A SEED PLANTED....................

I usually plan out my next kiln load and work cycle rather well. Not that I am inflexible, just want to make maximum use of clay, glaze and kiln space. Invariably an order or a mere suggestion ends up sending me off the deep end. This time, Mindy casually remarks, “haven’t seen you make any lidded oval pieces in a while”, you can guess how that went.

So, the seed was planted. I tried pushing the comment to the back of my mind, but just ending up dreaming about throwing the parts, rolling the slabs and building the darn things. So, you probably know where this is going.

After putting handles on some pitchers and tooling some jars and lids, I set about throwing a group of cylinders and rolling out slabs. Today was spent building and fussing with a group of oval serving pieces. What took 75 minutes to throw and roll out, took 6 hours to construct and fine tune. I probably spend way more time on these then I need, or it shows, as I am extremely particular about how all of my lids fit. For these oval pieces, I make the lids .25” too big and whittle away at them until they fit just right and snug in their gallery. It is worth it, as a sloppy lid, ends up being a broken pot……………..