Thrown pot before Altering

Janet McDougall enjoys working on the wheel and hand-building so a great way to enjoy both is to throw and alter her work.

Altered work encompasses an endless variety of options. These pictures are examples of altering the base of a pot. First step; throw a pot. In this case, Janet has thrown a round vase. It is important to have a good idea of what kind of altering will be done once the pot dries to leather hard. This will have an impact on the size and shape of the pot.

Once the pot has dried, but is still flexible, the altering can begin. I this case the very bottom inch or so of the pot was completely remove This allows the sides of the pot to be altered from round to oval.

Reshaped base

The next step is to work at shaping the sides. Janet cut out some of the clay from the sides and rejoined the sides to give the piece a new bottom and shaped sides. More refining and working the sides to give the piece the final shape is needed. The last step before drying is to decide what , if any, texturing will be done. In this case some carving and slip trailing was done to enhance the piece.

Refining and adding Texture

Once bone dry, touch ups need to be done before bisque firing and the final glaze firing. Altering a piece is a fun way to create truly unique pieces that are both functional and decorative.

Linda’s passion for pottery began 18 years ago when her son gave her a gift of pottery lessons.  Since then, she has retired to Bobcaygeon, built her own studio and her work is displayed in numerous Galleries.

While wintering in Texas, she began to teach pottery and is now teaching classes in Ontario.

Being a self-taught potter, she has attended many conferences and workshops and still takes classes to better her skills.  Linda works on the wheel as well as hand building, focusing on form over function.

Linda will be in the gallery next on the 29th, 30th and 31st.

A few years back, I was asked if I would consider making flower Memory Vases.  This family had recently lost both parents and the siblings all wanted something uplifting as a memory of their parents.  The request was to make a flower vase for each sibling that had a glaze make from the ashes of their parents.  I had never done this before but undertook the task and everyone was pleased with the results.

Glaze Chosen

A dear friend remembered these Memory Vases when her husband passed away.  She asked if I could do the same for her; making vases for each member of her family.  She felt that having a small vase with the glaze made from her husband’s ashes would be a wonderful way of having a gentle daily reminder of her husband, while to others who would see it on the shelf or table, it would be just a lovely flower vase.

My friend asked for small vases with lots of interesting texture.  I set about making a wide variety of vases for her to choose from.  I needed 20 so I made 26….this would allow me to have extras for initial glaze testing as well as providing the necessary “oops” factor so prevalent in pottery.

The project is nearing completion.  The final glaze has been selected and I will be glazing the memory vases soon.  I have been honored to do this for my friend and her late husband.

Janet will be in the gallery next on the 12th & 28th of July.

A few years ago I travelled to Italy to take a pottery course.  A few of us have stayed in touch and decided to travel to Portugal, see the sights and take in a couple of pottery workshops.  It is a wonderful way to experience a country and get to know “the locals”.  After a couple of days of sightseeing fun in Lisbon, we travelled to a wonderful small town on the coast called Estoril.

Our workshop was with Helena Brizido, an internationally known and very talented potter who is currently focusing on alternate firing methods as she creates unique sculptural pieces.  Three days working with Helena has inspired me to revisit alternate firings for some of my work.  Helena introduced us to some new twists to some well-known alternate firing methods such as raku, naked raku, and barrel-firing.

I am excited to get set up to work with all of these firing methods again but I am especially looking forward to exploring the ‘new to me’ India Smoke.  It will require some work to set up and some new equipment but I am up for the challenge!

Janet will next be in the gallery on July 15th.

One of the things I love about working with clay is the versatility of the medium.  This versatility allows me to enjoy throwing on the wheel, creating unusual pieces with slabs or coils, and wonderful unique pieces combining these methods.  Decorating takes this creative process further.

Wheel thrown pieces are very uniform. Their beauty is in the symmetry of the piece.  Work on the wheel can be altered at various stages.  When the piece is still wet on the wheel, pressure can be applied to push some areas in, or out, or create texture.  At the leather-hard stage, the piece can be cut and altered in shape by adding to it, and or removing some of the clay.  Carving out some clay with various tools at this stage is a wonderful way of creating texture and design.

Building with slabs of clay is another fun and creative way of engineering some unusual pieces.  Slabs can be joined, carved, cut, lay flat, be bent….or any and all of these and more!

Working with coils of clay (see my post about this, on my website) allows the building of pots that can be uniform in shape or altered (or a combination).  Coil work requires patience but is well worth the time and effort.  Once built, the pot can again be altered, textured, carved, pressed….

One of the many decorating methods I use is to create a pattern on the clay using a sprig.  I make some of my sprigs so that the pattern created is unique to my work.

These images provide a sample of the many different ways of working with clay.  The versatility of clay allows the imagination and creativity of the artist a seemingly endless playground. Click any image to see a larger version, then scroll through if you wish.