Wednesday, October 1, 2008

An Actual Pottery Post

I know it's been a lot of non-pottery blogging here lately.  For those who are disappointed, my apologies.  I do enjoy the somewhat diary aspect of this blog and yesterday was one of those days that I did something that I had never done before.  

My friend Bruce is an avid fisherman and I am not.  I usually go about 2-3 times a year.  Yesterday was my first time going for the albies.  They apparently are terrible eating..although, Bruce tried a piece sashimi style while on the boat.  I chose to abstain.  Even though they are no good to eat they are just about the most fun fish that I have ever caught.  They're not that big...the ones we landed were in the 10-12 range.  But, they are fast and they take out a lot of the line as they fight.  As they got close to the boat they circled around a few times so I was making trips around the boat with the rod trying not to lose either my balance or the fish.  They are tough to catch so our trip landing 4 was apparently pretty good.  Bruce landed his with a fly-rod which is even harder to do.  I think Bruce will be putting some pics on his flickr site and if he does I'll provide a link so that I don't annoy any pure potters out there on the intertubes.

So...now back to pottery.  Here is a little bit of the work I've gotten done in the past few days starting with a tableful of bowls waiting to be trimmed.  A dozen of these bowls are for an order and the rest will be ready for the fall shows.  


A few teapots that we're squared...something I rarely do.  I used the sherrill mud tools rasp to really refine the edges.  I also never....almost never use a handle made out of anything other than clay but for some reason the two teapots in the back were asking for something different.  I'm not sure how I'll finish them...do I want to use a handle purchased from a clay supplier or do I want to figure out how to fabricate something myself?

This is the large platter which is ordered as a wedding gift for someone.  It's still about 23" across and it's pretty dry already.  I'm really pleased with the incised pattern on this one.

And here are a few cups with some incised patterns.  These lines do not have any black slip within...I'm curious as to how the glaze will play on them.

Off to trim some bowls and figure out what other pots I can fill other surfaces up with.  It might be time to start bisque firing so I can clear off some space in the studio.

4 comments:

abigail said...

if you don't eat them, do you throw them back?
(sorry still obsessed about the fishing post)

The pots look good! I am jealous at how much work potters can make. maybe I should haul out my wheel and make some cups or something so that I feel accomplished.
Can't wait to see the work in person!!

Keith said...

it's easy to make it look like i've been busy...just fill a surface with bowls...haha. right now i'm in the part of the cycle where i'm making the stuff that i can throw quickly but take me forever to finish...bowls like that usually sit under plastic for about a week so i can put off trimming. i'm running out of surfaces though, so until i load a bisque i'll just have to actually finish my work.

as far as the fish goes....you can either let them live another day to swim around the waters chasing all of the other fish in the ocean. but...the captain of the boat has kept the albies we caught to become shark-bait as he heads out this week to catch some mako's which are eaten...although...i've never tried shark....it's like skate wing...always weirded me out too much to try.

Ron said...

yea, pots! I like the square teapots.

Keith said...

thanks ron. i like them and i'm curious as to where they will lead to during this cycle. i'm running low on stoneware so i'm going to try some in the white stoneware body. and if i run out of that...maybe it's back to the earthenware.