Great pots! And plates!

We went out to the kiln last night to unload. This is really exciting, it's the one time you get to see the pieces that other people made, and it gives you a sense of what is possible in wood firing. The firing went really well (as mentioned), and our stuff turned out really great. With luck I'll share some photos soon, but a quick summary, I spent the first couple weeks making plates and casserole dishes- which turned out great. I found it is easier for me to improve if I just focus on one form at a time Of course, none of the plates are the same size- I have pyramid shaped stacks with plates from 13 inches to 6- but that just means you can decide exactly how much food you want and it can look just right on your plate.

The casseroles are pretty cool- I'm not sure why it took such a long time to decide to make these shapes (perhaps because lots of my earlier stuff leaked, but I think we solved that), but I am really happy with them. Now I wish I'd thought more about making standard sizes- but really I just want to bake something cheesy in them.

Later in the class I started throwing taller shapes- so lots of tall (ish) skinny (ish) vases. Awesome! The kiln was REALLY full, so by the time we arrived late Friday, we were making major efforts to stack things. Having shells (from Alaska!) meant we could stack pieces together and break them apart later, because the shell degrades into a salty skeleton of it's former self. Although- it turns out the the blue mussel shells vitrify, rather than disolve. In some cases, this is cool- but in other cases, the result is, well... I have a casserole dish that I stacked another piece across the top of- now it has 4 perpendicular glass daggers hanging off the lip. But I'm being dramatic- I'll just grind the sharp edges down and it will also make delicious cheesy things.

As we were packing up, and feeling good about ourselves, our teacher came around to ask if we were happy with out things came out. For me, I felt like this was one of my best yet- I didn't make much that I wasn't really happy with, and nothing really got ruined- so I felt like I had a good haul. And then he asked me what I was going to do when I moved away- how would I get by without the studio time? I was taken aback. I actually really worry about finding another studio that is as supportive and open as the Union Project. I can't imagine any private artist wanting to open their doors to me, or other wood kiln people wanting to make space for my lumpy pots. Hopefully there will be spaces for that in the future, but throwing pots has been one of my favorite new things to do since I came to graduate school, and I hope it isn't just a passing phase. My teacher said he wasn't sure if there were places like this in other cities, but he was pretty sure I was capable enough to help out with another wood kiln somewhere else. That was a relief. But I am still in denial about whether that may have been final trip to the kiln, or my final class at the UP.