The shape of things to come: Going along for the ride

No question.
When I am in the middle of a series of pieces, I really have no idea where it will take me, how it will morph into variations of itself, and when I will decide that's all I want to do with that, and move on to something else.

As I said to a colleague recently, my work keeps changing and I go along for the ride. It clearly helps for me to make multiples of the same shape. It is what prompts me to try  variations, often when I am not even intending to.
 I  take photos of my pieces when they are just assembled. Looking at the photograph of a piece often gives me an objective distance that eyeballing it doesn't, like seeing it at a distance with a different pair of eyes to look at the form more critically.
My wife will often be another set of eyes to test against. I show her these photos of what I am working on from time to time. Its easier to get her to look at a photo than to get her away from whatever she's doing  (normally its the chickens) and out to the studio to look at the piece. But I digress....

Case in point: I have a process I follow in making (what I call) my triangle bowls, which  started out as a variation on my two sided bowls and 4 sided bowls bowls. I normally cut away  sections of the bowl like this;

incised bowl. top sections are removed, tossed.

I then remove those top sections, toss them, and end up with the basic triangle bowl:

newly constructed triangle bowl.

Last week, sitting down to make 10 of these in a row for upcoming shows, I began looking at the cut-away pieces I was tossing in the reclaim bucket, regretting their loss: I hate losing clay to reclaim whether it is from trimming or from these cut-aways. I wanted to do something with them. With the last 5 pieces, I had had enough of my symmetrical cuts, so I  added asymmetrical cuts, still regretting throwing out the cut-ways, but  throwing them out anyway . I was ending up with forms more like this:

 Finally on the 10th one, unable to resist the urge, I took the cut-away sections,  reversed them, and reattached them to the initial form, adding the lip sections used before on top of that, creating a deeper shape than my tried and true shallow triangle bowl shape:

 I haven't even fired this one yet. The concern for wasting clay and the urge to use those interesting cutaways joined to provoke me into a new direction.
This is where I am at now-today with the transformation of my triangle bowls. I think there are other forms to alter to, and I am planning on incorporating those once I have made a number of these to see how I feel about them..
 For me its usually best to limit the number of variations or alterations in each piece, so as to not miss subtle variations that can really enhance the form. I also have other variations of other shapes which have not run their course which need to be addressed. More on that later...

What is it for? (and what do people do with your artwork once they buy it)

Don Bendel was my Ceramics professor at Northern Arizona University. He told this story that I get a lot of traction out of when dealing with the question " what is it for?".

Don used to put these on the top shelf of the salt kiln, toss empty beer bottles on top,creating a glaze pool.

 "I got this commission for a dozen or so of my pots.
 She wanted to use them in her garden. I made and delivered  the pieces, and she thought they were great. Later, she invited me over to show me how great they fit in her garden. I was led into her garden and there were of my pieces, turned upside-down, buried up to the foot into the earth, being used as stepping stones.

After getting over my surprise, I realized that once I sold the pieces to her, they were hers to do with whatever she wanted. I then had to agree, they really did look good in her garden.”
  That's how I remember it.

It is not uncommon for me to relate this story when I get asked what one of my pieces is for, a  fairly common occurance, actually. Sometimes they make a suggestion, indicating how they might use it: "

Well, I could put a candle in it", or I might even suggest something "some people put a frog in the bottom and use it for an Ikebana. Of course either is fine with me. Normally I do explain that what I am really doing is looking at form and construction techniques and playing with them. Function following form. But then I usually define the vessel to them as what it in terms of function, that it is a bowl, or a vase.

It might even look good turned upside-down and used as a stepping stone in a garden!

This one does baffle a decent number  of people:

Mmmm, gravy boat? In term of function, I leave it up to the buyer. As form, its what I cal a two-sided bowl.

One my  favorites is when I had an 8" maquette of this piece on sale at an art fair:

Patron: "What is this for?"
Artist : "Its a band-aid dispensor" (the mouth was just about the size to hold 5 band-aids).
The patron was very amused, (but apparently not enough to buy it ).
So, when I have a patron who wants to know, what a piece is for, I like to relate Don's stepping-stone story. It lets the patron know they are free to do whatever they want with the piece, and allows the artist to accept it too.

Don, Sheila(sister) and me at my BFA show, circa 1981

Stopperless Salt Shaker FAQ

The question I answer most frequently at art fairs is about the the Stopperless Salt Shaker. There is usually a puzzled look as they look at the little shaker, then a glance at the label, then more puzzled looking. I then step in and give it an explanation on how it works. I found this illustration online. Says pretty much everything:

Well, ok, there are lots of other questions I have been asked:
-(Do you have an explanation of how it works online?) Here you go, you asked, I listened. and hey, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. presenting the first FAQ for a salt shaker!
-(Will it work with coarse salt?) Probably not, unless you want me to make you one with a larger hole in the cone. the size of the hole has to be made small enough to let 'just' enough salt out, too much would be bad. the first one i made was like that. :)
-(Will the salt stick together [like in humid environments]?) Doesn't appear to, not even here in Indiana which is very-very humid. I have had one on our table for about 3 years now, and no problems. My theory is that the salt is protected by being 'sealed' against the table, so no humidity gets in.  I wouldn't want to wash it and risk introducing water/humidity into the interior, though
-(Is it difficult to make?) Not really, just figuring out how much clay you need for the interior cone, how much for the exterior, that depends on the design of the shaker. and of course, the size of the how the salt comes in and out of. not too big, not too small. oh, then you have to dry,glaze,fire. so yes, if you aren't a potter.
-(how do you make it?) After centering the clay, making a hole in the center, you push a finger in the wall, making two walls out of the clay, the interior, smaller becomes the cone, the exterior, larger becomes, well the exterior and the top... 
-(Did you invent the design?) YES.  ummm, ok, maybe not since you all have access to google and can see these out there in the wild. Ceramics arts daily has an article on them, but I am sure the design is more than a year or two old!
Apparently the salt shaker was first invented by John Mason (of Mason jar fame) in 1858, and it was essentially salt in a mason jar to keep it from clumping. Holes in ceramic containers were added a decade later when salt was more finely milled. As for the stopperless salt shaker, who knows? There are these forms everyone throws, noone knows who did it first. We know it came sometime after Masons invention, that's about it.

Who would have thought you would need a (mini) FAQ for a salt shaker?
Here's what my most recent ones look like:

Masking and Hydro-abrasion

 Images are manipulated in Photoshop and output to a plotter, which cuts the image onto a vinyl sheet

The pattern sticks to the surface of unfired piece.

Glazing medium is painted over the vinyl pattern.

The vinyl pattern is removed, exposing the unmasked clay underneath.

A wet sponge is used to wipe away the exposed clay.

The result is pattern in relief , with the pattern embedded in the clay.

The pattern is highlighted with underglaze.

The excess underglaze around the image is wiped away, leaving the original pattern in relief.