Inspiration

My idea for the project was to make four place settings. Plates, bowls, cups, and smaller plates and bowls if time allowed. 

I wanted to do this project because I was determined to challenge my throwing skills on the potter's wheel. I have been throwing for about a year and a half, and so I wanted to see what I could do in a short amount of time that could be high quality. I also wanted to see what new things I could learn along the way.

Some small scale practice before the actual size was decided

Throwing: The good, the bad, and the ugly 

I got the speckled buff ready to throw with (a clay I haven't used very much in the past), and then it was showtime!

As I was getting used to throwing with a new clay, everything seemed to be going great! I had made about six bowls, all of them trimmed, carved, and ready for drying.

Unfortunately, things didn't go quite to plan. Even though I dried the bowls super slowly, s-cracks still formed.

These were not just small cracks. These were big, gaping cracks that went all the way through the bottoms! Even though I thought I was compressing them thoroughly and I had been letting them dry super slowly over multiple weeks, they kept cracking. Eventually all of my bowls cracked, no matter the method for throwing or drying. At this point I was getting very frustrated and upset because nothing I was doing was working, and my hands and wrists were starting to hurt from all the time I had spent on the wheel. My hands were tired of the sandpaper-like feel of the clay, and my wrists hurt from trying to throw with clay that was not soft enough.

I had been watching videos about how to make my bowls stronger (shoutout to Florian Gadsby for helping me learn so much!), and called upon my mentor Mrs. Menaugh, but no matter what I did, things just weren't working, and I was running out of time. It was time to switch tactics.

The New Plan

I decided that after so many failures, and time restrictions, that I was going to switch my clay-body to B-Mix. This is still a mid-fire clay, but it looks different when it is fired (white vs yellow), and is less stable because of the absence of grog in the clay. 

I was able to start experimenting with different shapes, and this time I decided to start with the plates to try something different and give myself a break from bowls. Overall this went pretty well, and the only problem I had was getting consistent shapes and sizes, in order to make multiples. Again, because I was running out of time, I decided to just focus on trying to make one cohesive placesetting.