How I spent my winter vacation

i.e. the week between Christmas and New Years.

Well, we went to church Christmas morning where I blew my voice out singing carols--so many brilliant tenor harmonies--then came home to a dinner of pork roast, tatoes'n'gravy, roast squash and pickled beets, black-and-cranberry sauce, and potica. Then spent the afternoon working on art projects, bookbinding in this case. Bed early.

The rest of the week was devoted to boxing and shipping Christmas presents to the folks back east, recycling clay--360 lbs.!--and doing the end-of-year inventory.


Could hardly wait to actually start throwing pots again to relax.

Why do I do this?

So I'm just catching up on my email, post-holiday, and I get this request: can I make a tulip vase for the sender's grandmother? She has a vase of mine, really likes it, would like a tulip vase, in the 23-24" range. Something like this...



Oh good lord.

I make all kinds of excuses: I don't use porcelain, I don't make or use molds, the closest I could do would be something like this:

And even so, it wouldn't be cheap. The least I'd charge would be two or three hundred bucks.

And she said, "Great! I have some birthday money. Could you do two?"

sigh.

I said no, one only. If I could do it at all. I'd try throwing some pieces, send pictures in a day or two.

By the way, the "vase" she has? A fox-pattern pilsner glass.

Tulip mania

So, the main four pieces of the tulipière came out well, first try--I love newly pugged clay--and I've been piecing the rest together over the last four days, amidst the other throwing I've done for my own stock. Here's some progress photos.


You'll note that first two pieces have cookie jar-style lips. I've measured with calipers and will trim a little so each successive piece fits into the lip of the one beneath it. Last little piece will invert under the first, to make a nice graceful pedestal foot, like so. The spouts are thrown separately, like for a teapot, and assembled when leather-hard. They seem a little large, but will shrink in firing; also, the customer says they will also be used for gladiolus, so I'm making them a little generous.

After another night in plastic, I did a dry fit of the pieces, then took it apart again to add the decorative handles. Et voila!

Glazing is gonna be a challenge.