Biscuit

I make these biscuits on special occasions- like Helen's birthday this week.

Pruning

It was time to prune our venerable vine- I started on Thursday,finished on Friday,just before the current dust-storm,wind and rain set in.

Aha!

"... if you're willing to make your own body, it's pretty easy to make something better than anything commercial. Especially if you make it as liquid slip, and then de-water it.

However, if you then give your special recipe to a clay manufacturer, the clay they make will not be nearly as good. This is because they make the clay stiff, adding only what water is absolutely necessary. The result is that the individual clay particles do not get as thoroughly "wetted," and therefore the clay is less plastic."

posted by William Melstrom

I just spotted this on the wonderful Crystalline Glaze Forum [click on title to visit],a regular lurk of mine. I've always known that 20% or so recycled clay wedged into the straight-from-the-bag stuff makes it much more throwable: this bit of information seems to explain why. Also,I like the word wetted.
Slicing and wetting fresh clay before kneading is already an improvement; leaving it like this for a day or so is even better,but recycled scraps are the best. In Winter,I use hot water to soften up the clay.
Anything else you'd like to know?

Window Pain

A bizarre photograph by son Eliav of marks left by a bird flying smack into a window. The window survived,but not the bird.

More Third Year Work

Tel Hai Third Year Ceramics

From today's mid-year bikoret avodah [critique]

Birth of a Notion

Frank Gehry/Guggenheim Museum/Bilbao
Richard Serra/the matter of time/Guggenheim/Bilbao
Manor Farm Pottery/Suffolk/1975
Yahel Peizner/Kadaroots/Lotem/2011
Here are some of the proud progenitors of the warped rectangular shapes from the previous collage...

Birth of a Notion

Eventually I'll have to get back to my regular line of pots,but meanwhile I'm having fun with some new shapes. The basic technique- a stretched double-walled ring- popped into my mind a couple of weeks ago,then simmered there for a while until the pieces started to emerge. Some time later,I began to see some of the sources...

Cut Liners

I've had these brushes for a few years without finding a use for them; now it's Winter,traditionally a time for trying out new stuff and generally messing creatively around...
This is a stoneware clay [not my usual Solargil] with a white slip;mauve deco is the fatter cut liner brush with my blue [cobalt and iron] slip,magenta is the thinner liner brush with red iron/manganese oxide mix.How will it all come out? No idea [that's why I photographed it now]. Can you get these brushes in Israel? Same answer.