Sacred Seeds

Ceramics, the beginning of the results

So Ceramics, the new and utter love of my life, let me show you it

As of today’s nearly six hour marathon session of work (yes, we are all crazy) all but two of my piece are now glazed.  The last two pieces were snuck into a last minute bisque fire run, so they will be ready to play with next week.

Over the past month I have made eleven pieces. One of the pieces is part of a commission for a doll I am working on – Frey, the Norse God of wealth, growth and a whole lot of other lovely stuff. As part of his design he gets to lean up against the World Tree, or at least the lower part of the world tree, and I get to make it – or rather I have made it – out of clay.  I also made a bowl with wheat pressed into its sides for Demeter, a strange Seashell type bowl, a bowl for Brigid made out of two types of clay and an offering “thing” made up of the scraps from that bowl, three pinch pots that proved to me I have studied a lot of of anthropology, archeology and art history, a weird “Yes, this is my first ceramics project in years” thing which just missed being an ash tray by a few inches, and two other …er… experiments.

Pictures-

The Tree and the Demeter bowl are both in the kiln RIGHT NOW!! (top shelf near the back in front of and next to the yellow and red figure) see – I have proof:

The three pinch pots are also in there somewhere. Those I did out of two different kinds of clay – the class standard Rods Bod, which is gray when we work with it and ends up kind of grainy and earth like after all the firings, and Black Mountain which looks just like it sounds, a nice rich black – no glaze, just colored slip on the lower half of each (white on the Black Mountain one, black on the two Rods Bod ones so they look like mirror opposites) and the natural clay as is. I’m really looking forward to seeing how those turn out.

Frey’s Tree is a huge project but so much fun! I had to scale it to match the doll and then increase *that* to account for the natural shrinkage that occurs in the drying and firing process. It started out 10 inches tall, and completely circular – just a slab of Black Mountain clay pressed to the inside of a bucket.

Once the form was dry enough to get out of the bucket, I cut it in half and stacked the two pieces one on top of the other to get a full 20 inches of height. Then I got to play! I added the roots and veining to the front of the tree and a shelf (for stability and offerings) to the back all with more Black Mountain. When one of my cohorts in crime at class asked if I wanted any of her trimmings (from her thrown pots) I grabbed them up and used them as “bark” along the veins. Conveniently she and our other cohort were working in both the BM and a lovely rusty colored clay so I could do two tones for more fun and effects.

Here’s the tree just after bisque fire (the first and longest of the firing processes, this dries the clay out completely and starts the molecular change that gives us stoneware)  – a little shorter (by one inch – for a total of three inches down since I started) and a whole light lighter in color – don’t worry it will darken back up in the next firing!

Here is the tree nearly done with glazing – it looks odd – the “pink” will turn yellowish brown, the “green” will go black/green, and the black will actually be brown/black – all the changes are because of a. it’s glaze and fracking weird (yes the painter in me is twitching) b.on top of the Black Mountain clay which is seriously DARK it will all go shades darker than it would on a lighter clay and c. it all depends on how many coats you apply so I played that up and did very thick in some areas for the green, so it will look like moss, and very thick with the black in the hallow/burned out section so it will look… well… burned out, and then lighter in other areas to keep the darkness of the clay from getting overwhelmed. We shall see if my evil plot worked. Since this is hire fire glaze, there will be some melting and mixing going on as well – I just have no idea how much… which is half the fun or half the terror depending on my mood. lol

Other pictures…

The Demeter Bowl

The first image is of the clay drying over the mold. The next two are once it was bone dry and ready for the Bisque fire showing the wheat pressed into the outside and the center of the inside.

The Demeter bowl after Bisque firing.

The wheat has burned off (I REALLY should have taken a picture of the ashy wheat before I brushed it out, that was gorgeous – nearly white and still clinging to the shape of the stalks, but truly just ash. So cool!)  Now you can see the depression left by the wheat…  This clay will also darken up. It’s freaky though looking at it at this stage (the lighting here doesn’t do the color justice)- it’s nearly a pale salmon color instead of the gray it was when working or the kind of “stone ground wheat” look it is supposed to get after the next firing.

And inside the bowl- My brilliant plan worked! - the wheat that I taped onto the mold just before I draped the slabbed clay over it stayed in place and now shows up perfectly in the center.

I didn’t take any pictures of the bowl after I painted it because our Kiln Master was rushing to get the kiln loaded and had a space waiting for it and because really it looks silly at this stage. The wheat which I painted with a yellow looks pink, and the rest of the bowl which is in the same black to green (that’s its name, I swear) I used on the tree is supposed to come out somewhere along the forest green end of the spectrum currently looks like a pastel mint. UGLY! lol. It should be stellar when its done firing though.

The Sea Shell bowl
This is a bit of an experiment. I was going to do another pressed piece like the Demeter bowl, but was so intrigued by the way the clay over hug the mold that I started playing with its shape and well… things just sort of went from there. Here it is at bone dry – ready for bisque fire.

Sadly the shape itself has caused some problems. Two cracks formed as it was drying. I repaired them, but one reopened during the bisque fire which meant I couldn’t do any high fire  – aka *glass* glazes on it. They would just get into the crack and split the thing down the middle. Instead, on our teachers recommendation, I patched the crack again with underglaze and then painted with more low fire underglaze. It will have a very different look and feel from the high fire work, but still incredibly cool (if it doesn’t just blow up on me as it fires)  I was rushing to get out of the studio and didn’t take any pictures of the finished glaze work, so you will have to imagine the inside as solid black which will be glossy, and the outside a mix of black and blue sponged off – really just a very light tinting of color and matte finish. If it all works out I think it will make a very nice scrying bowl!

More pictures once everything is out of the kilns and shiny!

Tags: art, Ceramics, Clay, clay sculpture, crafts, Demeter, Freyr, Pagan, pottery, sculpture, Tree of Life