Dream Pot series

This is the process of how I make what I call my Dream Pots.  A little history; they are inspired by a dream I had one night several years ago.  It was so vivid and when I woke up I had to make a sketch.  As you can see I have to start with a "structure" for the clay.  Long slabs of clay are rolled out and draped over a balloon resting in a large cardboard tube.  I wrapped some bubble wrap to give it more dimension.

I use my slab roller to roll out the clay.  The slabs are very heavy and when I drape them over the balloon, they will fold and the ends will sometimes tear a little but that just adds to the organic look of this pot.  I will come back when all the slabs are positioned and "help" them a little with the folding and tearing.  I like the raw edge the tearing gives the slabs. Very irregular!

Thick slabs of clay rolled with a textured rolling pin for a swirly design.  This is 3 slabs so far.

4 slabs

A total of 6 slabs and an added base.  This is getting pretty dry and is very fragile at this stage.  It was bisque fired to cone 04.  It's so big it took up half the kiln.

After the bisque fire, it was a little less fragile but still hard to handle.  It's really heavy! I had to pour the glaze over it as it was sitting in a shallow pan.

The inside has a nice pool of blue color at the bottom and blue drips down the side over a pale milky green.  The tans of the clay show through the glaze.

I think it is gorgeous!  It's about 15" tall and wide.  I can visualize it sitting in someone's home maybe in a foyer on a table as a great display piece.

This will be Dream Pot #8.  We've decided that numbering will be a nice touch.  This is destined to go to my favorite gallery, Genuine Georgia in Greensboro, Ga.  She had the last one for less than a day before it sold!  I will be making more as I get the right kind of clay collected.  I use all the scraps of white, tan and brown clay that I use all mashed up together.  This makes the pots be different every time. It takes about 25 lbs of clay.

I hope you enjoyed the tour and the insight into one of my more diffucult processes.  

Here it is!

Remember this project?  After it dried for a couple of weeks, I finally got it bisqued fired.  That means it was fired the first time just to get it solid and ready to be glazed.  Well, it sat around on the counter waiting patiently to be glazed.  I didn't have room in my kiln for it with all the other things I was trying to get done.  It took up one whole side of the kiln so I had to wait until I had just a few things to fire at one time.

I used canna leaf and arrowhead leaf molds for the body

And this is after glazing with a blueish green glaze called Smokey Mountain.
It's a glossy to slightly matte glaze that looks totally different on my brown clays
 than it does on anything else.  I think it's gorgeous. I love the drips and runs.

You can see the impressions from the leaf molds I used.

The inside

TA-DAH

Thanks for waiting patiently to see the end product. I hope you weren't disappointed!!

Inspired again

It's hard to get inspired lately.  I think I'm still burned out from the Christmas rush and lately, cold and dreary weather. Sometimes I think I just need a new toy to be inspired again. I ordered these leaf shaped texture mats before Christmas and have been waiting to have time to play with them.  They came from www.clayartcenter.net.  I went overboard and now have all kinds of leaf shapes; oak, maple, sycamore, canna lily, arrowhead, grape.  I'm so excited to have them.

Slab roller is very handy to have

Cylinder former life was a swimming
pool noodle!

So this cylinder vase is a combination of canna lily and arrowhead.  The form is an old swimming pool "noodle" wrapped in plastic wrap.  I rolled out the slabs with my slab roller and used a rolling pin to press with the leaves. Then they were wrapped around the mold and attached with slip.  I used some smaller slabs to fill in at the bottom and top.  When it's stiff I will remove the mold and add a bottom.

Canna leaf and arrowhead leaf for the body

Top

Canna lily and arrowhead leaves

turned over scored and slipped

I hope you can get the idea.  I don't seem to able to get all the pictures aligned like I want.

The slabs were rolled out first, and wrapped around the cylinder, scored and slipped.  Now it is waiting to get stiff.

That's for later this afternoon. 

So what gives you inspiration?

Moving day in the mountains

Yesterday was spent helping move shelves, display boxes and cases from the Heritage center in Tallulah Falls to the new location in Helen.  It's amazing the amount of work we got done.  But then we are a determined group.  My big red Ford F250 was loaded to the max.  We made it to the new location in one piece even if we did take it slow!  This will be a new set up for the Georgia Heritage Arts Association.  I'm really excited about it.

This Sunday we'll go and start setting some of our things up.  I'll probably have to consolidate to a smaller area but that just means I'll be more selective.  So, hopefully, Jaymi will be ready to open by Oct 28.

I'm making progress on open house for the studio.  I've got an ad coming out in the Hometown Neighbor magazine with all the details, Nov. 26 and 27.  We doing the Black Friday thing as well as Saturday.  I've got all the post cards ready to go out to all my mailing list people.  So, Christmas shoppers, bring it on!!