Alack I had forgot...

...that when throwing pots there is one cardinal rule. One must think of ceramics the way one thinks of child rearing. You can mold and form and affect various things and try to create something like what you had in mind but in fact pots, like children (I've heard), will turn out as they will. You can't control other outside influences nor can you really control what they themselves do or decide to be, down deep inside.

And so, you probably already grasped the gist here: I am not over happy with my finished pots so far from ceramics class. Most of it was because of something that even our instructor didn't know; someone had mixed the glazes wrong so most of them ran like crazy. My lidded pot (probably my best work ever, from a technical perspective, even tho it wouldn't have necessarily been my favorite) was the worst victim: glaze ran so badly that in chiseling it off the kiln shelf, the pot itself broke - just the foot but still.

In fact the only one that didn't run at all was a little handle-less pitcher I had brought from Aub*rn (there were three pieces left over from studio work there that never got glazed that last spring b/c the glazes ran out and no one made more in time for me to use them). I used the side grinder on another piece from Aub*rn (probably my most consistently thin, and most symmetrical bowl ever, plus with a really fun shape) which luckily only had two drips. But it takes forever to grind that crap off and with the side (aka hand-held) grinder it is kind of a gigantic pain in the cul just due to logistics and having to hold onto the pot and the grinder and still work effectively (I seriously can't believe we don't have a bench grinder in this studio), so I didn't bother with my pitcher, which ran almost as bad as my lidded pot and had several huge clay boogers (drips). I wasn't super attached to it anyway (oh think "sour grapes" if you must but honestly I'm feeling pretty complacent about it all and about that piece in particular).

The Aub*rn bowl was really the one I was most excited to glaze - so so so thankful it was salvageable. If THAT one had messed up I WOULD have been upset indeed.

As for the pitcher and the lidded pot, I'll take pics but in a way so the drips don't show, more as a record of what glazes I used than for any other reason, and then probably toss the pitcher and the pot but save the lid as a paperweight or something. It didn't run at all and it is really Way Too Cool to throw away. (Even tho the handle wasn't entirely my idea, as I said before. :)

There are still two pieces to fire - one that I'm not crazy about but is kind of whimsical and one that I'm fairly happy with but which wouldn't be hard to duplicate... so we'll avoid glazes we know are runny and see what happens.

Photos to come! I'm at school but will try to remem. to give you a little glimpse sometime this weekend.

it's official, blogger has finally completely utterly entirely thoroughly etc'ly let me down

Now I really mean it. I edited my template this morning with my thank you list as usual. I clicked "save edits" as usual. It said "changes saved" as usual. Yes, the interface looked slightly different but there was still a "Template" button on my dashboard as usual (i.e. NOT a stupid "monetize" button like there is now in the spot where the "template" button used to be) and the html window was basically the same as before. So now everything is gone. Too bad Wordpress is so pretentious and moody or I would just fucking get over there and close everything here. I'm writing the help people but one of the reasons I taught myself to do so much stuff to the blog on my own in the first place was because they're hard to get ahold of - at least in my experience.

I am absolutely heartbroken... well as much as one can be for an online tool that one has neglected sorely the last few months. But still.

At least I have all the posts still... knocking wood.

I guess I'm going to have to go ahead and try to find a Ready Made Idiot Template that doesn't make me gag b/c the fucking default one HOV got stuck with is too awful for words and I can't bear for it to be on poor HOV even for the briefest of moments. (Hopefully upon this reading you don't see it anymore..... HOPEfully upon this reading this whole entry is moot and they've helped me get my old template back... hmph.)

Putain de merde. Les salauds.