On my first trip to the shop I made this plate..I have 2 strikes against me, who knew? First, I bought porcelain and apparently, you need to be an expert to work with this stuff! I built this by hand, using a slab roller and draping it over something I found around the room. On my second night in the shop I carved out the taro and made 2 more plates. They started at 12 inches and I thought they'd shrink to 10 but so far it's at 11.5 so maybe these should be serving trays. Strike 2..plates are space hogs in the firing kiln..again..who knew? I want to do these in celadon, which is why I chose porcelain. It is the hardest stuff to work with!! You can't handle it too much and the more you do, the harder and drier it gets! But, I really like how these are turning out.
I'll buy more clay today..10 dollars for 25 pounds! Next I'll try to throw bowls..I'll get strike 3 on that because you're supposed to start from scratch by learning to center..for a few sessions, then learning other sequences..if this were a class I'd be the failing student who wants it all, and wants it now. Pua tells me to practice and experiment, but I want sets of dishes I can use..not stupid pinch pots from second grade! My mom still has those on the window sill in her kitchen.
