1.5÷15=ftb

At the end of the day in which I got less done than I had hoped, I had a few minutes to spare and just about 1.5lbs of clay so I decided to see what I could get done, start to finish in 15 minutes. To be honest, I kind of cheated in that given a recent encounter, i decided to make something that I have made in the past though not for some time or in recent memory. As you can see in the picture, I ended up making a fluted teabowl (ftb) that now tooled and fluted is quite a bit lighter than it started. The original inspiration for these bowls (and jars) that I made came from a 16th medieval suit of armour* most associated with Maximilian I or II, known as Maximiliansharnisch or Riefelharnisch where the armour is heavily fluted to create a stronger more defensive surface against weapons of the 16th century. 

My intent was to create an organic form which was curvy and imitated the upper torso portion of the armour (cuirass) which also serves as a great way to handle the pot once completed. Before this bowl goes to bisque I will gently sand and round down the ridges to remove the sharper protrusions and then decide how to graze it, maybe Oribe would be a good choice! All in all, using my handy stopwatch, now encrusted in clay, from wedging to tooling the bowl took 13 minutes and 22 seconds, shy of the 15 minutes I allot myself but this being a somewhat practiced form and technique the time should have come in even shorter. As I have mentioned before, anything worth doing is worth doing even faster the next time.      

The second photo shows the finished fired maxarm teabowl that I had made as a mad dash project. As may seem totally uncharacteristic of me, I opted for my Oribe glaze with a fine addition of iron over the surface. At the termination of each channel the glaze has collected creating a dark, rich pool that has an eerie effect under the most intense light source.  

(*I should mention that since my suit of Maximilian armour is at the dry cleaners a simple web search will give you the necessary comparative illustration that you may be intrigued by or you could follow the attached link. ) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_armour