Over the course of a week, I snapped a bunch of photos to share, but wasn’t prompt in posting them. I’ve been in high gear, preparing for a wood firing this weekend and a soda firing in early November.

Sunday October 11: threw the walls for five body-forms. Made a bunch of pods, which are for the woodfire.

Monday: continued with two of the body-forms. TAed for beginning wheel. I also took photos of the five walls before getting started altering – they’re interesting on their own. The photos, though, are on a friend’s phone, and she hasn’t had a chance to email the photos yet.

Tuesday: continued with those two body-forms and brought the other three up to speed. Prepped clay for three more pieces. To work beyond Lillstreet’s clay options, I amend the clay, looking for different flashing and surface qualities. Since these three pieces are for the wood firing, I wanted a bit of a stickier clay to help catch and flux the ash that’ll be coming through the kiln. So, based on my previous (not-yet-documented) experiments with amending clay and making teabowls, I wedged in Custer feldspar.

Wednesday: Threw walls for three wall-forms. Worked on the five body-forms, pictured above, while waiting for the wall-forms to set up. (The body-forms are a different clay, if you’re wondering.) Helped put soda in the soda kiln. Started altering the wall-forms, despised two of them, realized I was going about it all wrong. So I altered the third wall-form, which was much better, balled up the two bad ones, found the clay was into a stiff leather hard, tossed them into some water.

Thursday: Threw two more walls to replace the wall-forms I’d killed the night before. Let them dry. Kept working on the five body-forms, which are about done. Checked the clay from the previous night, found it’d partly slaked, left it on plaster while I wedged some other odds and ends of clay. Altered the two new wall-forms. The image above is the wall-form that’d survived, one of the new ones as a blank, and the other with the lines drawn and starting to get into the initial altering.

Friday: learn and burn. But that’s another story!

Saturday: all day in the studio, working on figuring out those wall-forms. I need some bigger bats  if I’m going to go larger (which I’d like to!) with the wall-forms; as it was, I had to find some greenboard to give myself enough room to alter their footprints. These guys are getting big, and I like it!

Sunday: in the studio, figuring out and finishing those wall-forms. Now they’re drying. While the body-forms tend to have a front and a back, these have multiple fronts, multiple backs. They remind me of photos I’ve seen of Utah canyons. It’s an exciting new development for the project.

Whirlwind! That’s easily a hundred pounds of wet clay at once, and a substantial number of hours. Invigorating. After a year, I’m starting to understand the internal logic. I feel like I’m making progress.

Also, at last, got the grindingstones back from being bisqued… they had been on my shelf drying for weeks. Sorry about the lack of focus; it’s cropped from another shot. But I’m also excited about this form, and haven’t mentioned it much. These will also be going on a trip through a wood kiln. Hurrah.