September 30, 2016

  • Looking Into Deep Water

    There was movement in the ceramics studio. The kiln was fired and I got one piece back from last session. I originally was revisiting a comb jelly I had made several years ago. The problem was that there were no stilts for firing. That meant that it couldn't be sat on the kiln shelf if there was glaze on any part that would touch the shelf or it would melt and stick. This would result in needing a chisel to remove it from the shelf - a detriment to the shelf and destruction for the ceramic piece stuck to it. To avoid that it was suggested to put some sort of spike that would hold the piece off the shelf surface and then break it off after the firing. To my way of thinking it sound like an awful lot of wasted work. So I just incorporated the spikes into the piece. The body is glazed in Super T. I painted the glaze on which results in the splotchy appearance and reveals the variation of color in the glaze. The spikes were done in red iron oxide stain. The rest was unglazed which gave it a nice matte finish. These creatures live in the ocean in deeper waters. I love the way they swim - but I really can't capture that in a static clay form...

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Comments (8)

  • That's a beautiful piece, Val (can you enter it in the year's contest?) Can you describe how they swim?

    • I could enter it into this year's show... I'm hoping to enter the zinnia that didn't get done in time. Maybe they will let me enter 2. As for how it swims, the little feet/villi/fringe waves in unison and the jelly sort of does a slow spiral, sort of like a football, through the water.

  • I googled them, and youtube has several videos of them swimming. It was fun watching them.

  • Like it! Most interesting! Post the zinnia too!

  • Interesting. Now I want to go find the YouTube video of it swimming too.

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