I can't believe it, but I'm almost done. My sister is getting married in October and for her place cards, she asked if I could throw little bud vases that would hold a little sprig of eucalyptus and a bamboo skewer with a name card attached to it. I said "sure, how many do you need?" She said "would 150 be too much to ask?"....
So I finished throwing the little vases this weekend (i did 160 to be on the safe side) and I only have about 40 left to trim and apply the little appliqué with their name and the wedding date. I ended up throwing 8 different shapes and they were all 400 grams of clay each and each shape was thrown 20 times. This let's each table have a different vase at each setting but every table will be the same.
This picture shows the 8 shapes and the second picture is a close up of the appliqué.

How do we come up with NEW ideas? Where do we get our inspiration?

I had another pottery/design related dream the other night. Many of my ideas (good and BAD) seem to come to me in this way. Sounds sort of “Hand of God ish” (but if you know me, that is not it at all, it’s just random neurons firing). These “dreams” usually come around the time that my mind finally starts to drift off into unconsciousness, but before I fall completely down the rabbit hole, I will get a flash out of nowhere, usually an image, of a new way to possibly approach a problem I have been mulling over in the very deep dark recesses of my mind, or even just something completely new that I have not even been considering. I am not one for sketching, never have been, so sometimes these ideas get lost for a couple of days until my brain unearths them again. I do try to sketch them occasionally, but I can never seem to get down in 2D what my inner eye clearly sees in 3D. Anyway, back to the dream the other night. My sister asked me a while ago if I would make the centre pieces for her wedding next year, and being the best big sister in the world, I said sure, no problem, what do you want? She wants a simple single stem vase out of white white white porcelain, approximately 9 or so inches high. Not being one to do things the easy way, I don’t want to just extrude hollow cylinders and glaze them clear....how boring. I got her to accept a little blue (not much), and perhaps a little lustre. My vision was that of a very narrow cylinder, maybe 2 inches wide, 9 inches tall, thrown without a base, and perhaps a little wonky (not dead straight). The base of the vase will be a circular slab slightly wider than the cylinder. The top is a thrown, shallow domed cap with a narrow neck just wide enough for a single flower stem. I will attempt to make a few variations for her to have a look at and make her decision.
I have had a few of these dreams, and they don’t always work out, but the ideas linger and will sometimes morph into something completely different once I get to the studio and start trying to flesh it out in clay.
I often wonder how different artists get fresh ideas for their work. I am lazy, and I don’t like doing the boring stuff like research (I do surf the web, but that is pretty passive research, and can be done when you don’t want to do something even more tedious, like laundry or dishes). Some authors say that they feel like they are just a conduit for a “higher power” that is writing through them. That sounds to me like they have no talent except for typing, I think that is a lame answer. But how does everyone else create something completely new from nothing? I guess my work is pretty internal, I don’t seek a lot of outside inspiration for what I do (unless I am ripping something off that I saw on YouTube for a pottery demo).

One time only please

I taught a beginners throwing class on Saturday evening. “Saturday evening?” you say. “But the studio doesn’t offer weekend classes, let alone evening weekend classes!” you exclaim. Well, I got an e-mail from Dave (studio owner), asking if I would like to teach a beginners class for 2, and if I wanted to, to contact the lady herself and work out the details etc... Not being one to turn down a possible money making venture, I said yes. Well, about a month goes by between my initial e-mail to her, and our finally managing to work a date out that worked for all of us.
Turns out that it was something she wanted to do with her husband for their wedding anniversary. I guess the traditional gift you give for a 9th wedding anniversary is pottery. Both she and her husband thought up this idea independently and searched out where to do pottery classes (neither knew what the other was doing I guess). They actually both called Dave asking about one time only classes. It seems they ran the gamut of places that they thought would offer classes, called everyone they could think of looking for this type of thing, as it turns out one or both of them even called Ceramics Canada, who in turn (I think) referred them to Fairview Studios. Personally, I would have bought a mug and called it a day.
Anyway, I guess the point to all this verbage is this. Why would you torture yourself and your mate with learning how to throw pottery, to commemorate what was supposed to have been the “happiest day of your life”? Don’t get me wrong, I love throwing on the wheel. It is quite soothing and meditative. However, the soothing and the meditative doesn’t come the first time you sit down to a lump of clay on the wheel. I could see the frustration building with the husband. He was good natured about it all, but he just wasn’t getting it. The wife on the other hand had done this before (albeit a long time ago), and so already had a bit of a feel for it. They did manage to get 3 or 4 small pots off the wheel (with some help from me), and I offered to finish them up and let them know when they were ready. We usually don’t do that for a one off type class, it is just a make it and trash it kind of class to get the feel of what wheel throwing is like without committing to a full 4 weeks of classes. When they left, they were still smiling, so I guess this didn’t break up the marriage (would have made for a more interesting story if there had been a potential divorce), so I guess all’s well that ends well.
Tonight I teach my regular class, and hopefully I will come up with something more inspiring than a bowl to throw.
I will be waxing (not poetically or lyrically) feet tonight, when not instructing, as my tea set is waiting for glazing and the clients are getting anxious. I too am anxious, I may have thrown the mugs “too well”. They are very light and thin walled, so I hope the glaze sticks. Sometimes I have crawling issues with things that are too thin as the glaze does not dry properly and can sometimes start to slide/fold over on itself down the pot. It’s that darn Bmix, it is so good, you can throw things super thin and before you know it you have thrown it tooooo thin.