Not that I haven't been working, I just haven't been writing! Facing a call-for-art deadline I've been building and glazing every spare moment. This is one of the pieces I submitted.
A good friend gave me an industrial light bulb which lit some ideas in my head, but building it turned out to be more difficult than thinking it. The base was easy enough but the cage housing the light bulb was a bit of a challenge. Knowing the bulb has to be removal-able the top had to be made in two pieces. Considering clay can shrink as much as 15% from wet to final work, keeping the moisture content the same in the two pieces was necessary to ensure equal shrinkage and a good fit. Of course that didn't happen, so the fit had to be finagled and filed and sanded and finagled some more.
A good friend gave me an industrial light bulb which lit some ideas in my head, but building it turned out to be more difficult than thinking it. The base was easy enough but the cage housing the light bulb was a bit of a challenge. Knowing the bulb has to be removal-able the top had to be made in two pieces. Considering clay can shrink as much as 15% from wet to final work, keeping the moisture content the same in the two pieces was necessary to ensure equal shrinkage and a good fit. Of course that didn't happen, so the fit had to be finagled and filed and sanded and finagled some more.
From bisque fired to glazed to the final work. Clay once dried is still clay. Once fired it can never be clay again, but is ready to accept glazing. If you ever took a ceramic's class, you will remember how glazes seldom look the same color wet as they go after firing. That always makes glazing interesting and firing a surprise; hopefully a pleasant surprise. This time it was. |