MOSTLY SQUARE

Illustrated is a pair of mostly square terra cotta teabowls that were thrown and altered and then decorated with X and Os a few weeks back. This is the finished product where as you can see, they are mostly square with the belly of each plane being just slightly convex which adds to the volume of each bowl. Each side of the bowl is dominated by a large X or O in black and white making for a simple but bold design. There are several decorative devices that keep showing up in my work, perhaps because they are primal and/ or elemental in nature like the X & O, the rain pattern, spirals, the verses and the "landscapeman", each has a place on various forms across temperature ranges, choice of clay and surfaces. 

As for these particular bowls, I like altering the thrown form and using a design device that I have some comfort with makes the process just go that much smoother. As an obvious side note, there are times that I decide to just wing it, go with the very first, or last thing that enters my mind and in 98.99% of the time I feel like I have wasted the clay, chemicals, energy and time it took to make the piece and process it along. This is not to say that trying new things and testing isn't a good thing but rather best to test designs and decoration first on paper and then on things that are much less labor intensive to make, think flat square slabs.