Feeling Ruff






Inevitably people ask me when I get back from a trip just how that place influenced me. People expect miraculous things to happen overnight just because you are in a foreign land. How will your pots change on your return from China? Dunno! You tell me!
What I'm liking here is the availability of clay- all you can use! I have settled on saggar clay. I got scolded for being in the porcelain capital of China and not using porcelain. I don't like the slickness of porcelain!!! The saggar clay is the nastiest clay I have ever used and I love it!!! This is not a clay for the weak at heart. It's got chunks of glass, stones, shards and is probably almost 60-70% crushed aggregate with enough clay to hold it together- sorta hold it together.
Today I started making a few pots with shards pushed into the surface of the clay. Shards are everywhere in this country so it seems a natural thing to do on pots that are meant to look like the earth.
I got invited into the AKAR Invitational Yunomi Show in Iowa City so I am making some yunomi that are cut apart and reassembled using lots of gnar-gnar to ooze out the seams. It's kinda like seams on fabric.

Comments

You look about like I do after three days in the kiln yard; ruff and rugged. Beautiful new work with wonderfully rough clay; the perfect dish for a Devil's Spit BBQ Burger. How are the fired products looking?
-JB

Popular Posts