Pottery from the Medford School demonstration

Hi Everyone!

In March I held a pottery demonstration at Medford School to show students how a professional potter throws on the wheel (you can quit laughing... I really do try to be professional when it comes to teaching! LOL). I think the kids enjoyed the demonstration as much as I enjoyed doing it! :D After the demonstration, I packed all the pieces I created and carted them back to my studio to see what could be done with them. It is not always easy to move freshly thrown pottery, as it tends to get bumped or deformed in the moving process. Luckily the majority of the pieces survived without any marks on them and very little deformation. During the past few weeks, I've been trimming, glazing and working those pieces into the firing schedule. All but one of them is now finished, and that last pieces should be going into the bisque kiln in the next day or two, as I trimmed and carved decorations into it this afternoon.

Here are some pics of some recently finished pieces:

The above vase isn't actually one of the demonstration pieces, but was 'reglazed' to help it look better... that means I added more glaze to the piece and refired it in the kiln. There should be a 'before' photo in my last post.

This above was one of the demonstration pieces, showing the students how the cracked-surface technique works. The photo below gives a closer look at the surface detail.

The surface of the piece gets stretched until it cracks, while the underlying clay is still pliable and resists cracking. The photo below shows another one of the demonstration pieces.

The flat 'bowl' below is actually another 'reglaze' piece, where I added some other glazes to the inside to make it much more interesting. I like the resulting 'starburst' effect of the reglaze process.

The photo below also shows one of the demonstration pieces thrown at Medford School. It was shaped into a wine tasting receptacle (also called a wine tasting spittoon), which I hear are very popular at the vineyards of California. Perhaps Arnold and Qing can confirm that sometime?

The photos below is a bowl that has been altered so that it is elongated instead of round. Also a tri-foot was carved into the bottom, and auto detailing tape was used on the sides to create the racing stripes during the glazing process. I used a variety of glazes to give it some nice colors. So what do you think?

Here's a peek at the other side.

Here is another bowl that was created during the demonstration process.

I hope you enjoyed the photos. Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions... even criticism is fine as long as you keep it friendly! ;D

Have fun!

Carl