This week I'm working on some large vase forms. This one is my favorite so far and stands about 20". I'm using my roulettes to create bands of texture and then pushing them out from the inside to give the surface more undulation. I trim these very wet, almost to the point of being able to wedge and throw the trimmings. This allows me to get a good impression with the roulette and move the surface without cracking the clay surface.
Last week I showed you this large square plate, well, sometimes I push the limits of clay. I thought until now the clay that I am using was infallible, well no more. I didn't let this dry long enough under cover and it cracked in a circle right where the foot ring attached. I've made another and we'll see if I can get this one through to being dry and the cracked one is off to the reclaim buckets.
I am the lucky recipient a lot of reclaim from friends of mine who don't have the space or the time to reclaim there own clay. They had been paying to take it to the dump as they had no way to process it themselves. Here is a pic of the latest batch drying out before I slake it down. It is always fun getting clay from someone else. You never know what you'll find in it. Before Christmas my biggest surprise was a ball of yellow tissue paper from their show room, today was a 6 inch piece of ribbon in the middle of a platter.
Everything goes back into my reclaim bucket, even slip decorated work. It all adds plasticity and doesn't change the colour or working properties of the clay. The nice part of the symbiotic clay relationship is that I haven't bought clay since May of 2009!
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