Thursday, February 19, 2009

Vases

After working for two days on throwing vases on the wheel I went back to my comfort zone and hand built one with slabs and coils. I put some holes all around the top and will hang shells, feathers, beads and some other found objects. I'm going to Raku this, keep the face black and add some copper carb glaze and some white. Should be pretty cool. I like the shape of the vase below that I threw but I can't figure out how to keep the shoulder from collapsing. I ended up adding a coil to the top to finish it off because the rim got so thin and sad. I like throwing vases so I'll just keep at it. Maybe someone will post a vase demo one day, hmmm.......

6 comments:

ang design said...

wow, i haven't seen you work like this before, your definitely onto something with the raku...and yes i'm a fan of the process....

Tracey Broome said...

Ang,I used to do a lot more of this before I got my wheel. I have spent this last year on the wheel trying to improve my throwing skills and haven't done too much hand building. Now that I have a Raku kiln I'm thinking of some different things that don't necessarily involve food but are still functional. Of course I change my mind every other day, so who knows.....

Linda Starr said...

Love your slab built vase, just wonderful, and that you'll be adding shells and beads too. Is there a special significance to the square patches under the eyes? I ask because I have been doing some research on my Cherokee heritage and some clan depictions had the same thing, but there was no explanation. Looking forward to the raku glazing.

Anonymous said...

Very sculptural vase with a strong face. The open mouth adds to the feeling. Look forward to seeing it after the raku. - great that you already have such a clear picture of how it will look after firing.

Laura Farrow said...

Wow Tracey, the sculptural vase is awesome! xo

Tracey Broome said...

Thanks everybody! Laura it was great to see you yesterday! I'll post some pick sometime today from the Raku firing. Linda, I would love to go into some deep philosophical reasoning for the squares, like sacred geometry and representing mother earth or something like that. truth is, I just like using squares, probably from years of drafting floor plans or something. There is a lot of interesting interpretations of squares representing the fourness of the Universe, four seasons, four corners of the Earth, four stages of man, etc. On African ceremonial masks the square represents the male as the circle represents the female.