Sunday, September 28, 2008

Journey Sept 8 - 15 "The Parade" Pots


I had made a slab vase pre-Steven Hill under "The Parade" theme, and decided to do another one. Not sure how successful this one was, it looked at bit like a prison tower with inmates rioting out the windows, so I added a tree to help it look like a street. With the tree partially sticking out it added another dimension to the vase so can work on this aspect for my slab vases in the future.


Well this was a rather frustrating week - not much time for pottery - lots of time spent cleaning up the Guild in readiness for the Open House next week. We hope to get many new members - the more members, the more inspiration and ideas get passed around. Whether I am helping a beginner or watching/talking to a more experienced potter I always find there is something new to learn. We are lucky to have this facility in Deep River, as for a yearly membership fee of $100, members get 24/7 key access, use of wheels, slab roller, electric and gas kilns. A series of 6 lessons is included in the fee - taught by Guild volunteers. Members buy their own clay and then pay for the firings according to weight. This includes the bisque fire, glazes and glaze firing. Ninety six cents/lb for electric and $1.28/lb for gas. This makes pottery affordable for everyone and it seems like over the 54 years that our Guild/club has been established someone from nearly every household in our town of 4500 has tried out pottery. As a result the townspeople are very supportive of the 6local potters that sell their work.
I did a lot of sketching for the fishing woman/factory ship theme, but having a hard time moving forward with that. I also made some more fish stamps based on medieval woodcuts, trying to get away from the cutesy look for my fish stamps.
I will also continue to make cups, practicing my handles pulled from the cup.

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