1-2-3, Pitcher!

I haven't done a lot of coiling recently, and I want to do another piece with Piers, so this weekend I built a large pitcher form and decorated it with leaf images. The model plant I used is featured in my July 11th post, sweetly creeping around Syma's bottomless vessel. I love plants with such rich, luminous foliage. So far, I have not decided how I want to glaze this piece. That can wait for a while...

On the left, I'm finishing the last major coil. This piece has 12 or 13 coils - I add a moderate amount of clay each time and pinch it upward, adding 1 1/2"-2" in height. Then I make small alterations to the profile. I don't use a potter's wheel or banding wheel to create the shape, as you see in the picture. The piece sits on a bat and I eyeball the evenness of the sides as I walk around the piece or reposition the bat. What I like about a large, symmetrical piece - balance and calm, significant but gentle interaction with its environment, and quiet containment of a large space - I try to translate into softly asymmetrical shapes. Since I keep the rough texture my fingers create while I pinch, the shape will never be "exact" (as it could be if the walls were smooth). Working on a stationary bat, I am less quick to "correct" every wayward angle and the shape becomes more suggested than precise.


Here I am defiantly pajama'd (because I can, if you ask why) working in the living room, finishing the leaves on the pitcher. I pretended this was a plein air excursion - visiting a plant in its "native" environment (ie, sunny windowsill). I'm usually not supposed to cart my clay around the house because I leave little shavings everywhere!

The vases in the corner are pit fired from earlier this year. (Click here to see them unfired.) The philodendron behind my head is a gift from Lisa Kohlhepp, who clipped it from a plant at the Breckenridge Brewery and rooted it for me a few years ago. The image of his first set of leaves is on another large pot I made, and it sits outside year-round, soaking up sunshine and moisture, just like the plant. These are the mature leaves - last year, I accidentally left him in my windowless kiln shed for a week and I thought I'd killed him! Piers chopped off all the leaves (the brown sadness that was left), and two weeks later these three giants emerged. This is also the plant with 3' aerial roots exploring our living room, inspiring me to make the wall piece Aerial Roots.

Here is a close-up of the leaves. Click it for a bigger picture, and you can see the leaves more easily. Now that I've finished forming and carving, I'll let the piece dry. Next is the firing and glazing stage, and then I'll turn it over to Piers to carve and attach a handle. Easy as 1-2-3!