So these were the original wonky pots that I made out of frustration of wanting to make the sort of work I wanted rather than being a production potter. The idea was to make them with plenty of chunky grog so fine details wouldn’t be possible. The slip was then dribbled down the pots and they were shock to encourage the slip to keep dripping
You may remember my post on Saggars and some of my results. I really want to talk a bit more how these wobbly pots are made.
It was when this wonky pot gained traction on instagram and ended up going to live in Portugal I decided it was time to make some more wonky pots.
Naked wobbly pots awaiting their decoration. They are made from a secret stoneware earthenware blend with some iron oxide added for effect. They were thrown loosely and then treated to a beating with a piece of 2 by 1 that was in the workshop.A stream of porcelain slip launched towards the wonky pots. I fill a cup of slip and fling it as hard and fast as I can.the impact of throwing the slip on the pottery sends it flying off in all directions. this is a different round of throwing slip to the video andthe splash is so violent there are still particles of slip in the air.Another batch of wonky pots all slipped and drying in the garden.Not all my wonky wobbly pots are saggar fired these days, this was fired next to the saggar and has gone to live with the amazing Lighthearts in Brum whom I owe a lot to.
I really love to make these, and I really want to make more, I don’t care about function with this form, I just want to create something different. In fact I want to make them more wobbly, wonky and uncontrolled.
I don’t make anything simply and I need more iron oxide and terracotta to make another batch of wonky pots.
I want to know as an audience if there is anything you want to see more off from my pottery videos or blog articles? Please just let me know in the comments below.
It has been a long term goal to try and get a new workshop sorted. My old workshop was a rotten 13 year old wooden shed, that was a mere 5 foot by 7 foot (1.5m by 2.1m) and no matter what I did it was too cramped, and more than once I tripped over myself. The only major body of work I created in that form of the workshop was for the Harris Museum back in 2019. I was looking at building something this year but I randomly went on Facebook Marketplace and spotted a storage container that was…
I have been busy recently working through my dissertation and creating videos for the practical part of the research. Learning to edit on Adobe Premiere Pro has been a bit of a slog this week but it has sped up the process no end now I am getting to grips with it. I just wish it weren’t a subscription based service but nevermind. 1) I had the idea of making a video from the pots point of view, I replaced some of the sound to change the qualities.
For a while I have been thinking about tiles as an act of experimentation, they are something that can be created in the fraction of time for throwing, there is a lot less focus that goes into creating them, no hunching over the wheel. In some ways they are quite disposable. I don’t generally use tile for glaze tests as they don’t have gravity and thickness’s similar to pots but I do use them to test ideas, patterns, new and more recently my saggars to see what effects are possible. In these sorts of ways the tiles are part of…
The Harris Museum commissioned a film about my making process, which is interesting to watch. As a maker I am infinitely influenced by the sea, whether it is painting patterns, carving boats or actually using found materials as part of my making.
Wave Marks in the Sand, or Soap Dishes? The answer is soap dishes, I’m making these to take to the Green Loop Eco Makers Market in Lytham St Annes at the end of April. They will be glazed in a wood ash glaze, which is waste from wood stoves, plus a powdered clay and the calcinated seashells from my saggar firings, once they have been used to stop pots sticking together in that firing they turn to powder which can then be used to help flux the glaze. As well as these I will also be making the tools that…
Staggered stumbling starts words awkwardly twist not forming cohesively stopping any progress -Red Fox Poet Writing for the lending library I sat each piece on my desk, I measured it, entered the technical data. I had made each one, I knew them intimately by the time I came to the story I didn’t have to think too hard. So within a few hours I had written over ten thousand words, without much pausing to think.
