After firing Jeff Martin’s big pot, I found myself a little inspired to go bigger. My bread and butter (or as Michael Kline said “scholarship”) work is generally small. But thinking of what a great canvas bigger pieces could be, I am wanting to take advantage of the bigger kiln space. So I am making some big planters. The reason for planters is I keep the insides unglazed and nest them inside each other in the kiln - hopefully keeping the density of the kiln pack the same for a more even firing.
Anyways, I find it hard to wedge and center anything bigger than 10-12lbs, so I am throwing these in sections. Each piece being less than 10lbs. One is the bottom, with a thick foot, and the other being a bottomless pot. I use a heat gun to stiffen the bottom section before putting the top piece on, for fear it’d collapse under the weight.
These two pots came out to be about 17″ and 19″. Maybe the largest I’ve made. I want to go one bigger befor making the nested one, but will probably coil it after throwing the bottom.
After Gina’s success at the Big Craft (she came close to out selling me ;-), she’s been back in the studio busting out extruded funky mugs. It is so sweet having a hot chick in the studio while I work.
Letting the bottom stiffen (wheel is spinning)
joining the two pieces
A good fit
Widening the bowl with a rib…
A little warpy, but then so am I.
Sexy studio mate… grrrrooowlll….
Oh yeah, I promised Judi Tavill I’d photograph my wheel set up. I started standing up to throw sometime last year. Although I wasn’t having any serious back problems, I knew this pottery thing was here to stay and needed to start taking care of myself better. I did two things, one was to put the wheel on blocks and made a butt rest against the wall. The other was to focus on where the stress was on my hands while centering. Aside from wedging, centering is probably the biggest wear and tear. I no longer use my wrist or heel of my hand when centering. Rather I lock them and focus all contact with the clay on my finger tips. This creates a shock absorber effect, allowing the fingers to absorb the wobbling clay, until I can get it centered. I am not sure how scientific it is, but I’ve felt great after making these changes to my routine and can throw for hours. In fact I seem to get more energy the longer I throw, similar to the energy you get after being in a meditative state. I’m not too metaphysical when it comes to these things, but I can definitely say that’s probably one the things a I like about throwing, is that I can easily slide into a deeper meditative state than I ever could with straight meditation.
Up on cinder blocks with butt rest bolted to the wall.
My legs are slightly bent and the wheel comes to to my belly button.
More resources on standing to throw that I read before making the transition:
