Vessels of Light

This is an oil-burner, but it could also probably be used for candles and such. I think doing vessels of light would actually be a really cool concentration idea in the future. There's so much room for variation and decoration with vessels like this because they don't have to have closed walls. I think I'm going to start experimenting throwing with porcelain clay because it's much more translucent. These would also definitely make great gifts.

Angled Tumblers!

Here are some angled tumblers I found on the internet. I'm not sure who they're by, but i dig them. Over the summer I just started playing around with the idea of faceting and I ended up making a set of faceted tumblers. These are kind of similar, although while not faceted, they do have angles.These are about the size I want to be working with. I also noticed that the angles are kind of similar to the work that Sarah Davis does, doing little cut-outs on her pieces.

So I forgot to take a picture of my works in progress in class...

This is my cat Tundra with a wood-fired cup I made last year. I've recently started throwing again and I've been working on tumblers around this size. I really like small cups like this because they fit easily in your hand and they can be very simply decorated, not a ton of surface space. It'd be fun working on some that have indents for your thumb and fingers, I think Jack's been working on some of those.

Full Victory Pottery-Matt Long

This is a soda-fired whiskey jug by Matt Long. On his website he talks about how his passion for clay lies within functional pottery. He focuses on all kinds of functional ware, but mostly on many different kinds of liquor bottles. From Whiskey Hip Flasks to Bourbon Bottles to Sake Sets, he does it all. His style is quite dirty and organic and yet at the same time his bottles certainly serve their purpose. I am definitely going to be looking at his work for inspiration this year. Matt Long teaches in the art department at the University of Mississippi.

Ted Neal Pottery

This bottle set by Ted Neal is entitled, "Pick Your Poison." There is a radioactive poison symbol on the liquor bottle, and the shot glasses are made to look like radioactive waste bottles. It's simple. Just a matte white glaze, and the bottle form is not incredibly intricate, but in simplicity is beauty and this piece also sends a message. Alcohol is a poison and does force many strong people to decay. I wish I had seen something like this for inspiration to do my shocking art piece. Ted Neal is the Assistant Professor of Art at Ball State University.

Lorna Meaden

This is one of my favorite pieces by artist Lorna Meaden. Last year I used her as my artist in the After the Master's project. I fell in love with making bottles, throwing a large form and then altering it, attaching a top and bottom, developing your own style. Anyway, I love Lorna's style with her use of ornamentation for the top of the bottle and also her simple design on the face of the liquor bottle. I like the idea of making containers for more vessels, almost like Matryoshka dolls. Looking ahead I definitely want to shape my concentration around lidded vessels, probably liquor bottles.

Don Sprague Bottles

These are some bottles in the studio at Mt. Hood Community College where I took a class from Don Sprague this summer. If you can see the tallest bottle on the far left, he made about 50 of those during the course of the couple weeks we were in class. I'm extremely impressed by his style, the use of small ornamentation along with the austere shape of his bottles and the sheer size of them. He also has the salt firing down to a science at Mt. Hood. I experimented with it and after a few batches, I finally got some results that weren't completely terrible. As you can see Don is able to produce this incredible, luster turquoise color. So yeah, definitely a great summer experience, I would highly recommend taking classes at Mt. Hood and Don as an educator.