Disruptions

This is a funky pitcher that was hand formed with slabbed and stamped clay. It makes me laugh inside every time I see it. It reminds me of one of those dinosaurs with the flared plate around the back of the head and the spade-shaped vertical plates running up and down it's back.

Then I made "Count Olaf's Pitcher". I love Lemony Snicket's books. I like this pitcher better than the first. Both pitchers pour like champs. The spouts are a design I developed based on leaf shapes. These are variations of tropical leaves which evolved to shed water, since there is such an abundance of it in those climates. The shape at the very end of the spout also discourages drips.

In the next few weeks, other commitments are going to keep me out of the studio and away from work. I would just about prefer to eat, sleep and work at this point, but there times when it is necessary to attend to other things and shelve the work for a while. I'm trying to get ahead with bisque and large pieces that can be left on batts to dry while I'm out of my studio. It will be much easier to resume the work that way. So I'm firing my kiln tonight, rather early in the morning. It has a computerized timer which I have programmed with a delay that will begin the sequence at 5 a.m. tomorrow. It will fire all day and cool after an automatic shut off after about 12-14 hours depending on how densely it is packed. This one is packed. Even though the system is automatic, I never leave my kiln to run on it's own. I'm continually mother-henning it checking to make sure everything is working right.