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.

Early Century Korean Ceramics

This is a picture of the face of a vase from one of the earlier centuries in Korea. I was greatly impressed with the brushwork for the bamboo trees and leaves. Also the cranes are pretty amazing. I would love to do a piece like this, this basic vase shape is already a form I'm quite comfortable with, but the challenge for me would be the 2D artwork imposed on the vessel. I think it could work if I painted the trees with black slip, but then I'm not sure what color I would be able to do the cranes. The Celadon glaze is also not very vibrant, but at the same time it suits the piece quite well. I'd like to experiment with some celadons more as I did not have to much success with them during salt firings in the summer.

Sarah Davis Inspired Work of Art

Here is a picture of my Sarah Davis inspired piece. I just threw a small, vase-type vessel and then made cuts in the bottom of the piece, leaving empty space. I threw it without a bottom so its sort of like a mini-chimena. I might eventually cut out a design on the main face so i can then have candles in there.