Pot shots

The Durham County Pottery Tour takes place every November, but we start planning in January. Photos were due last week. My work is kind of all over the place--I have my signature "zigzag" and "swoosh" pots, plus lots of functional ware, but also lots of work that doesn't really match anything else--yet is among my favorite stuff to make. It's challenging to pick Tour photos that capture the spread without looking like sprawl. Here's what I picked for this year:

1. Glazed, soda-fired zigzag teapot. Usually I leave these pots unglazed to show off the contrast between slip and clay body (in which case I'll typically weave a cane handle rather than adding a hand-built clay one). I like the wiggle of the spout on this pot, and that the diameter of the foot matches the diameter of the neck. There are also some nice glaze details, including melty reds and blacks amid the ochre.

2. Unglazed slip-on-bare-clay zigzag vases (both have liner glazes). I really enjoy making this type of pot, in part because they capture what I see as math and physics in my work. I cut (zigzag) or swipe (swoosh) patterns into slipped cylinders; these expand into organic designs as I stretch the pots from the inside. Friction torques vertical zigzags into spirals; parallel swooshes drift apart or scrunch together; and coarse canyons emerge between smooth-slipped plateaus. The transformations are different every time, functions of variables both within and beyond my control: initial patterns, depths of cuts, slopes of curves, plasticity of clay bodies, magnitude of expansion, and directional spin of the wheel.

Looking at this photo now, I'm realizing the graduated background is unevenly lit, which is embarrassing. Poor quality photographs don't flatter pots.

3. Candlesticks. Tons of fun to make, but not necessarily safe if you have cats. We keep these out of reach (theoretically) on our mantle, but our cats still manage to figure out how to knock them over. I can't sell the candlestick on the left because it's epoxied back together. Thanks, cats.

4. Chickarinas. Goofy, geeky, reasonably well-tempered tuned chicken whistles. These days I usually make four-hole chickarinas tuned to play two tetrachords (sol to do plus do to fa), which is just right for playing the melody of Schubert's Die Forelle. (Why do I play The Trout on chickens? Because I can.) I sell them with a fingering chart and a really good poem. They don't exactly coordinate with zigzag vases, but I fantasize that past customers will see the photo and remember to bring their chickarinas with them when they visit, now with a year of practice under their belts, so we can play chickarina duets.