Spring & Summer 2018
January 2018, Justin and I discovered I was pregnant with our first child! This happy news meant the nature of my work would have to change for the next 9 months. Because I deal with chronic back pain, I was going to have to limit my wheel throwing and focus on other areas of my work. With this in mind, I chose to focus on my hand building work for the Spring of 2018.
I love working with custom clay bodies, unique clay that sets my work apart & gives my pieces a unique look and feel. Finding the right clay body though, takes a lot of time and effort. I started out with 2 clay bodies I had used before, but I knew they needed work.
The first was a cinnamon clay body that I knew worked ok for wheel throwing, but hadn’t tried for hand building. I worked with small pinch pots at first, trying out small coils next, but I quickly discovered this clay was not elastic enough for anything bigger than small pinch pots.
Troubles aside, I moved on to an old favorite with a new twist to fix some issues I’d previously had with stability. A rich brown clay body that can be a little tricky with glazes, but holds some beautiful surprises once you coax them out. It works well for hand building and wheel throwing alike. I used it to create my first wheel thrown jars, some nifty hand built tea bowls, and experimented with buttons. My passion for fiber arts led me to try creating buttons for the first time!
With a little help, I managed to modify the wheel I was using to get some wheel throwing in before my belly grew too large to allow me to wheel throw. Some bricks and a good chair helped keep the back pain to a minimum.
