Started the house last week; figured out the roof and put it on tonight. Carved the big vessel this evening after letting it dry slowly under plastic. Tentative title is “[I want] the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

Finished the vase I started last night! Porcelain tends to be a finicky clay; this piece was pleasantly easy.

Also cooking is another larger vessel; we’ll see where the design goes on that one.

Porcelain vase made over a few days (it’s been humid). Rolled slab and made body, added bottom. Since this is a larger piece than the tumblers, I used a different tool for carving, and the proportion of figure and ground is different. As I was carving the vase yesterday, I was thinking about a drawing assignment I once had – to fill some number of pages with beautiful marks.

More whiskey cups. The rocket ships have made a comeback (they’ve appeared on bigger cups) as have the dancing people. Also added the slash indentation; even on the small guys, it catches the thumb nicely. The gloss is a little bit of wax on the rim (it burns off) to help the clay dry evenly. I like how these are going.

Have a few pieces in the soda kiln right now; they’ll be unloaded Friday afternoon.

More bowls! I’ve made some of thse before – all BB SFAO on stoneware, soda fired to c.10. Looked nice piled together in the late afternoon sunlight.

Clay is not my primary profession – that’s architecture. Ceramics is a purer form of design and architecture – instead of writing a manual for someone else to build from, I do the design and the construction. I’m the client, and only have to answer to myself if I have some idea that takes forever to bring to life.

I approach clay as an architect. We’re responsible for concieving designs while considering construction methods: likewise, I think of appearance, function, and the ceramic process when designing a piece. Every piece draws from past work, making for an organic process; one could diagram my work over the last few years (inclusive of academic architectural projects, photography, drawing, painting, &c.), web the interrelationships, and show the lineage of outside influences, individual ideas.

Lots of things I’ve been thinking about doing but haven’t tried:

Big houses. Not absurdly big, but larger than a napkin holder. 1/4″ thick slabs. Edit 3Jan08: Wood fired a couple over Labor Day 2007 with outstanding results.
Porcelain vase type things, with the leafy design. Various sizes, thicknesses, scribing tools.Edit 3Jan08: Had a couple at the Bucktown show. Did a couple in wood+salt without leaves. Made a couple more for soda, trying new details on these large vessels.Scented oil holder. Place for a tealight in the bottom, airflow to the top, and a dish to hold oil. Conceptual sketches.Edit3Jan08: Abandoned this idea for now

Trays, I’ve still held off in size on trying anything big enough for dinner or serving.Edit3Jan08: Getting them through the soda kiln is tricky, since they’re flat and all, but I’ve got a good number of completed ones now.

Cups with the little sketches. Do in pairs?Edit3Jan08:I don’t know what I was thinking of here.

Little sauce dishes, big enough to be useful. Try some in porcelain with the leafy design?Edit3Jan08: And quite useful as test tiles too!

Chopstick holders.Edit3Jan08: Still do be done.

Tiles; leafy patterned and sketched upon.Edit3Jan08: Abandoned this idea for now

Mosaic with small T6s tiles.Edit3Jan08: Abandoned this idea for now

While I’m trying the different forms, I’ll probably stick to my favorite combinations for materials and surfaces – the four glazes with BB’s SFAO or porcelain, and FCSI with Tile 6 slip, line drawings or carving, and the Woo Blu glaze that I make for myself.Edit3Jan08: I will probably abandon the SFAO in favor of T6’s softer surfaces, and work with temoku and woo blu, leaving the flashier copper glazes behind.