BREIVITY

Illustrated is the 15 minute start to finish mallet vase I made a while back as an exercise, now fired. Thrown out of a sandy stoneware and assembled the base was quickly faceted and now is glaze in a saffron or iron yellow glaze over a Hagi style white which shows off the sand inclusions and pronounced lines quite well. The iron yellow glaze ended up a bit thinner than normal and I have some effects on the surface that I haven't seen before that I would like to repeat including the brooding areas of dark, reddish-ochre patches that run down the surface in several areas. The iron yellow glaze was poured over the surface as opposed to my usual dipping method and you can see where the built in boundary around the base ended up keeping some of the glaze from running off the pot and sticking to the shelves. I think this form came out quite well considering the brevity of its creation and maybe next time the next one will come out a bit better yet reminding me of a maxim to live by; "anything worth doing is worth doing fast".