Since the primary reason for moving to Santa Fe was so that I could pursue pottery more seriously, I figured it was about time to show you what I've been up to! I don't have much that is finished yet, but I have several pieces that are in progress.
I find the process of pottery making very interesting in and of itself, so hopefully these pictures will interest you as well!
Here are some of the pots that I threw a couple of weeks ago that I glazed today. I started experimenting with vases in Madison, but I'm taking them in a new direction- wide tops and narrow bases (and a bottle!):
And here are some that I made more recently. Someone told me that they look like basketballs, and I think I agree. Luckily, when the clay is fired it won't look quite so red (I hope).
One class I'm taking is on Raku, which is a traditional Japanese type of firing where glazed pieces are removed from the kiln while the glaze is still molten and cooled rapidly in an oxygen-free environment to make really crazy metallic finishes.
Of course, in order to deal with molten pottery, you need some special equipment:
We did our first raku firing last Friday and I made some dinky little pieces to test glazes on:
Here's the set up - kiln in the middle with trashcans full of newspaper and other combustibles around the outside. The pots are inside the kiln.
Here's my can!
You can sort of see a couple pieces red-hot inside the kiln. It gets up to 1900 degrees F.
Done! Here's one piece with the finished glaze:
And tomorrow I fire these! Can't wait to see how they turn out!
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