Artist Statement
The wheel-throwing part of the project was the hardest for me. I had trouble centering my clay on the wheel, which was why the rims of my mugs were not even at first. It was also very difficult to make my clay taller—I had no trouble making my mug wider, but it was hard to make it taller without messing my clay up. Trimming was my favorite. In the beginning stages of trimming, I accidentally created a hole through the bottom of one of my mugs because I trimmed with too much force. However, I was able to patch this hole up with more clay. My mugs before the trimming were very uneven, but I was able to fix this by spending a lot of time trimming the rims and the feet (although I found that the feet for both of my mugs were broken after they were taken out of the kiln L ). Adding handles was also fun. The handle for my blue mug fell off, but I was easily able to find a solution by glazing handle and mug separately, firing them separately, and then attaching them with super glue. In general, I like how my glaze colors turned out. I thought my Blue Midnight color would turn out more sapphire-ish and I was a little bit surprised when it was more of a blackish color when I took my mug out of the kiln, but I’m still satisfied with the end result. I also like how my Iron Lustre glaze turned out—I like how the beige and turquoise colors blend naturally on my mug. When I was glazing one of my mugs with Iron Lustre, little pores kept appearing on the surface of my mug (this wasn’t the case for Blue Midnight, which I thought was interesting). I patched these little pores in the glaze by adding more glaze with my finger (maybe this extra glaze is the reason that my mug cracked L ).
The theme that unifies my mugs is simplicity. I made my mugs very simple—one glaze color, one handle, no decorations—to establish this theme.
The most important lesson I learned through this unit is the importance of not putting too much high-fire glaze. I glazed one of my mugs so much that a large portion of the bottom cracked, leaving sharp edges. I had to sand the edges to make them more blunt. This unit helped me grow as an artist because it forced me to look for appropriate solutions whenever I encountered problems (hole through bottom of mug, detached handle, sharp edges on bottom of mug). Because I was forced to search for solutions so many times during this unit, I think I improved my ability to cope with difficult situations.
While wheel throwing, I learned that a useful technique to make your mug taller is to use your index finger and push up with just the right amount of force (too much force breaks the mug). Another useful technique I found is to add more pieces of clay to keep the mug on the wheel while trimming. I originally started with three pieces of clay, but I found that this was not enough—the mug kept moving away from the center of the wheel.
The theme that unifies my mugs is simplicity. I made my mugs very simple—one glaze color, one handle, no decorations—to establish this theme.
The most important lesson I learned through this unit is the importance of not putting too much high-fire glaze. I glazed one of my mugs so much that a large portion of the bottom cracked, leaving sharp edges. I had to sand the edges to make them more blunt. This unit helped me grow as an artist because it forced me to look for appropriate solutions whenever I encountered problems (hole through bottom of mug, detached handle, sharp edges on bottom of mug). Because I was forced to search for solutions so many times during this unit, I think I improved my ability to cope with difficult situations.
While wheel throwing, I learned that a useful technique to make your mug taller is to use your index finger and push up with just the right amount of force (too much force breaks the mug). Another useful technique I found is to add more pieces of clay to keep the mug on the wheel while trimming. I originally started with three pieces of clay, but I found that this was not enough—the mug kept moving away from the center of the wheel.