I made a mini-swan

Pinch Pots

Lucy Barfoot · October 10, 2014

This blog might well be turning into my pottery log.... A new term of my pottery class has started and I had my first go at the humble pinch pot. A very quick and crude method of vestibule-making. A couple in this batch have fingermarks, which I think looked pretty good, I would like to try the same with a simple white and understated glaze.

I'm trying to get a good knowledge of glazes under my belt - I'm diligently making note of all the varieties of glazings I'm trying out. I have yet to find a combination which I love. I'll continue with lots of complex scribbled notes in my sketchbooks until I find whatever it is I'm looking for.

I jumped on the wheel this week and made three quite well-centred pots. Not bad for not having been on that wheel for a good 5 months. Here are my pinch pots... I made holes in the bottom using my favourite tool, that's so they they can become mini flower pots.

And finally, this wouldn't be a pottery post without a mention of the teeth. I'm making a few every week, enjoying the three-step process, with my pottery course once a week, each stage takes a week to complete, and I have many teeth on the go at once:

1) Sculpt tooth shape > leave to dry

2) Smooth tooth with wet sponge and fire > tooth gets fired in kiln

3) glaze the fired tooth > tooth gets re-fired

4) One complete tooth!

We have a project to complete this term - 'Cornucopia: the Horn of Plenty'. This involves writing Haikus and creating a 'fantastical form for fabulous foods' for the celebratory feast to mark Potstop's 20th anniversary.

We'll be inscribing the haiku on the form, and it will contain one of our favourite foods. I'm making a wide-open jaw, complete with teeth, holding fizzy sherbet-y sweets and a few gobstoppers. It's going to be reminiscent of that bit in Beetlejuice when the bowls come to life.

BUT less scary. This reminds me of wonderful Harry Belafonte. Remember the song in that scene - 'Banana Boat Song (Day O)'? It's a cracker. So I'll ending this with his other mega-famous one - Jump in the Line. Bye!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk3sLHZzZRI&w=560&h=315]

3D, Art, Interesting and Inspiring

Regine Ramseier - Windstille

Lucy Barfoot · October 26, 2011

'Windstille' An installation by German artist Regine Ramseier.The following is taken from Ramseier's website. Thank you Google Translate! Although it doesn't make all that much sense."I have focused this work on the small room in the art laboratory. Around 2000 withered dandelion flowers alive and easily commute from the ceiling. A symbol of life and birth. A symbol of vanity. A moment to pause. Hold your breath and turn to the transient of a breath. Marvel at the miracle chamber. Hermann Hesse has expressed my feelings into words. In the poem, momentary flashes. The small white room contains a large window, which locks out the green of the park. The dandelion sky slopes from the door to the window and it seems as if the flowers worn out from the room, the light and the day to meet. But still they hang in the room and are permanent. Captured in my memory. They will not return. But the golden meadows, this I know, the dandelions, they will return next spring."