Old pots, new pics

Every once in a while, nice pots — like the two below — get lost in the shuffle and only very belatedly make it to celluloid.

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This small — 15″ X 15″ — platter with Gold Shino glaze and black slip designs, dates to June 2015 at Alfred, New York, during the month-long workshop I attended at Alfred University. It was one of several of my pots that were chosen for a student show at the end of the workshop.

I only recently shot the platter, because I gave it to friends and only recently borrowed it back to photograph.

Given the foreign working environment, completely new glazes, and kilns fired by Alfred student volunteers, it’s a little amazing that I got the nice stuff out of the workshop that I did. Yet, the fact that several of the workshop pieces ended up being serendipitously wonderful, may speak to the advantages of minimal planning, minimal control and minimal expectations :-)

This teapot dates even further back, to somewhere around 2006 or 2007, a period when I was firing about bi-annually at Baltimore Clayworks, in its wood-fueled kiln. I was also throwing almost exclusively white stoneware and experimenting extensively with Oribe glaze, both of which are featured here.

Somehow, this set got forgotten inside a large, oribe-glazed covered jar. I only recently pulled it out, added a cane handle, shot it, and placed it in a prominent spot in my living room.