SWEET DREAMS

I recently put up an older fluted Oribe teabowls on Instagram and it got me thinking of perhaps the oddest pot that I have ever made. Well to be clear, I have made pots that would certainly classify as odder but rather it is the purpose that I found a bit out of the usual. This Oribe covered jar was made as an homage to a Sukhothai style temple, not my design as the final resting place for a Thai giant rat, rescued from the fur trade and raised as a house pet. I can't remember the name of the rat, I just referred to it as "biggie" after the rapper, Biggie Smalls. As for this jar, it was thrown thick and had the horizontal fluting tooled into the surface and was glazed in my very first Oribe glaze back in the 1990s. Perhaps the neatest feature was where the Oribe glaze pooled in the furrows creating rich, dark bands around the pot which became darker and darker as it ran down the pot. Once "biggie" was cremated, he (?) was placed inside the jar in a plastic bag, just barely fitting and the lid was sealed on the pot using thick sealing wax. Though I have made a number of special commission pots over the years, the final resting place for the large rodent ranks as perhaps the oddest thing I have made, sweet dreams "biggie".