friends grew weariy of my pulling and flopped to the bat in disgust. I did, however, attempt a new idea on an old form. Introducing... the sugar bowl:

I think that I've tried this one before with painful results. We'll see how they thrive at the end! I also got to try my hand at the platter again. As I remember with both of these forms, it's all about timing. You have to catch everything at juuuuuust the right time to make sure you get them assembled and trimmed so that they don't turn on you. Even then, the moon must be at it's apex and the barometric pressure at just the right level and a druid priestess must be serenading them as they dry. I kid.

Things have gone pretty well, except for the large footed bowls. The first set of six I threw turned out just awful. Perfectly functional, but that conical shape that I try so hard to avoid like the plague. I find it amazing that everything is coming back pretty well except bowls. I'm still struggling to get them just how I like them, in that hemisphere shape that may be unoriginal, but is satisfying to my psyche and feels so good in the palm of my hand. I won't share the cones of distress, but the bowls are looking pretty good... pre-foot at least.



I'm really excited about a new design that I'm playing with on a few pieces. All of my designs come from doodles that sprang up in school, and this is an offshoot of a design I did on my very first painted vases. I stopped doing it because it was too elaborate and took forever to get anything complete. I found a few bowls that I did in my apprenticeship years that had the design on the inside, and decided to try it again on the outside. I really want to see it on a big bowl before I get the full picture in my mind complete. We'll see how they turn out...