A rather long hiatus, it has been September since I last posted!
The holidays, while getting more manageable and simple, still hold their sway in terms of time spent with friends and relatives, shopping (well reduced I am happy to report), the best selling opportunities for those who engage in crafting, and an enduring anxiety that I am only slowly shedding.
The pictures above illustrate two of the several directions my clay work has taken in the past four to six months. Bird feathers have always fascinated me, especially the patterns that they reveal on a living avian... but in this case (center, round plate), the concept and technique lead the way and it was only after finishing the "loaf" that I realised that there was a distinct resemblance (if abstract) to the plumage of a ruffed grouse, one of which often hangs out at the end of my road in rural New Hampshire. It's a variation on the "feathering" technique of classical Japanese Neriage- drawing a horizontal stick through stacked layers of moist colored clay, dragging some of each layer into the next and distorting, bending, each layer as it moves through. The feathered "Loaf " is then formed into a long tapered wedge that can then be rolled around itself to make a circular shape. I know, this is getting a little esoteric and arcane here... sorry.
The other, a free form platter, is the product of "recycled" clay.... holding vestiges of trimmings and failed pots that when combined in broken pieces (in the green state) in a holding tub, just add water, and let it re-plasticise the dry clay pieces into a collage of color and pattern that can be further manipulated to achive some fantastic effects. I just keep playing with it until a test slice reveals a pattern that I am happy with. In this case I was so thrilled with the slab slice as a whole that I decided to work with it "naturally", let it speak for itself.
