Some finished work

I finished the first bit of work in the studio last week. I am still glazing work from the end of last summer, I threw a few pieces and fired a load of work including my pea pods from the Tieton Mini Maker Faire. 

pea pods after first (bisque) firing

The pea pods all survived the firing just fine, though the underglaze required some touch-up. I will underglaze the exterior of the pods and then fire these again in the next load. I may also experiment with my stinky new resists to keep the pod color off of the peas.

functional resist and underglaze work

In the kiln I also fired some underglaze and resist decorated functional work, some of it with overglaze applied. Those without glaze need to be touched up and re-fired. The others turned out okay, but a little streaky. I tried a new batch of underglazes and I'm not sure whether the streakiness comes from the new glazes, the original bisque firing temperature for the work or sloppy application. 

my mom's thrown pieces with my glazing

I don't get as excited about functional work, since there is so little surface texture to highlight. These forms perhaps do better with layered glazes or a gas firing, but the functional work still doesn't keep my interest as well as sculptural work. 

bolt sprigs on thrown and altered form

A week ago I threw with some clay leftover from the Clay Bells Ring class at Larson Gallery. I purchased the clay for the class because it was white, low temp sculpture clay. It worked well for the pea pods and I was happy with it, but, unfortunately it is terrible throwing clay. I threw about seven pieces but the throwing was tricky and the shapes didn't work how I had hoped. I finished two, but the rest dried before I had time to work with them off the wheel.

plastic pea sprigs on thrown and altered form

The two sculptural pieces I finished this week are designed to hang on the wall, but to stick out a little further from the wall than some of the pieces I had in the last installations. I am planning to experiment with some non-ceramic forms in the perforated end of the blue wall hanging piece (above).