week seven 2/23-3/1

The week of big disappointment.

This week all I did in the studio was glaze all my fools and I think I also made two pukis out of shop clay. I used kitten’s clear and brushed on two coats, my mistake! From now one I will try spraying the glaze to get a thinner application.

Basically, this iteration of fools did not make it out of the kiln successfully.

On all of them, glaze fused the lids onto the vessels. I was able to pop off the lid of the orange fool, but it got chipped on one side (still photographable tho which it important). I was also able to pop apart the little ones but all but one chipped badly and are un-photographable and in essence a little bit ruined.

The purple fool, however, is the biggest tragedy. He fell from his perch, slumped over, succumbed to gravity. A couple of little cracks had formed at his wrists, and these were the culprits.

The look on my face does not relay the depths of my despair at finding him thus.

Then! The tragedy is not even done yet because again this fool’s lid was fused to the base and in order to pop it off I had to break off the little guy completely.

Big big sadness.

Brian and I chatted about the work and came up with ways to troubleshoot my next iteration. I need to have more connection points, and also stronger connection points. I can bring up some of the filigree details and decorative elements to meet the form of the jesters at another point besides just their hands, or even just bring it up the arms further.

A lot of these old porcelain figure lamps do have elements like this, so I just need to find a way to work with it in my designs and forms.