…this is a hint.

(Oh yes, I did.)

A couple quick photos later: I wanted to show you the bowl so I took a photo of the bowl. But when I got over to my desk, I realized that I spend most of my time looking at the bowl like this, and that I quite like the view.

To state that it’s a favorite begs the question, why? Here are a couple of observations; by no means a complete explanation. It holds a lot, and the walls are steep enough that it won’t slosh as I carry it from kitchen to wherever I eat. This is convenient. At 6.25″ x 6″ x 4″h. it’s pretty big, but not too big. It can be carried with fingers under the foot and thumb on the rim, full of hot liquid, without burning oneself. This is also convenient. The wall isn’t quite vertical: the bowl opens slightly. I like this. It’s not round. It is convenient that it’s not round. I can drink from a smaller-radiused part. In short, the object has many conveniences from a utilitarian standpoint, and it also very nice to look at.

I surely didn’t buy it for any of these reasons, and I expect that the design was mostly concerned with the visual qualities. I picked it in late 2007 at an Empty Bowls event, as an object that attracted me, and probably because it felt good cradled in two hands. (If you are wondering, this bowl is made by Jay Strommen.)

More general observations: the more I eat from handmade work, the more I think of the food as completing the composition. It’s an interactive installation art, as the food disappears and is rearranged… don’t tell me I’m the only one who unconsciously moves and reorganizes food as she eats? (Okay, soup does not count: I did not arrange the soup.)

…funny how the photographs we take of vessels utterly fail to convey the experience of using them!

I finished reading Robert Tichane’s book Clay Bodies about a week ago. At the onset, I wondered what I was in for: the guy’s a PhD and former head of Corning Glass.  But I want to learn, and with me, the more technical stuff, the more geektastically wonderful.

Clay Bodies was very readable, while providing a lot of detailed information. The end of every chapter has a reference list, for those who want more information. It’s cleanly organized. The margins are big. Everything is in Celsius, which meant that I ended up making a Celsius – Fahrenheit – Orton cone chart as I read along. (Important ones: 900C = c.010, 1200C = c.6, 1250C = c.10.) Not what I’m used to… but the rest of the world works in Celsius, so I may as well learn, right?

I’m going to have to read it again to try and digest all the information on silica. Silica above 50 microns, for example, acts more as a filler, because it won’t go into solution well… not enough surface area. (This is between 250 mesh, at 53 microns, and 325 mesh, at 44 microns. Another thing I had to look up.) Another fun fact I picked up was water separation: different particle sizes fall through water at different rates. But the big surprise was that silica kept coming up in different ways, and size matters.

My next conquest: Daniel Rhodes, when I can procure a copy.

This is very cool. But it has a slight problem. I moved the blog a few months ago. I updated the feed location on Blog Networks so anybody using BN would see this, but I know some of you have blogs and blogrolls of your own.

Old location: www.design-realized.com
New location: www.design-realized.com/adventures
New feed: www.design-realized.com/adventures/feed

Thanks!

For awhile, I’ve been noticing that doing the dishes is more pleasant when it’s all handmade stuff. It happened to also make a pleasant photo.