Monday, January 30, 2012

Back to the wheel


All it takes is a single fired pot that comes out of the kiln just right and the next thing you know there are three boards full of similar shapes, drying in the studio.
Such was the case with the faceted Shino teabowl that leads the page two posts down. I wedged crushed granite into the Miller 750 clay body to give it some serious tooth, coned up a vertical shape on the wheel, pushed down into the cone, faceted the resulting thick wall, then pushed out the clay while throwing to torque the facets and push out the granite. The results are very rugged and wonky pots. Glazed with layered Shinos and a celadon ash, the pots have a rough but vaguely structured look to them. The Shinos work perfectly on them, filling some holes, not filling others.
So, I'm off on this group of pots for a while. Just threw three boards of the bowls, as well as several spoon/brush holders yesterday. Another couple of days throwing and I'll be ready to fire again.

9 comments:

Tracey Broome said...

Did your fingers bleed?! I used to hate climbing on granite, my fingers always bled, rough on the skin!

Hollis Engley said...

No, no bleeding fingers, Tracey. It's crushed pretty well. And I apparently have tough hands.

mudheartpottery said...

Shino and your pots - yummm.....

Marcus said...

Love it. I do have a soft spot for granite. Tracey, that's blasphemy! But granite is tough on the finger tips...

Hollis Engley said...

Wait a minute ... is that my first blog response from Ethiopia??????

Tracey Broome said...

Hey Marcus, my husband would agree with you, he loves climbing on granite. We have some boulder fields around here that are granite, and we used to climb at Stone Mt. in NC, that was granite. And then we came up on Veedawoo in Wy. what beautiful rock that is! But, dude, it's some rough stuff!!!

Marcus said...

Sadly that's just another blog response from Seattle. I'm not sure I'll have any kind of internet connection from Ethiopia, but I'll see what I can do :)

I hear you Tracey. My hands have been shredded more than once by a long day of granite fun times. Or a short day, for that matter. My wife and I got engaged one pitch off the ground at Index, here in WA, which is our local granite wunderland.

jojoaruba said...

Really nice pots, Hollis! How's the weather on the Cape?
The glaze is really solid! (Granite solid!) It always reminds me of cake icing!

doug Fitch said...

There are some lovely pots on here Hollis