go big

I have been fascinated with people who could throw big ever since I tried my first pot. I especially marvelled at women who could throw big, and have held my mom-in-law's good friend Gen Groesbeck as a paragon of throw-ability. She can throw HUGE amounts at one time, then coils and throws until I could hide in the damn thing standing up. And they are thin. See, I've always focused on thin walls and as close to perfect form as I can get. Big never happened. Until now.

My dear friend Pam commissioned me to make a gargantuan flower pot for her orange tree, so I set to it, sitting at my wheel with my little 7 pounds of clay, thinking that I was going to work it out. Well, it worked me out. And it never got even close to being gargantuan, no matter how thin I pulled it. Boy, did I have some fantabulous blow-outs! Until I decided to try the whole coil and throw method. Behold the result:




There's nothing like this method for giving you the feeling of riding a bike successfully for the first time. That whole, "I'm up! I'm up! Oh crap, I'm going to lose it! No, no, I'm good! I'm going to make it! There it goes, crap crap crap, no no I"M OKAY!" My first two pieces were riddled with air bubbles, often threatened to wobble, and sometimes did for a bit. They are nowhere near perfect, but boy, were they satisfying.

Until the vase ate my head.

No, just kidding. That would be my husband's sense of humor and mighty photography skills. Remember while looking at these pictures that I am not a small woman, just in case you think they look perhaps not as gargantuan as I let on. I used to be almost a six footer, before child birth took it's toll (yes, it made me shrink a whole inch!). Anywhoo, finished my last mizuko, and am feeling much better about life in general now that we've all had a turn in the hospital. Yes, the plague of bad luck got Ian as well, but he is feeling much more human now. That should be my motto for now: Feeling Much More Human Lately. Well, now I'm just looking forward to making the perfect gargantuan super sensational rock star vase soon. Yep, just as soon as my local clay supplier gets it together and gets more clay in [ahem]. So... tired... of... recycling.