Fall Open Studio and Demonstration Day Sunday, October 23rd, from 12 pm to 4 pm

Thinking in round shapes has always been difficult for me. It's one of the reasons I stopped being a potter. I would see all these incredible ways others were designing functional work and felt that if I couldn't be a Marina Bosetti version of Carol Long or Kate Waltman, maybe I shouldn't be a potter. So when my work took a seriously decorative turn, I felt I'd found my niche by dropping the round form altogether and going flat with tile.

I'm working on a commission involving a bird sculpture as the finial for a tower I'm building. Thinking a week would be enough time to make a few birds, I found it took two. One to explore what shapes to use and how to handle pieces that don't have a flat space. Another to perfect the technique. The arrival of hurricane Ian was also a problem. The air was so humid it took days for the pieces to dry enough to handle. I found success when I threw some cone shapes I could set into bisqued vases while I coiled the heads onto the bodies. And here they are.

The second batch of cone shapes resting in bisque vases while I was working on the heads.

The one on the left is the only survivor of the first throwing session of overly round shapes; the other two are from the second session of slimmer cone shapes.

If you'd like to see this process in person, the potters in my building are having a Fall Open Studio/Demonstration Day on Sunday, October 23rd, from 12 pm to 4 pm. Liz Kelly Pottery will be outside throwing, Xena Electra Ceramics will be inside pinching, and I'll be coil building up in my studio.