LESSON LEARNED II

I finally finished throwing what I need for the current cycle, mostly the pieces are geared toward Oribe and saffron glazes, with a few temmoku and iron or ash and a few pieces made to test the new richer Ao which I am pushing closer to gosu. Many of the pots are heavily textured as the transparent glazes allow the impressed and paddled textures to show through the surfaces. I went into this cycle with a clearer picture than normal as to how I wanted to proceed and used textures that I was well acquainted with and ones that would make the most of the various forms; the Iga paddle and the rippled water stamp took the forefront with a few others being sprinkled in here and there. Illustrated are two of the tall totem like column vases that I made by first paddling and stretching clay around a square piece of wood and then once fairly well defined, a base was added and the pieces were stamped. The taller of the two measured about 16" tall when first made and my intention is to glaze these in Oribe so that the texture is not only visible but accentuated by the surface. I have not made pieces like this before so this is as much a learning experience as anything else and will hold my final judgment until they and the three other pieces from the same series come out of the glaze firing. Hopefully this will have been a good lesson learned whatever the outcome.

"I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught." Winston Churchill