First Pot after Potters Conference
I came away from this past weekend's potters conference in Asheboro with inspiration to follow some inner dialogue that I had been ignoring lately. I've been forming pieces like the one above for a couple of years. I form a cylinder first, impress the design, then work to reduce the distortions caused by impressing the tree designs before swelling the piece from the inside to a relatively "clean" form. I've often thought about maintaining the distortions somehow, but never pursued the idea.
I threw this piece Monday, impressed the design and used a small plastic rib to swell the lower portion of the piece rather freely without turning the wheel back on. I had quite a bit of distortion, so I dried the piece a bit with a heat gun before forming the neck and above. I decided to stamp the inside of the neck with a smaller tree stamp,which distorted the piece even further, giving the rim a fluted look. I gathered in the neck a bit and then gave it a spout.
I think I'll try to get this one into the collaborative kiln firing at the NC Pottery Center April 4.
I threw this piece Monday, impressed the design and used a small plastic rib to swell the lower portion of the piece rather freely without turning the wheel back on. I had quite a bit of distortion, so I dried the piece a bit with a heat gun before forming the neck and above. I decided to stamp the inside of the neck with a smaller tree stamp,which distorted the piece even further, giving the rim a fluted look. I gathered in the neck a bit and then gave it a spout.
I think I'll try to get this one into the collaborative kiln firing at the NC Pottery Center April 4.
Atlered neck
