BITS & PIECES

Realizing the heat dome was making its way into our neck of the woods, I decided to try to get a handful of pots made before it got a bit to warm. The first smal group of pots were a group of medium size serving plates and bowls in terra cotta which dries unevenly in the heat and humidity so I switched over to making a three pieces in stoneware, two high footed covered jars, lids, knobs and a single teabowl with the clay left over from throwing the bits and pieces off the hump. The next morning I set about first tooling and decorating the six terra cotta pots followed by tooling, assembling, slipping and raking the three stoneware pots.    

As you can tell the two covered jars aren't that big, perhaps 10" tall at the moment, thrown out of a bit less than three pounds of clay. I decided to go with the large generous knobs to accentuate the jar forms and make for an easy to use lid. I first learned to make various styles of hollow knobs way back at Kent State where Kirk Mangus was demonstrating a variety of lids and knobs that he used in his work and that was a very long time ago. Two of the hollow knobs were made by throwing them off the hump and later attaching them to the lid and the other he left extra clay in the lid and then later used that clay to throw up the knob and close it at the top. At any rate, no throwing today but at least I got the terra cotta and stoneware pots finished as the temperature hovers in at 91 degrees and may get even hotter.     

The current weather sort of reminds me of the famous Harry Truman quote; "If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen" but in this case, maybe it's the studio.