I can't remember whether I still have this bowl or not. Fired in August '09. Tony's kiln produced some wonderful results. Lots of ash, drips, heaps of color. These grey spots are crystals forming in the Shino glaze as it cooled.
Each firing tells the story of the pots that went in, the kinds of wood burned, the stoking rhythm, weather, everything. There isn't a taxicab in Indonesia or a bird on Greenland's gravel beds whose activity did not influence this firing. It's a phenomena that takes into account all things.
So it becomes a reading, a toss of the I Ching, a ringed Gypsy with her deck of cards. What comes out feels random, but isn't at all.
There's not much to say about the starting point for this thing, except that I made it up with uneven cuts of clay, folded them together, then whacked them with a flat piece of driftwood.
Driftwood makes an ideal tool for working with hand-built pots. The cells of the wood are broken down by all that time in the water. The wood is light, less dense. Being less dense, it doesn't stick to moist clay.
Everything that we do becomes what we are.
Each firing tells the story of the pots that went in, the kinds of wood burned, the stoking rhythm, weather, everything. There isn't a taxicab in Indonesia or a bird on Greenland's gravel beds whose activity did not influence this firing. It's a phenomena that takes into account all things.
So it becomes a reading, a toss of the I Ching, a ringed Gypsy with her deck of cards. What comes out feels random, but isn't at all.
There's not much to say about the starting point for this thing, except that I made it up with uneven cuts of clay, folded them together, then whacked them with a flat piece of driftwood.
Driftwood makes an ideal tool for working with hand-built pots. The cells of the wood are broken down by all that time in the water. The wood is light, less dense. Being less dense, it doesn't stick to moist clay.
Everything that we do becomes what we are.
