Packing Pottery

One thing good thing about packing pottery is having to pick each piece up and hold it. That's what I've been doing with all my pottery while I've been packing it into boxes. I made this Spirit Bird, 5 3/4 x 5 inches, with some left over pieces of black mountains clay at the end of a day of making back in 2008. The glaze is blue flambe and it was reduction fired.

If I had to give one piece of advice to clay students it would be: "Allow yourself to play around with the clay without a particular idea in your mind. You never know how the clay will speak to you". This post is part of Mud Colony what's happening in the studio and Artist's in Blogland show and tell Saturday. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Spirit Bird

One day I was making some bowls and platters from slabs of stoneware clay. I had some leftover pieces of clay lying on the table. I thought I'd relax a bit before cleaning up my work area and use the pieces of clay. I started to pinch the clay together without thinking. I found the clay formed a point at the front and so I joined the back and made a bowl shape. I didn't even use slip since I was just fooling around with some scrap pieces of clay. I just kept pinching the pieces together. I looked at the form and thought I should add some eyes, so I cut them out. Then I thought I should add an adornment at the back. Then I stood back and saw what looked like a nose or a beak was pointing down, so I added the last piece of clay as a small foot.


Here is Spirit Bird, 5.75 h x 5 w inches. I like looking at this ceramic sculpture. Gazing into the eyes, I feel a curiosity. I see wisdom and sadness. I found the perfect gazing height for looking into the eyes while seated is about the top of my computer screen. So I'd like to elevate Spirit Bird and the height needs to be about 14.5 inches tall for gazing from a chair.


I thought I could elevate the sculpture by sliding the foot over a piece of wood. The foot is about an inch deep but not a regular shape because it was pinched together. Perhaps I could whittle a piece of wood the the same shape as the interior of the foot and then slide Spirit Bird over the wood. Maybe I could stain a piece of salvaged wood or a branch, attach the end to the foot and then have a larger block of wood at the bottom to stabilize it. Like this modern furniture designer, Paul Evans metal sculpture is elevated, but the post would be slightly thicker and so would the pedestal.


What do you think about elevating this piece? How could I go about it? Does anyone have any experience attaching wood to ceramics?