Might Oughta Should: Double-walled bowls

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Double-walled bowls

I'm not usually good at commissions, but last month someone asked me to make her a double-walled bowl and it started a nice run of pots. I was surprised to discover what a few years of throwing zigzag pots has done for my skills when I actually get to compress the outside of a stretched pot. By fortuitous accident, one of the first bowls ended up with the inner bowl off-center from the symmetric outer bowl. I liked that asymmetry, so I came up with a way to make intentionally off-center bowls on the wheel.

The first bowl below is symmetric by accident (the result of fixing an unintended ding); more fun to make were the less symmetric ones that follow. I like that the bowls look substantial but weigh surprisingly little. I haven't decided yet whether to call them camellia vases or skeeter breeders. The glazes were sprayed and the pots were fired to ^6 in oxidation.