Time travelling again

[offcntr]

Visiting my brother in Wisconsin, which, in addition to revisiting embarrassing family stories, allows me to revisit embarrassing pottery.

Actually, it's not that bad. A lot of the pottery I've given him over the years is still recognizable: a large bunnies serving bowl, robin cookie jar, batter bowl with the happy hen pattern. This one, though, goes way back. Not quite to my Wisconsin days, I don't think, but certainly pre-Off Center Ceramics.

It's an oval baking dish, about 6x9", glazed in Craft Center temmoku and Woo's blue. I did a lot of these, early on. The walls are thrown first, with no bottom, then formed into an oval. At soft leather hard, a slab bottom and crock-style handles are attached. Can't tell if these handles were pulled from a (very small) coil, or whether they were thrown and then cut and attached. They're a little small for practical use, almost dainty.

I still use this technique to make oval platters, but not bakers. The failure rate was too high both in the making (cracks along the seam if moisture wasn't correctly matched between bottom and sides) and, occasionally, the baking. Apparently, a slight mismatch in moisture, not great enough for cracking, might still introduce stresses that would show up when they were heated in the oven. Much safer to go with my current, squared bakers: thrown in one piece, deformed slightly while still wet, then pulled handles attached at leather-hard.

Though this is a pretty, pretty pot.