Stacking cylinders, and the power of mistakes

Celebrating Kim's return to health and the studio. Here's a piece from last year. Isn't it fun to see what happens when you stack several simple cylinders to form a tall vessel?

This one benefited from a couple of things you could call mistakes.

Firstly the cylinders weren't quite regular, so I had to turn the middle one upside down to get them to match. That led to the bamboo-type effect above.

Secondly I kind of dropped the vessel into the glaze, while struggling to immerse something so long (about 45 cm prior to second firing) into the liquid. And that created some of the drips and blobs that give it a bit more character.

Biggest bowl

So this one got nice and big and it is thin, too. Amazing process working with something this large and delicate. So much luck involved!

Here it is (below, before first firing) after adding a chocolate slip, then dribbling wax in the lines you see and washing out the grey "valleys" between the waxy bits.

Starting to work on bigger bowls - 2012

This was the year of bigger bowls!

Snow day in Joburg 7 August 2012

This was a special day in the pottery studio - firstly because my nephew Amiel visited on his way home to New York from Namibia, and secondly because it snowed heavily - only the second time I know of since 1980 that it snowed in Joburg.

Amiel Middelmann visits Kim Sacks studio 7 August 2012

First time ceramics for Amiel!

Snow day in Kim Sacks yard

And can you imagine what it was like for this African sculptured pot and flowers to be inundated with snow?

Lastly, one of my favourite pots of the year, ready for glaze firing with snow outside:

Claying in our hillside garden

What a lovely way to start the new year - with my hands in clay, in the sweet fresh air of our hillside garden!

Big thanks to my teacher Kim for making this possible. I'm loving the opportunity to be mindful about the whole process of throwing a vessel - preparing a space, setting up the right atmosphere to work, taking time with the actual processes of wedging, centring, pulling and finishing and taking care with all the materials including recycling both water and clay.

Hoping that with a good start to my ceramics year like this, there will be something to good coming out of the studio as the months go by!

August 2014: Recently discovered unfired results of this hillside claying and two survived to completion

Mugs, 2010-11

I love making things people use daily.Several of the mugs below are on show at the Tea Exhibition at Kim Sacks Gallery, Dec 2011 - Jan 2012

2011 Bowls

In the studio

I've been working on making bigger bowls in the second half of 2011. Above are some works in progress, below some outcomes favoured by the kiln gods: