Yesterday I mentioned a few ideas were percolating in my mind. I thought I'd show you glimpse into my process and development behind the scenes. Here's some initial work on a couple of my ideas. The circle bowl or basket came to my mind's eye, so I decided to make it. I have a few more of these open bowl or basket shapes in my mind's eye. This one won't even be fired because the circle shapes ended up uneven which wasn't what I had in mind. That and I don't think the seams are going to hold, but it's a start. Many of the pieces I work on never show up on the blog or make it to the kiln. Still others are fired and sitting in the cabinet waiting for further development, but have only been seen my me.
This piece developed without an idea or shape in my mind at all. I happened to cut the wavy strips in a slab but not all the way to the top. Then the idea popped into my head to try and form the whole together into an enclosed form. There is no bottom or top. As I looked at the form it reminded me of a grass skirt I might have seen in Hawaii as a kid. I could also envision a top to the form in a vague human shape. I also thought of adding a tray under the bottom but I like the curved up bottom and wouldn't want to obscure that from the eye. I'll be working on these thoughts and ideas.
Next I tried adding handles to the top of a similar form. Not sure about this, maybe just a single handle across the top. Although this form reminds me of a skirt being held up with suspenders. Ha. In order to come up with something feasible or acceptable to my mind's eye I sometimes work on several forms intuitively. Later many of the forms are tossed out, completely rejected. Sometimes these intuitive workings lead to something and other times not. Some of these ideas may stimulate me to develop another form. I might not think of the new form if I didn't make the attempt at the rejected forms. What about your process and development, how do you work. Do you draw an idea first, do you work intuitively, do you reject forms or ideas about surface treatment. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.
