porcelain paper plates

nice enough to eat off of everyday. brought to us by the passionately curious virginia sin. check out her nude book project too.

link via notcot.

a different kind of personalized dinnerware

from trixie delicious, via stripes and dots.

my first pots

after a month of ceramics classes, i finally have something that i can show you. pottery takes patience. this is a good medium for me to be working in, as i have always been one of those people who hurries things along. in these classes, i'm getting a lot of practice in letting things take as long as they should take. when i throw the wet clay on the wheel, i have to be very patient while i get the clay centered, and then work step by step forming it into a shape, without trying to hard to control it. it's almost as if i have to get completely out of the way of the clay in order to allow its shape to emerge. something along the lines of what michaelangelo said. but i can't just sit there doing nothing either. it requires a kind of keen focus and a very specific posture. i really love the potter's posture of straddling the wheel with elbows on my knees, my face only inches away from the clay.

after the pot is thrown comes the waiting for it to be leather hard for trimming. then you turn the pot upside down and anchor it with three pieces of clay so you can shape the pot's bottom or make for it a little "foot". this is the time when you also carve your name into your piece.

then, more waiting, for your piece to be "bisque" fired. then it's hard enough to paint with glaze. with each step i could indulge in great deliberation. the process is delicious, and allowed me to worry less about the end result.

after glazing, my pieces could be fired. when i arrived at the I street clay studio on saturday morning, my teacher jane had already put the pieces into the kiln. she gave me a long pair of thick gloves to put on and a long grabbing tool for removing the pots. i waved them around in the air for a minute before putting them into little cans lined with newspaper, which caught fire as soon as i put the pots in. when i took them out and sponged the soot off, they looked like this. i was very proud of them, but i am even more excited about how making them has changed me, slightly.

neither/both

jeanne quinn.

my first ceramics class

first of all i was up to my wrists in clay, and wrestling with the wet ball in the middle of the wheel to try to make it do my bidding. mistake number one. wrestling with the clay will not make it do your bidding. rather a firm, steady encircling of hands and the clay just follows the shape without fighting. there is a lesson here, the first of many to be sure. i did manage to make two proud little pots, not at all perfect, i must confess i wanted them to be perfect even though i knew they wouldn't be. the insight i gained while i was struggling through the process had a depth and a width i wish i could show you. hence the image quilt.
1. 365 Day 12, 2. Untitled, 3. The practice dress, 4. Six Edges and Six Vertices, 5. nesting, 6. _DSC0886