Ceramic Pots

Spring/1987

These pots were all made in the spring of 1987 in an Introduction to Ceramics class at Earlham. I made probably twice as many as are shown here, but a lot of them have been given away and i think a number of them are scattered throughout my parent's house. If you have one of my pots, send me a picture of it!

The first two pots are the first two that i made, but i didn't date any of the rest, so i don't know what order i made them in.

I never got into letting a pot set a bit then recentering it on a wheel and trimming off a nice foot, so all of my pots are just cut off flat on the bottom. Lazy lazy lazy...

3" wide / 2.5" tall

This is my first pinch-pot, pit-fired.

2.75" wide / 3.75" tall

Second pot, first glaze.

4" wide / 3.75" tall

This one had a good position in the wood kiln so got some good fire-effects from side to side.

4.25" wide / 3.75" tall

This must have been an early pot, since it's heavy and you can see the finger-ridges on the inside.

3.5" wide / 3.25" tall

5" wide / 4" tall

4.25" wide / 2.75" tall

This is one of my favorite pots because of the odd mushroomy shape and the color. This is the one i chose for the end-of-term student art show.

Interesting note about the color. I mixed up a glaze that was mistakenly written as needing copper carbonate instead of copper sulfate (or something like that, maybe the other way around) and it didn't really mix well, but i spent a long time getting it to a good solvency. Whoever used that supposedly-wrong glaze mixture got a nice red color on their pots on that firing.

4" wide / 6" tall

This pot got a little tall and started to wobble, so i just stopped right there and let it dry. Gives it a funky look though.

4" wide / 5.25" tall

I was going for that spittoon look...

4" wide / 4.5" tall

Here i was going for that old-fashioned-jug look (at least on the color). I like the way the drip of glaze came out, although it was unintentional.

4.5" wide / 4.25" tall

This is a nice thin light pot. You can see where one of my fingers was holding the pot when i dipped it into the glaze.

2.5" wide / 3.5" tall

This is the only pot i made using porcelain and while the shape is uninteresting, i like it because my thumb exactly fits into the neck and i can pull it out with a very nice "pop" sound. Every time i pick it up i pop it a few times.