Fish Plate 2 and the Art of Letting Go

 A few months ago, a fellow potter who is much more experienced than I am and also much bigger in size, showed me how to throw large platters. He demonstrated with one whole bag of clay, 25 lbs. As for me, I decided to go with half a bag. I threw two platters and took about 3-4 days to recover physically haha. The platter above is about 11lbs of clay. Now, I did try to wire off the platter, but the wire rose up as I was trying to slide it along the bottom and I managed to slice up a bit of the bottom. I cursed aloud, slipped the wire along and then did my best to smooth out the damage. I thought I was successful... we shall see.

 I decided to sculpt a fish on it. A few weeks earlier, I sculpted a fish and used underglaze on it. It was successful and turned out quite nicely. So, I was eager to replicate the success and do another fish. This time, I decided to make the fins out of Pier porcelain (the platter is made of Smooth Sculpture clay). I know that Pier porcelain and Smooth Sculpture have different  shrink rates, but I figured,  "What the heck? Let's see what happens."

 Here's the completed sculpt. Body and face made of Smooth Sculpture.

 Detail... I loved how this turned out.

And then, I took the plate upstairs into my condo to let it dry there. I thought that it had dried enough that it wouldn't matter what I set it upon to dry... Since my cats like to walk on my dining room/work table, I decided to put it on my kitchen countertop. Wrong move... My countertop is made of Corian. I don't think it allows for 'movement'... So, the below happened.

A small crack that went right through the fish and the platter.

Which then became a large crack that went all the way through.

To the end result... cracked in half.

Now, I posted these photos on Facebook, and a number of well meaning friends gave me suggestions on how to fix it or how to finish it. And I did consider it for a while, but did not want to spend the time to finish it. I just wanted to toss it. I talked to the friend who originally taught me how to throw the platter and another potter friend what they thought I should do. Both agreed with my idea to just toss it and yes, they did tell me what I wanted to hear. Honestly, as a potter of many years, sometimes, it's just easier and faster to let go of your mistakes and start again. And that is what I did.

After a few days of mourning, I eventually tossed the plate into my recycled clay bucket. Bashed it to pieces and felt much much better.

Sometimes, it's just better to let it go.

No, I will not sing the song from the movie to anyone. Although, I might consider singing it in Japanese.

New Sculpture begun!

My goal for this year is to sculpt at least one piece each month. I'm slightly ahead of the game in that I have finished a swan/bird boat and have a dragon boat in the process of being made. I also have a new figure sculpture in the works.

I apologize but I don't have pictures of it yet, but I do have a story.

Tuesday night is my pottery night. This past Tuesday, I went early because I knew I wanted to start a new sculpture and I wanted it to be fairly big ( 2- 3 feet tall) by the time I was done. In order to get the height I wanted, I would have to stack cylinders on top of one another. So, from 6 - 8:30, that's what I did. I threw 4 cylinders. The first 3 were around 5 -5.5 lbs each. The last one was about 2 lbs. Threw the base, heated it up, put it off to the side. Threw the second cylinder, matched the top width of the first cylinder, heated #2 up, put it off to the side. Put #1 back on the wheel head, scored the top and added slip. Inverted #2, placed it on top of #1, sealed the seam, separated it from the wheel, smoothed the seam and pulled up the thick bottom (now top of the combined cylinder). Repeat steps with lumps of clay 3 and 4.

I had a decent looking cylinder. Pretty nicely gradated and formed so that my sculpture had hips and a waist and the beginnings of a chest.

BUT

Then my foot slightly touched the pedal of my wheel. It depressed really quickly to maximum speed, my cylinder spun and wobbled. I slammed my foot on the pedal to stop it which made the wheel spin faster for a few seconds. My cylinder decided to imitated a helicopter and took off. The bat rose up off of the pins, hit the spill pans and finally came to a rest as my cylinder of clay flopped over.

Sigh... It happens. And when it does, you just start again and don't let it stop you.

I made a new body with the remains of the first. However, by this time, the clay was a bit drier and my arms were much more tired. The second body isn't as tall as the first, but it's got a lot of potential.

Tonight, I went back to the studio and realized that the body isn't as heavy as I thought it was. Thank goodness. The thrown part stopped right under the breastbone, so tonight, I added the rest of the chest and closed it up at the top to indicated the shoulder line.

Pictures next week of the sculpture.

Will try to take pictures of the dragon boat when it is done.

AND I started throwing 200 sake cups for my cousin's wedding. 12 of 200 are thrown. Will be throwing a bunch more this weekend. (Oh, wedding is in May. I've got a little bit of time hehe).